In his remarks, not only does Johnson claim Roe “gave constitutional cover to the elective killing of unborn children,” but he rails against the imagined economic detriments of abortion, pushing his caucus’ outlandish claim that by depleting a hypothetical workforce, abortion has defunded social security: “Think about the implications of that on the economy. We’re all struggling here to cover the bases of social security and Medicare and Medicaid and all the rest,” Johnson says. “If we had all those able-bodied workers in the economy we wouldn’t be going upside down and toppling over like this… Roe was a terrible corruption.” Mind you, social security and health care have been gutted in the last several years by Republican lawmakers, not people who choose to end a pregnancy.
Very bold move considering how much voters are furious about Roe.
There’s articles every now and again about how some Republican or PAC is going to fix the issue for Republicans by going moderate, and this is exactly why it won’t work. Unless you have utter chaos like in the House or are a radical, the #1 rule is to not criticize your fellow Republicans.
How’s a Republican moderate going to do that while also advocating for a moderate policy? They’d have to say the Speaker and their other colleagues are wrong, and they don’t want to do that. But if they don’t say it, then they can’t advocate for a moderate policy, people are seeing right through it. The true believers are making it impossible for the party to stop hemorrhaging.
Republicans wanted to overturn Roe, so let them reap the consequences.
Considering the number of “Single Issue Voters” who only vote republican because they sincerely believed Planned Parenthood was cutting up live babies, repealing Roe was the dumbest fucking thing they could have done.