It works. They know that banning abortions just drives abortion into back alleys, the point is they need that sort of autonomy in women to be effectively criminalized in order to regain the kind of control they had over women’s bodies back when the boomers were still teenagers. They know abstinence-only teaching doesn’t prevent unwanted pregnancy, they don’t care and they want criminalizing abortion to be socially acceptable again.

They understand that the people demanding ‘election integrity’ are just using those words to make their real project- winning power despite having unpopular policy options on offer- seem respectable.

It doesn’t matter that you’re saying things too stupid for people to believe, the stupid ones will believe it anyways and the evil ones will use the stupid people to make civil politics uncivil

Tribalism. The other side are seen as sort of dumb animals and no rationale they have to think in that way can be valid.