Post-Roe GOP: (More Obviously) Pro-Welfare

Over at FiveThirtyEight is a piece discussing a post-Roe, pro-welfare-state refocusing among some Republicans. (I was going to say change of opinion, but that would imply that these Republicans ever actually understood or cared about freedom.)

It isn't uniform by any means, but it is entirely predictable to anyone who understands that philosophical fundamentals shape political opinion:

In Tennessee, the Governor has proposed adding a diaper benefit to the state's Medicaid program. (Image by Coop41, via Wikimedia Commons, public domain.)

These new proposals -- which usually involve strengthening social safety net protections for low-income women -- fly in the face of Republican orthodoxy about limited government. Of the 14 states with near-total bans or where abortion is unavailable, at least six have passed or are considering some type of law that would create additional support for pregnant women, new mothers or young children, and seven additional Republican-controlled states with less restrictive abortion laws are considering similar legislation.

A bit later, an analyst hits the nail on the head by calling such measures "post-Dobbs guilt bills."

This is doubly apropos because (1) religious morality is famous for trafficking in guilt, including the unearned guilt of original sin; and (2) deep down, these sanctimonious anti-abortionists know that they are causing poor women to suffer more than they would have otherwise: Giving them your money will make these politicians better able to pretend at cocktail parties that they are good people, so buckle up...

There is no rational, this-worldly basis for banning abortions. The whole idea that part of a woman's body has the same rights as an individual human being is rooted in the arbitrary (i.e., not even wrong) notion that that particular clump of cells has been granted humanity (and individuality!) by a supernatural power.

The very fact that a significant part of the Republican party has spent so much effort for so long in service to an anti-freedom goal that has no relationship to reality tells you everything you need to know: Anything else these crusaders happen to imagine they are morally obligated to do or bring about -- usually on someone else's back -- is whatever else they will end up trying to ram down our throats, even if it might take time for some of them to put two and two together to realize it.

So, of course, while the religious right felt weak, it went along with the fiction that its anti-human goals were compatible with economic freedom and limited government. But now that they have succeeded in destroying protection for reproductive freedom at the federal level, they have the headspace to begin pursuing other parts of their political agenda.

Naturally, (forcing you and me to pay for their goal of) "helping" the less-fortunate has come up, never mind that their own political goal is causing the very state of affairs they purport to remedy.

And they won't mind, because they weren't using their minds to begin with.

-- CAV