DeSantis Has Made His Move

As I predicted months ago, Ron DeSantis would finally be forced to make a move on the issue of abortion. With an upcoming war between the incumbent governor of Florida, Donald Trump, and many social conservative forces in the GOP, DeSantis must pass the litmus test on abortion to earn the votes and money of the religious right. At the same time, the American pubic's pro-abortion majority has become more pronounced than ever since the Dobbs decision, and if DeSantis overreaches on curtailing reproductive rights, President Biden can take a blowtorch to his candidacy in a general election. Florida is currently the least restrictive republican-controlled southern state, with abortion banned at 15 weeks. Before the Dobbs decision, this might have been acceptable for social conservatives, but with the decision now in effect, the rabid anti-abortionists are hungry for more. DeSantis, as a primary contender for the nomination, had to make a decision. As I said in January, DeSantis had three options: First, he could silently kill any new legislation on abortion by never letting it get to the floor and keep the 15 week-ban in place - walling off Joe Biden from attacking him on abortion, but making his life hell in the GOP nominating process. Second, he could ban abortion entirely, which would likely give the religious right their best excuse to finally turn on Trump, and possibly hand him the nomination - but Joe Biden could hit him relentlessly on abortion, and possibly win the 2024 election against DeSantis by more than in 2020. Or he could take a middle road (that doesn't make it morally acceptable), and ban abortion at 6 weeks. It could give him the social conservative bona fides he needs for the nomination, but also not give him the mark of a crazy lunatic in the general election. Last night, DeSantis officially opened the first session of the legislature for 2023 with his State of the State address, and with the deadline for filing bills happening today, a Florida State Senator filed S.B. 300, to ban abortions after 6 weeks. So DeSantis has made his choice.

The DeSantis administration will of course make every effort to downplay their role in the bill - you'll probably hear a lot of language like "Well, the governor is obviously pro-life, but he is going to let the legislature handle this issue as they feel necessary and they can count on his signature when they figure it out." Of course, that is a ginormous pile of horse shit; the second-place frontrunner for the Republican nomination is not going to be sitting on the sidelines for arguably the most hot-button issue in 2024. This 6-week ban is the culmination of DeSantis' months-long political calculation for moving into his candidacy for President, and it is 100% written by his team. It includes all the exceptions for rape, incest, life of the mother - the things that the clowns at CNN will gloss over as "reasonable" and "moderate." But it's an absolutely unacceptable piece of legislation to be coming out of a Western democracy in the 21st century, and most Americans will not like this.

Ron DeSantis has been able to boost his political capital among many parts of the electorate by picking the easiest targets, and skewering them with performative legislation designed to fool emotionally vulnerable parts of the electorate. There are many suburban voters who may have voted for Joe Biden, but are still very uncomfortable with issues related to sexuality and gender, especially parents of minors. Besides actual racists, parents of young children are the easiest voters to scare the living hell out of. Parents get scared out their minds on the most perfunctory of sex issues, and that has given DeSantis the opening to pass his ridiculous bills making it illegal for schools to talk about gay couples and any facts about sexuality. Because "Oh no, what if my poor baby bear learns what sex and gay people are. Scary!" DeSantis' governorship has been essentially run like a middle school bully - he attacks the people who can't fight back on equal footing, like trans kids. And for a bully like DeSantis, attacking the little kids, stealing their lunch money, and staying popular with all the other kids in the school for being a tough guy has been a great business for the last four years. But attacking abortion is not an unequal power dynamic, and DeSantis is finally going to have to take on another big kid in the school, American women. As Alito himself said in his opinion, "Women are not without electoral or political power. It is noteworthy that the percentage of women who register to vote and cast ballots is consistently higher than the percentage of men who do so." And this time, DeSantis is not going to be in his safe space - both the Republican primary and general election electorate are far more treacherous than a legislative supermajority writing every law his mind can cultivate. 

Republicans continue to misread the American voters, and if somehow DeSantis thinks that suburban voters in Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Nevada, Arizona, Georgia, and North Carolina are going to look at every TV ad showing a video of DeSantis signing an extreme abortion ban and just say "meh," then he is far weaker than any person in media and mainstream GOP circles is willing to admit. When this bill becomes the law of the land, DeSantis will have made his choice, and will not be able to change it. There's a long way to go in this game of what I have called "Fascist Chess," but this move is going to go down as one of the most significant yet. While I still believe affirmatively that Donald Trump will still win the Republican nomination, Joe Biden's supposed weakness against a possible general election matchup against Mr. Ron DeSanctimonious just got a lot smaller today.