Culture Wars: A Winning Issue for Democrats

The Republican Party has long used culture wars - god, abortion, guns and gays - to motivate its reactionary, knucle dragging base to go to the polls.  Now, however, as a majority of Americans begin to graps what the GOP and its religious extremist/racist base wants to inflict on the nation, it may be time for Democrats to use culture war issues to get its base to register to vote and go to the polls before we all find ourselves living a versio of "A Handmaiden's Tale."  The extremism of today's GOP cannot be overstated and the danger it poses to personal freedoms and the right to privacy likewise cannot be overstated. The extreme abortion ban just signed into law in Indiana by the GOP controled state legislature (picture at above left) is a glimpse of things to come if the GOP is not defeated. And make no mistake, gay rights and the right to contraception remain targets of the Christofacists within the GOP base and, I suspect the extremist majority on the Supreme Court nothwithstanding their disingenuous claims to the contrary. I believe Clarence Thomas' desire to erase a constitutional righ to privacy shows the real agenda of both the GOP base and the majority on the Court.  People need to wake up to this reality.  A column in the Washington Post looks at how Democrats can use this new reality to their possible advantage.  Here are excerpts:

The top lines for Democrats continue to be brutal heading into the November midterm elections: Voters are furious about inflation, they overwhelmingly believe the country is heading in the wrong direction, and President Biden is not at all a popular figure.

But based on recent polling, the issue matrix has shifted enough to provide Democrats some hope that they can limit some of their potential losses and outperform expectations, especially in statewide races for the U.S. Senate and governorships.

In an ironic twist, those issues giving them a fighting chance are what traditionally would be considered elements of the “culture wars” that Republicans previously considered their winning talking points. But a wave of mass shootings and the Supreme Court’s watershed ruling that overturned Roe v. Wade have vaulted gun violence and abortion rights way up the charts in terms of voter importance. Those two matters now rank just below the most important issue concerning voters: inflation and stabilizing the economy.

“Election 2022 will hinge on which party is able to show they are taking meaningful action to stabilize the economy, lower inflation costs (housing, gas, and food), reduce gun violence and protect a woman’s right to choose,” Joel Benenson and Neil Newhouse write in a summary of their new, bipartisan research.

In late July, they studied voters in 14 battleground states, compiling both a traditional data set on all voters and then a 37-page examination of “non-prime voters” in those states — that is, people who do not vote in every election.

[T]heir work also shows a surging interest among Democratic voters and many independents toward gun control and protecting abortion rights. It’s the type of polling and research that backs up what happened Tuesday in Kansas, when voters in the otherwise very conservative state overwhelmingly approved retaining abortion rights in their state constitution.

Benenson and Newhouse found that on that same voter-priority question, 26 percent chose “protecting a woman’s right” to abortion access as a top issue — essentially tying border security as the No. 2 issue, behind the economy. Just 9 percent of voters chose the antiabortion position as a top-tier issue, giving Democrats a big edge on this front.

Democratic voters in these battleground states now rank abortion rights as, far and away, their most important policy topic, selected by 45 percent as one of their two most important national issues. Perhaps more important for Democratic candidates, independent voters chose protecting abortion rights as their second-most important issue (trailing inflation/the economy), giving their candidates an opening to appeal to those voters.

“When it comes to extremism, Republicans have the bigger problem as a party, not the Democrats,” Benenson said in a joint interview with Newhouse on Tuesday afternoon, before the Kansas results came in.

Earlier, in their October surveys, Newhouse and Benenson essentially foreshadowed the disastrous off-year elections in Virginia and New Jersey by noting how out of line the Democratic agenda and Democratic voter interests were with independent voters.

Independent voters in the fall chose the inflationary economy and border security as their top two issues, with pandemic recovery as their third issue; Democratic voters chose climate change, taxing the rich and pandemic recovery as their top concerns.

“The conversation in Washington doesn’t match the conversation that’s happening around the country,” Newhouse said at the time.

Now, Democrats appear better aligned with independent voters on their issues.

Beyond just what should be the top priorities, the polling duo also measured issues on the basis of what will most motivate voters to choose candidates. Independents top motivators are, of course, addressing inflation and the economy, but their fourth and sixth most animating subject matters are stricter gun laws and protecting abortion rights.

Those latter two issues have now vaulted to the very top of the most motivating issues for Democrats, followed by inflation, while the perennial key issue for liberals, climate change, fell into the bottom tier.

[I]f liberals in cities and inner suburbs turn out in bigger numbers than their current malaise suggests, Democratic candidates for Senate and governor could receive key boosts from what used to be the GOP’s secret weapon: cultural issues.