Everyone knows that Donald Trump can’t be trusted on abortion policy (or many other things). But his particular lies on abortion are worth noting, as I explained at New York.
There is no exercise more exhausting and probably futile than examining a Donald Trump speech or social-media post for lies, half-truths, and incoherent self-contradictions. But it’s important on occasion to highlight some very big whoppers he tells that are central to his political strategy. It’s well known that Trump’s own position on abortion policy has wandered all over the map, and it’s plausible to suggest his approach is entirely transactional. Now that he’s staked out a “states’ rights” position on abortion that is designed to take a losing issue off the table in the 2024 presidential election, he’s telling two very specific lies to justify his latest flip-flop.
The first is his now-routine claim that “both sides” and even “legal scholars on both sides” of the abortion debate “agreed” that Roe v. Wade needed to be reversed, leaving abortion policy up to the states:
This claim was the centerpiece of Trump’s April 9 statement setting out his position on abortion for the 2024 general election, as CNN noted:
“In a video statement on abortion policy he posted on social media Monday, Trump said: ‘I was proudly the person responsible for the ending of something that all legal scholars, both sides, wanted and, in fact, demanded be ended: Roe v. Wade. They wanted it ended.’ Later in his statement, Trump said that since ‘we have abortion where everybody wanted it from a legal standpoint,’ states are free to determine their own abortion laws.”
This is clearly and demonstrably false. The three “legal experts” on the Supreme Court who passionately dissented from the decision to reverse Roe are just the tip of the iceberg of anguish over the defiance of precedent and ideological reasoning underlying Justice Samuel Alito in the majority opinion in Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization. The Society of American Law Teachers immediately and definitively issued a “condemnation” of the Dobbs decision. When the case was being argued before the Supreme Court, the American Bar Association filed an amicus brief arguing the constitutional doctrine of stare decisis required that Roe be left in place. None of these views were novel. Back in 1989 when an earlier threat to abortion rights had emerged, 885 law professors signed onto a brief defending Roe.
Sure, there was a tiny minority of “pro-choice, anti-Roe” liberals over the years who claimed resentment of the power of the unelected judges who decided Roe would eventually threaten abortion rights (not as much, it turns out, as the unelected judges that decided Dobbs). And yes, there have always been progressive critics (notably Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg) of the particular reasoning in the original Roe decision, but by no means have any of them (particularly Ginsburg) favored abandoning the federal constitutional right to abortion even if they supported a different constitutional basis for that right. So Trump’s claim is grossly nonfactual and is indeed not one that any self-respecting conservative fan of Dobbs would ever make.
The second big lie that Trump has formulated to defend his latest states’-rights position is that he’s just supporting the age-old Republican stance on the subject, as he has just asserted at Truth Social:
“Sending this Issue back to the States was the Policy of the Republican Party and Conservatives for over 50 years, due to States’ Rights and 10th Amendment, and only happened because of the Justices I proudly Nominated and got Confirmed.”
Yes, of course a growing majority of Republicans have favored reversal of Roe as a way station to a nationwide ban on abortion, but not as an end in itself. The GOP first came out for a federal constitutional amendment to ban abortion from sea to shining sea in its 1980 party platform, and every single Republican presidential nominee since then has backed the idea. There have been disagreements as to whether such a constitutional amendment should include exceptions for pregnancies caused by rape or incest. But the last GOP presidential nominee to share Trump’s position that the states should be the final arbiter of abortion policy was Gerald R. Ford in 1976, as the New York Times reported at the time:
“[Ford] said that as President he must enforce the 1973 Supreme Court ruling that forbids states to ban abortions. But he has come out in favor of a constitutional amendment that would overturn that ruling and return to the states the option of drawing up their own abortion laws.”
Ronald Reagan, who challenged Ford’s nomination in 1976 and was already a proponent of a “pro-life” constitutional amendment, and the GOP formally adopted that position in 1980; four years later, it adopted its long-standing proposal that by constitutional amendment or by a judicial ruling the protection of fetal life under the 14th Amendment should be recognized and imposed on the country regardless of what states wanted. Anti-abortion leader Marjorie Dannenfelser noted this well-known history in a not-so-subtle rebuke to Trump’s revisionist history, as NBC News reported:
“’Since 1984, the GOP platform has affirmed that 14th Amendment protections apply to unborn babies and endorsed congressional action to clarify this fact through legislation,’ Marjorie Dannenfelser, the president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, said in a statement to NBC News. ‘Republicans led the charge to outlaw barbaric partial-birth abortions federally, and both chambers have voted multiple times to limit painful late-term abortion. The Senate voted on this most recently in 2020. In January 2023, House Republicans also voted to protect infants born alive during an abortion.’”
It’s pretty clear that anti-abortion activists know Trump is lying about both Roe v. Wade and the GOP tradition and will support him anyway. But the rest of us should take due notice that the once and perhaps future president’s word on this subject, including his current pledge to leave abortion policy to the states, cannot be trusted for even a moment. Absent the abolition of the Senate filibuster (which, lest we forget, Trump backed as president out of impatience with the Senate’s refusal to bend the knee to his every demand), there isn’t going to be a complete federal ban on abortion in the foreseeable future. But Trump can be counted on to use the powers of the presidency to make life miserable for women needing abortion services, among the many “enemies of the people” he wants to punish.
George Phillies wrote:
Perhaps the most important number, both nationally and in many states that Bush seems to be carrying, is that the first digit of his numbers is a “4”.
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Ah, through all the buzz, a statement of clarity.
Bush is losing and has been losing a long time. If polls are viewed generally for the past several months, there are only limited moments in which Bush has pierced the “50”, and that only if you actually believe those polls.
Sabato said two months ago it would take a miracle for Bush to win, and he was right.
Bush has lost the election. I’m sure their major game plan is still to steal it. Florida and Ohio are where they plan to try to steal it.
The undecideds cannot possibly break for the President. If they were going to support Bush they’d be in his column before now. He’s the known quantity. He’s been consistent for the last 4 years and also during the debates. Anyone who is really undecided at this point has already resisted being swayed by Bush for 4 years and the entire campaign. That’s why there are so few real undecideds. What Kerry had to do and did during the debates is show he’s capable of governing.
Late rapid drifts in the polls can be substantial.
This year, there is an additional complication relative to 2000 that may tend to bias the polls toward Bush relative to the election. In 2000, Bush, Gore and Nader were on the ballot in every (for Nader, almost every) state, Buchanan’s campaign did not catch fire in that conservatives largely were happy with Bush, and Browne’s campaign was ineffective for reasons I outlined in my book Funding Liberty (Third Millennium Press http://3mpub.com/~phillies if anyone is interested.)
This time, Nader is not even on the ballot in many states, so a poll that includes CA or TX voters and asks them if they will vote for Nader is just plain wrong. (and those wrong votes came in fair part from Kerry). This time, the Libertarian campaign (Michael Badnarik) is on and off polling around even with Kerry, is on the ballot in every state except NH and OK, and has a largely unified party and a campaign staff that is campaigning actively. (If that last bit sounds odd as something to mention, see my book.) The Peroutka campaign, with positions many Democrats will find a bit odd, is also firing on at least some cylinders. However, Peroutka and Nader are almost never polled except by Rasmussen. The Nader Peroutka Badnarik flaws may cost Kerry in the polls a percent of the vote, and may give Bush one percent that he will not have in reality.
However, if you are going to drop polls as outliers, you should keep a list of the outlier polls, lest you analyse yourself into rejecting all the good polls and keeping only the bad ones.
Perhaps the most important number, both nationally and in many states that Bush seems to be carrying, is that the first digit of his numbers is a “4”. That’s a losing number. Democrats should not lose heart, should heed the wise advice of the article on which we are commenting, and could consider reminding their conservative and small government friends about Mr Badnarik.
cl8y-
Typically undecideds break for the challenger. I’ve seen polls suggesting that the undecideds, by a large majority, favor a change and have views closer to Kerry’s.
Anything’s possible, of course, but I’m optimistic about them at this point. The Rove quote from Abramowitz, above, fits with this point of view.
What are the chances of Bush occupying the Gore role from 2000? All the poles are close, and many not to be trusted, so how do we know they won’t break for the President instead of for Kerry? Is there something from the internals that would indicate this?
And then there’s the reminder also to be mindful of LV/RV distinctions. I see that the new Newsweek poll is out. By LV’s, Kerry is down 6%. By RV, just 2%, and just 1% in head to head RV.
I’d be willing to bet it’s the 6% that hits the media…
Ruy does well to point out turbulence. Stay calm and focused all.
One question is: these are all examples of the polls UNDERestimating the Democrats’ strength. What about OVERestimations too? Like in 2002 and surely SOME states in 2000, n’est-ce pas?
I think all the polls this year are way off due to the under polling of the 18-30 year olds.
Considering the newly registered voters must be largely from this demographic and their reliance of cellular phones for (nearly) all their telecommunications, these voters will hold a huge surprise impact on this election.
I have two daughters, one 29 and one 25 and I can tell you there is a tremendous difference in their participatory interest.
The older one, going through high school while Reagan and Bush were in office, is pretty much ambivalent about politics.
The younger one, going through high school while Clinton was president, is very much involved and in tune with political activism.
The older one will not vote whereas the younger one is definitely voting for Kerry.
The youth vote will go strong and early for Kerry and this element is what all the major polls will miss.
This effect will become known as the “Cell-Phone Effect” but is really the “Clinton Youth Effect”.
I think la is correct in that the best idea at this juncture is to do the unthinkable- ignore the polls b/c they aren’t going to help one bit. Over on Daily Kos you have people fretting over every little shift inthe polls- ie, Kerry was up by 2 last week, and down by 1 this week, and vice versa, and they look at the negative one as gospel. I think as I have said in other places on here this all feels like a Rorshach’s test to me- people are seeing what they want to see. Right now I spy a tie of around 47 to 48 percent so what does that mean? The same as always and I will say it like a broken record convince everyone, their mama and grandmama to volunteer, to phonebank and drive up the GOTV.
How much did the late DUI revelation factor into the Gore last minute surge and variance from the polls? Rove estimated 1 million votes.
To what extent was Gore’s improvement over the last polls due to DUI and to what extent was it turnout or polling erro?
I read the description of the methodology on the Fairleigh Dickinson University poll (the one that now shows Kerry only 2 points ahead in New Jersey). There was no mention of any weighting procedure. If they don’t weight, it means that Kerry is almost certainly much stronger than the numbers indicate.
I agree that Zogby’s state polls are pretty suspect.(as other pollsters).
His national polls for the presidential race were dead on in 2000 and 1996. I think tthats why we all give his polls so much weight. I’m not all that concerned about the fact kerry is down 4 in the zogby poll now, these jumps happen, i fully suspect that in a few days the polls may show kerry up by 3 or 4.
That was a nice run-down of the wacko poll results from 2000 — I wasn’t aware of those (or I forgot in the horror of what subsequently happened). I am left wondering, however, if there were also poll results that showed Gore with healthy leads in states that he actually lost. Can you give us examples?
The reason I ask is that one conclusion that can be drawn from your interesting post (aside from: don’t believe every poll result) is that the 2000 polling results were uniformily skewed against Gore. Was that the case?
An excellent cautionary message. I am still a little fixated on these recent Zogby numbers, and I certainly accept your explanation for them. But my recollection is that he has pretty consistently shown the race a lot closer than many of the other polls have–for instance, the ABC/Post Poll (and certainly the Newsweek and Time polls right after the GOP convention). So I am puzzled that now, after the debates, when intuitively you would think Kerry had strengthened his position vis a vis, that suddenly Bush seems to have pulled into a fairly good lead. And on top of that, we have ABC/Post now showing the race just about dead even. So I guess my question would be: why has Zogby suddenly seem to have veered off the road?
Ruy raises a good point, which is that everyone is saying Zogby’s the best because of the way he called the last election. In fact there is plenty of evidence to indicate that Zogby polls are highly fallible. I think one of his recent polls had undecides at 25%, which is way over what every other poll is telling us. He also has Bush and Kerry essentially tied among young singles, undecides, you get the idea. I just think the best approach is to go with the average of all the polls, excluding outliers, and then add 1-2 points for the suspected Kerry undercount.
maybe we should get rid of polling on elections. they seem to be being used to try to exercise undue influence on the system.