Democrats sometimes act like they are trying to lose elections.
So do Republicans. Especially in Texas.
I prepared a blog post I expected to publish this week: "Prediction Trump."
I was going to write that I now thought it likely that Trump would win election in 2024. Democrats are making so many policy and messaging mistakes that they are forcing Americans to vote for a ranting con man who attempted to overthrow the government rather than retain a Democrat in office. Democrats are vulnerable:
***Democrats are conspicuously avoiding dealing with the southern border, which is a real problem, not just a Fox News invention. Immigrants in the hundreds of thousands are openly gaming the country's asylum laws.
***Democratic branding on wedge cultural issues makes Democrats look extreme and out of touch on issues of relating to sex, gender, affirmative action, and race. They give off a college-town vibe, not a blue collar vibe, and blue collar people are voting Republican.
***Biden said he was a transition, but now he is sticking around for another term. He looks rickety. Voters get restless.
***Hunter Biden stops Biden from making a clear distinction against Trump on character, clean government, and influence peddling.
***Young voters think Biden is far too supportive of Israel. For young voters, the holocaust is ancient history. What they have seen in their own observation is a strong Israel under Netanyahu's leadership bullying captive Palestinians.
***Trump can sell. He is relentless in saying he is being picked on, that his presidency was a tremendous success, and that he will bring welcome change.
But in comes Texas to the rescue for Democrats.
Texas said "no" to Kate Cox. Texas Republicans decided to make a pleasant-looking 31-year-old married White blonde woman into a victim of Texas abortion overreach. Ms. Cox loves children. She wants more children. She is carrying a doomed fetus -- everyone agrees on that -- and having a full-term birth risks her ability to have other children because she has already had two prior C-sections. No one disagrees with that, either.
Her doctor, Damla Karsan, verified the fetal problem and the risk to the mother's health. She recommended an abortion. Ms. Cox wants it. They had to go to a judge and the state judge said "yes." The Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton steps in and blocks the abortion. Paxton sent letters to hospitals warning them they risked fines and prison if they assisted her. Texas law also allows anyone -- indeed multiple people -- to sue anyone who assists Ms. Cox, so the Cox family and anyone who assisted them could face millions of dollars in legal judgements.
The State Supreme Court backed Paxton. They ruled that her physician said that it was her considered judgement that Ms. Cox was endangered, but that the doctor failed to meet the standard that would allow an abortion. The Texas Court opinion said Dr. Karsan failed to cite some broader medical consensus for her conclusion and therefore the abortion was not necessarily consistent with "reasonable medical judgement."
The big message being broadcast to America's voters is that Texas abortion law goes beyond defending the moral sentiments of "good people" by shaming and hassling the promiscuous and careless. Nor is it about protecting unborn life. It is about control. Texas law bears down on good people -- nice normal blonde Texas mothers, heartlessly making their misfortune and misery even worse.
Cruel.
The case involves everything people hate about lawyers, about regulations, about invasion of sexual privacy, and about arbitrary government rulings. This captures the "Don't tread on me" sentiment. It changes the frame of the abortion issue, clarifying that it is about freedom from government overreach by tyrants. And the tyrants are Republicans.
Texas Republicans own this. It sends up a warning flag that Republican state governments are relentless. They will come after you and nitpick your paperwork at the risk of your life. And they want to take this national. You are warned.
About the time I think that Republicans are sure to sweep 2024 Texas does something like this.
Democrats need to start relentless and simple messaging. Show Jan 6 rioters fighting with police and DJT sending them to the Capitol. Then women being denied care as in this Texas case and ask if other women want to give up that right to make medical decisions or leave it so some Evangelical man. Finally hammer away at his rape conviction to remind us all what a terrible human he is. If Democrats can focus on a few simple issues like this, they can beat the con man.