2012: President Huckabee reigns over a land of forsaken women
Image via Wikipedia
Two things caught my eye this morning that paint a pretty bleak dystopian future.
First, Politico reports that the latest Gallup polls confirm Mike Huckabee is the front-runner for the 2012 presidential nomination. Seriously. That’s the same Mikey Huckabee, who let Wayne Dumond, a convicted rapist, go free in order to appease his right-wing pals (Dumond went on to sexually assault and kill a woman in Missouri,) advocated isolating AIDS patients from the general population, believes in teaching Creationism side-by-side with evolution, supports building a 700-mile border fence along the Mexico-US border, and who doesn’t think gays or women should be permitted to serve in the military.
That guy. President. And sure, lots can happen between now and November 2012 that will promptly knock Huckabee out of his first-place rank. He could gain all of that weight back, become a raging alcoholic, and publicly shame himself when he projectile vomits all over David Letterman during his next Late Night visit.
Wishful thinking aside, even without a President Huckabee, there’s more bad news in Congress. Many Democrats with solid pro-choice records recently voted for the Stupak amendment. Nate Silver over at Fivethirtyeight.com poses the obvious question: What gives? Why would solidly pro-choice Dems vote against women’s rights?
Democrats are obviously worried about the reelection environment in 2010 (11 of the 20 pro-choice Democrats who voted for Stupak reside in districts that are rated as vulnerable,) but it speaks volumes that the people they’re afraid of aren’t the ones that have been voting them into office, but anti-choice zealots who aren’t known for voting Democrat anyway.
Maybe in the frenzy to pass healthcare, these representatives figured gambling on women’s rights was an acceptable surrender. Or, as Silver hypothesizes, maybe they were hoping the pro-choice agenda was no longer a staple of liberalism.
Although the pro-choice position is still the majority in this country, Silver claims some polls indicate that position is losing ground. If Democrats continue this trend by voting to save their own hides come election, and not in the interests of their female constituents, and this approach then joins forces with a nut job President Huckabee (or anyone in the same vein,) American women are in a lot of trouble.
And even without a President Huckabee, many poor women will suffer under the Stupak decision, indicating our dystopian future may be closer than we care to admit.
Post Your Comment
You must be logged in to post a comment
T/S Members
Log in with your True/Slant account.
[...] This post was mentioned on Twitter by allisonkilkenny, Chris Dashiell and Pat Branham, Queerjohn PA. Queerjohn PA said: RT @cdashiell RT @allisonkilkenny2012: President Huckabee reigns over a land of forsaken #women http://bit.ly/2fqX50 #Stupak #p2 #politics [...]
HUCKABEE????
LIKE, BEING TAKEN SERIOUSLY???
……………
Kate Harding just wrote a piece for Salon on how the Democratic party is no longer for women. But when guys like Huckabee are the alternative – what choice do we have?
I would argue the solution isn’t to flee the party. The solution is to run more progressive candidates and force the moderate Dems to behave like real liberals.
In response to another comment. See in context »How’s that been working out so far, Allison? When Democrats ran a progressive and beat Joe Lieberman, did the party power get the message that they were being forced to act like liberals? Hell no – they supported JL’s independent run against the wishes of their own party members/voters. And the party continues to kiss Joe’s ass to this day, no matter how loudly his actions scream “I don’t like you people!” That alone should be reason enough to leave the party.
When progressives were pushing for THE compromise of a REAL public option, did the party support them and put strong pressure on the blue dogs? Hell no – they pressured the progs instead! (And the progs folded yet again!)The leadership did this because the party they share the goals of the blue dogs. And they’ve been doing this shit for years now, with no real change of behavior in sight.
The only way progressives can put meaningful pressure on the party is to remove their money and votes from any Democrat who does not truly share their values. This is long overdue. If Dems lose enough elections because they don’t have the support of progressives, they’ll come begging for a chance to earn their votes. The longer progressives try to influence these jerkoffs from the inside, the longer they’ll continue to be taken for granted.
In response to another comment. See in context »The Progressive fundraising is still fairly new, and yet groups have raised millions of dollars for their candidates. There’s ActBlue, and Orange to Blue (the Daily Kos fundraising machine.) I don’t think it’s unsurprising that the entire Democratic party failed to change its behavior after one election (Lieberman-Lamont). However, the Progressives were really in their infancy back then. They’re much stronger now.
That’s actually the entire idea behind ActBlue. It’s about taking the money from moderate, so-called Dems, and giving it to real Progressive candidates. Nothing hurts the Blue Dogs more than depriving their wallets of your donations.
In response to another comment. See in context »