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Friday, October 25, 2024

Trump’s and Blaine’s Use of Federalism as an Artful Dodge on Abortion (2024) and Booze (1884)

With less than ten days left before Election Day 2024, it seems like a good time to discuss James Blaine versus Grover Cleveland, 1884. In particular, I am interested in whether Trump’s use of federalism to dodge the issue of abortion in 2024 will work better than Blaine’s similar effort on the issue of prohibiting alcoholic beverages one hundred and forty years ago.

Quick refresher for those of you who are not obsessed with Gilded Age politics. Blaine was the Republican nominee, Cleveland, the Democratic one. Back in 1884, the dominant culture war issue was alcohol: Evangelical reformers wanted to ban it and formed their own political party, the Prohibition Party, to push for such a ban at both the state and federal levels. Because evangelicals were disproportionately Republicans, Blaine was pressed to take a position on the question of Prohibition. To his great annoyance, the Reverend Samuel Burchard tried to nudge Blaine and the GOP towards Prohibition with his famous speech denouncing Democrats as the Party of “Rum, Romanism, and Rebellion.”

Despite Burchard’s exhortation, it was political suicide for Blaine to endorse a ban on liquor and alienate millions of Lutheran German and Irish Catholic voters in New York and the Midwest, so Blaine evaded the Prohibition question by embracing federalism. The control of alcohol, Blaine argued, was a matter for the states to decide. As a candidate for national office, therefore, he could take no position on the question — not even to reveal how he, a citizen of Maine, planned to vote on an 1884 state referendum banning alcohol. (He claimed that he wouldn’t vote at all on the ballot measure).

Did federalism work for Blaine as a way to avoid taking a stance on a controversial issue? Well, Blaine obviously lost. More relevant, perhaps, is how Blaine was ridiculed for being an “artful dodger” because he would not take a stand on booze. (See, e.g., this cartoon by Thomas Nast).

One hundred and forty years later, Trump is now repeating Blaine’s federalism strategy on abortion, declaring that abortion regulation is a matter for the states to decide and even going so far as to promise that he would veto any federal bill that protected a fetal right to life. After the jump, some thoughts on whether (1) Trump’s use of federalism will work any better than Blaine’s did and (2) federalism should be seen as an artful dodge rather than a reasonable way to hold a polarized nation together through a principled compromise.

1. Will Trump succeed where Blaine failed by neutralizing a divisive culture war issue through invocation of federalism?
That’s a hard question to answer with direct evidence, even after we get the election results sometime after next Tuesday. But my best guess is that Trump and the GOP are failing miserably at neutralizing the abortion issue with federalism. Their invocation of states’ rights here is a dodge — but an artless one.

I admit that I have no direct survey evidence for that claim. Polls show only that abortion is an issue very important to voters and that banning abortion is extremely unpopular. I know of no polls providing evidence on voters’ views as to whether the regulation of abortion ought to be determined by Congress or the state legislatures. One likely reason is that the vast majority of voters have no beliefs whatsoever about federalism or levels of government: That’s an arcane structural issue far beyond the average voters’ very low levels of information about politics and policy.

To drive home a message that the GOP is truly opposed to the national regulation topic of abortion, therefore, Republicans would have to launch a massive public relations campaign explaining why a national guarantee of a fetal right to life would be a bad idea. Trump would have to follow Stephen Douglas’ 1860 strategy: Emphatically declare that he just “doesn’t care” about how abortion is regulated at the state level and urge that any national regulation would be unconstitutional.

Neither Trump nor the the GOP, however, has embraced such an unequivocal condemnation of national actions regarding abortion. To the contrary, the GOP’s 2024 Platform confusingly offers the following non sequitur: “…the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees that no person can be denied Life or Liberty without Due Process, and that the States are, therefore, free to pass Laws protecting those Rights.” Of course, the States are free to protect rights that are not protected by the federal constitution, so the “therefore” in the sentence is nonsense. More significantly, the GOP Platform seems to invite federal as well as state regulation with that statement about the 14th Amendment. Trump, for his part, simultaneously declared in his tweet that abortion was a matter for the states to decide and also that “I FULLY SUPPORT THE THREE EXCEPTIONS FOR RAPE, INCEST, AND THE LIFE OF THE MOTHER.” This is hardly James Blaine’s assiduous silence on the question about which national law allegedly ought to be silent.

It is easy to see why Trump and the GOP cannot more artfully use federalism to dodge a divisive question: The Republicans depend on evangelical voters’ mobilizing on behalf of Trump, and the GOP’s firmly opposing any national action on abortion, Stephen Douglas-style, would risk losing such support. The anti-abortion groups seem to understand that Trump’s embrace of federalism on abortion is half-hearted. One anti-abortion leader noted, for instance, that “there are other avenues Trump could use to restrict abortion nationally, including through defunding Planned Parenthood and appointing anti-abortion officials to lead major federal departments.”

Blaine faced a similar problem of alienating a key constituency through his neutrality on prohibition of alcohol. The Prohibition Party’s running a third-party candidate for President cut into his support in an excruciatingly close election. Trump cannot afford to provoke a third-party run by an anti-abortion party, so he has to be much more mealy-mouthed about his invocation of federalism than Blaine was.

Federalism, in short, is very difficult to use as an artful dodge of the Culture Wars, unless one’s supporters are truly willing to embrace a federal compromise not merely as an election tactic but as a principled stance. If anti-abortion groups were willing to forswear all national measures on abortion — not merely legislation but also agency actions regarding mifepristone—-then the federalism playbook might possibly work to reduce voters’ anxiety about a GOP victory. But anti-abortion groups are not at all willing to drop their demands for national actions protecting fetal life, so Trump and the GOP must tread lightly in endorsing federalism as a resolution of the abortion question.

2. Should federalism be used to defuse divisive culture war issues, or is it just an artful or artless dodge?

I confess that I am disappointed that federalism is so unsuccessful in defusing divisive issues. I am on record as supporting the use of decentralization to lower the stakes of polarizing issues. Federalism is a kind of liberalism in defense of pluralism (I call it “Westphalian Liberalism” after the settlement of the 30 Years’ War through decentralization of religious questions). Credibly decentralizing some of the most polarizing questions might go a long way towards reducing the stakes of politics in a nation so bitterly divided that it has become ungovernable.

In particular, supporters of abortion rights ought to be relatively sanguine about decentralizing the regulation of abortion, because, as I have argued here, interstate mobility is likely to favor deregulation.

But I admit that decentralizing divisive issues is difficult in an age of polarization until everyone is exhausted by the endless vitriolic gridlock. Issues are divisive precisely because each side believes passionately in the rightness of their position. Tolerating subnational regulatory regimes that one is certain are immoral is emotionally difficult, unless one is risk-averse about losing at the national level and believes that one might lose.

If our political elites had a better emotional grasp of reality, they might embrace federalism as a compromise superior to paralyzed national government. In reality, after all, we are in an era of close elections not unlike the 1880s: Like WWI trench warfare, the lines of our politics just do not budge all that much, despite all of the intense artillery bombardments and charges over the top.

Yet our political elites still believe that “the people” are on their side and that they can somehow win a knockout blow for the One True Theory of Rights. Until they are disabused of this belief, federalism will never look like anything but an artful or artless dodge: No one seeks a modus vivendi with opponents against whom one is confident can be utterly routed.


Posted by Rick Hills on October 25, 2024 at 03:15 PM | Permalink

Comments

International Tercüme Bürosu – Mecidiyeköy’de, dünya çapında tanınan profesyonel tercüme hizmetleri sunuyoruz. Hukuki, teknik, medikal ve ticari alanlarda uzmanlaşmış tercümanlarımızla kaliteli, doğru ve hızlı çeviri çözümleri sağlıyoruz. Müşteri memnuniyetini her zaman ön planda tutarak, projelerinizi zamanında ve eksiksiz teslim ediyoruz. Siz de güvenilir tercüme hizmeti almak için hemen bizimle iletişime geçin ve dil engellerini aşın!

Posted by: International Tercüme Bürosu | Dec 2, 2024 9:40:38 PM

International Tercüme Bürosu – Mecidiyeköy’de, dünya çapında tanınan profesyonel tercüme hizmetleri sunuyoruz. Hukuki, teknik, medikal ve ticari alanlarda uzmanlaşmış tercümanlarımızla kaliteli, doğru ve hızlı çeviri çözümleri sağlıyoruz. Müşteri memnuniyetini her zaman ön planda tutarak, projelerinizi zamanında ve eksiksiz teslim ediyoruz. Siz de güvenilir tercüme hizmeti almak için hemen bizimle iletişime geçin ve dil engellerini aşın!

Posted by: International Tercüme Bürosu | Dec 2, 2024 9:40:38 PM

International Tercüme Bürosu – Mecidiyeköy’de, dünya çapında tanınan profesyonel tercüme hizmetleri sunuyoruz. Hukuki, teknik, medikal ve ticari alanlarda uzmanlaşmış tercümanlarımızla kaliteli, doğru ve hızlı çeviri çözümleri sağlıyoruz. Müşteri memnuniyetini her zaman ön planda tutarak, projelerinizi zamanında ve eksiksiz teslim ediyoruz. Siz de güvenilir tercüme hizmeti almak için hemen bizimle iletişime geçin ve dil engellerini aşın!

Posted by: International Tercüme Bürosu | Dec 2, 2024 9:40:38 PM

International Tercüme Bürosu – Mecidiyeköy’de, dünya çapında tanınan profesyonel tercüme hizmetleri sunuyoruz. Hukuki, teknik, medikal ve ticari alanlarda uzmanlaşmış tercümanlarımızla kaliteli, doğru ve hızlı çeviri çözümleri sağlıyoruz. Müşteri memnuniyetini her zaman ön planda tutarak, projelerinizi zamanında ve eksiksiz teslim ediyoruz. Siz de güvenilir tercüme hizmeti almak için hemen bizimle iletişime geçin ve dil engellerini aşın!

Posted by: International Tercüme Bürosu | Dec 2, 2024 9:40:38 PM

International Tercüme Bürosu – Mecidiyeköy’de, dünya çapında tanınan profesyonel tercüme hizmetleri sunuyoruz. Hukuki, teknik, medikal ve ticari alanlarda uzmanlaşmış tercümanlarımızla kaliteli, doğru ve hızlı çeviri çözümleri sağlıyoruz. Müşteri memnuniyetini her zaman ön planda tutarak, projelerinizi zamanında ve eksiksiz teslim ediyoruz. Siz de güvenilir tercüme hizmeti almak için hemen bizimle iletişime geçin ve dil engellerini aşın!

Posted by: International Tercüme Bürosu | Dec 2, 2024 9:40:38 PM

It's interesting to compare Trump's use of federalism to dodge the issue of abortion in 2024 with Blaine's similar strategy on the prohibition of alcoholic beverages in 1884.

Posted by: head soccer | Nov 12, 2024 5:37:38 AM

That should read, in regards to The Sanctity of all human life, Willed By God, The Ordered Communion Of Perfect Love, The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity, worthy of Redemption…

First and foremost, abortion, the destruction of the life of a beloved son or daughter residing in their mother’s womb, is a human rights issue, as we can know through both Faith and reason, that God, The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity, Through The Unity Of The Holy Ghost (Filioque) Is The Author Of Love, Of Life, And Of Marriage, not Caesar, John Locke, or King John.

It is a self- evident Truth that all mankind has been Created By God, Equal in Dignity, and that speciation occurs at the moment of conception, when every human being is created by God and brought into being, equal in Dignity, while being complementary as a beloved son or daughter, Willed By God, The Ordered Communion Of Perfect Love, The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity, worthy of Redemption, and thus every human person, regardless of location, or whether or not they are a citizen of The United States Of America, possessing inherent equal Dignity, is equal before The Law Of Perfect Life-affirming and Life-sustaining Love.

It is precisely because we affirm The Sanctity of all human life, we are obligated to protect human life from those who desire to do us harm, and for this reason, “governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed…”.
We can know through both Faith and reason, that every time we have strayed from our founding Judeo-Christian principles, we have suffered greatly, individually and as a Nation, due to a lack of Justice, grounded in the failure to respect the inherent Dignity of the human person in private, and in public, and thus the failure to “establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity”.

“With Love, comes responsibility.”- Pope John Paul II

Roe v. Wade was passed due to a lack of Love, and so too, it was simply deferred to The States, due to a lack of Love, for the inherent Right to Life, the securing and protection upon which our inherent Right to Liberty and The Pursuit of Happiness depends, and thus Due Process, is binding in both State and Federal Law, due to the fact that all human persons, and thus all sons and daughters of human persons , regardless of location, possessing equal human Dignity, are “equal before the Law”.

At the heart of Liberty Is Christ, “4For it is impossible for those who were once illuminated, have tasted also the heavenly gift and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, 5Have moreover tasted the good word of God and the powers of the world to come…”, to not believe that Christ’s Sacrifice On The Cross will lead us to Salvation, but we must desire forgiveness for our sins, and accept Salvational Love, God’s Gift Of Grace And Mercy; believe in The Power And The Glory Of Salvation Love, and rejoice in the fact that No Greater Love Is There Than This, To Desire Salvation For One’s Beloved.
“

“Hail The Cross, Our Only Hope.”

Posted by: ND | Nov 3, 2024 10:24:51 AM

First and foremost, abortion, the destruction of the life of a beloved son or daughter residing in their mother’s womb, is a human rights issue, and we can know through both Faith and reason, that God, The Most Holy And Undivided Blessed Trinity, Through The Unity Of The Holy Ghost (Filioque) Is The Author Of Love, Of Life, And Of Marriage, not Caesar, John Locke, or King John. It is a self- evident Truth that all mankind has been Created By God, Equal in Dignity, and that speciation occurs at the moment of conception, when every human being is created by God and brought into being, equal in Dignity, while being complementary as a beloved son or daughter, and thus every human person, regardless of location, or whether or not they are a citizen of The United States Of America, is equal before The Law.

While it is true that neither candidate for the Presidency recognizes this self evident Truth, that from the moment of conception, every son or daughter of a human person, being in essence, not a place or a thing, but In essence, can only be a human person possessing equal human Dignity, only one candidate claims that he desires to protect our Religious Liberty and thus our inherent unalienable Right to proclaim the Truth about the inherent Dignity of every beloved son and daughter from the moment of conception to natural death, and act accordingly in private and in public.

While that difference does not make all the difference, it is a difference that is still worth fighting for. 🙏💕🌹

Posted by: ND | Oct 31, 2024 1:14:00 PM

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