From hysterical pro abortion types and joyful pro life advocates we hear either gnashing of teeth or cries of happiness over the recent Supreme Court ruling on Roe.
But things don’t happen in a vacuum and are more than often the result of human agency and endeavors. On Roe, aside from the six brave justices themselves, one man deserves ultimate praise while two liberal women are directly responsible for this judicial outcome.
A great part of the praise belongs to Donald Trump, for without him the margin of victory would not be present on the high court. Even those of us who hold no brief for the former president must honestly admit his success here. Yes, his personal foibles and own goal propensities are legion. But so are his administration’s policy triumphs. This win was delayed until he was out of office, but it is nonetheless his. The pro abortion left knows this and it drives them batty. To them Trump is the monster who won’t die..
If Trump is a hero in this regard, then especially to the left itself there should be two distaff villains. One, a woman and her party who had a winnable race and muffed it through ideology, arrogance, and complacency. The other a now deified lawyer who stayed in the saddle long past her shelf date, thus preventing her party from putting a younger liberal on the high court. That’s right leftists, save your ire for Hillary Clinton and Ruth Bader Ginsberg.
In 2016 the Democrats could have had a layup. Yes, there was a populist wind blowing that the Dems were not positioned to take advantage of. But Trump went into the general election with high negatives. If the Dems would have nominated a fresh faced moderate they stood a good shot at coopting a portion of the populism and thus perhaps holding on to the working class voters of PA and the industrial Midwest. But no, they nominated Hillary.
Even then, if she had been human and not an authoritarian robot in a Mao suit, or had listened to her husband, she would have come across as more than a wooden Marxist. She could have campaigned hard in PA, WI, and MI in the last two weeks. Instead, she tried to flip Arizona. She didn’t, she lost, and Trump, not her, got to name three Supreme Court justices.
Of those previously appointed and confirmed to the court, Ruth Bader Ginsberg was already 83 in 2016, during the Obama administration, and was suffering significant health issues. There actually was a 2013 luncheon between her and Obama where her retirement was discussed and urged by the disgraced 44th president. She refused.
She wanted to die in the saddle. She got her wish. But the Dems missed an opportunity of replacing her with a younger liberal who would have made the recent vote on Roe 5-4. With Roberts always seeking the middle ground, he might have caved and Roe could have been essentially upheld 5-4.
But we’ll never know because Hillary lost, RBG outstayed her welcome, and Roe is dead. It may not be the redemption Trump so desperately wants, but it stands as a legacy victory indeed.