Democrats for Life?

The organization Democrats for Life of America "seeks to elect pro-life Democrats and to encourage the Democratic Party to oppose euthanasia, capital punishment, and abortion." The group not only tries to get pro-life Democrats elected but also has created legislation like the Pregnant Women Support Act. So with a POD after their founding in 1999 how powerful can the group become in the Democratic party and how would a Democratic party with a significant pro-life minority be today.
 
It’s a tall order by 1999. You’d have to thoroughly depoliticize the issue, and it being THE tent pole issue for cultural conservatives, I can’t think how it’d happen. Like what would induce the primary faction of the Republican Party in the late 90s to stop fomenting an us/them mentality around the issue? Especially when the effort was so successful.

It’s almost as plausible to imagine a right-wing revolution of sorts sweeping the country and allowing some sort of rump blue dog/conservative Democratic Party to remain the legal loyal opposition as long as they don’t support anything “morally criminal.”

Considering how off-the-rails the response to Obama was, I’d start by getting a president-elect as close to Obama as we can get in 2000. Though the more divisive, the better. Might require dipping back a bit before 99, but then it’s not like we have zero OTL evidence of unlikely presidential election results.

I’m iffy on the Best levers to pull at this point for a right wing coup/revolution to happen. Economic downturn? Worse 9/11? There’s probably a Heritage Foundation white paper somewhere about it. Follow those steps and there you are!

It seems far fetched, I know. But imo a bit less far fetched than derailing the unrelenting political trajectory of weaponized, partisan conservatism with that POD without extreme events.
 

manav95

Banned
The organization Democrats for Life of America "seeks to elect pro-life Democrats and to encourage the Democratic Party to oppose euthanasia, capital punishment, and abortion." The group not only tries to get pro-life Democrats elected but also has created legislation like the Pregnant Women Support Act. So with a POD after their founding in 1999 how powerful can the group become in the Democratic party and how would a Democratic party with a significant pro-life minority be today.

Have a worse Lewinsky scandal that causes Hillary to divorce Bill Clinton, Monica to get pregnant, Bill Clinton forced to resign just before the 1998 midterms, and the Democrats suffering substantial losses in 1998. Given the DLC control of the party and their opportunistic ideological flexibility, they try to rebrand the party in a more socially conservative direction to win back white social conservatives.

Al Gore goes back to leaning pro-life and moderating his views on guns, while also quietly throwing the LGBT cause under the bus. He also makes a point of being photographed at church regularly and meets with leaders like Jesse Jackson and Frank Griswold, and this helps him win a close election against Bush. He wins states like West Virginia, Missouri, Tennessee, and Arkansas, while only losing Oregon and New Hampshire as per OTL. 9/11 breaks out and the Democrats join Republicans in the mass hysteria against radical Islam, causing Democrats to do better among the evangelical, nationalist conservatives. While not a majority, winning around 40% of this demographic causes growth of the pro-life faction in the party. It also helps Democrats solidify the Latino vote and do even better among black voters by winning over evangelicals.

I think Democrats would gain in the South and Southwest, while losing ground in the Northeast politically. New Jersey, Delaware, Nevada, Virginia, and Colorado are likely to be lean Republican states due to Democrats not appealing to social liberals in these states, while they hold on in Appalachia and the Deep South. Florida remains a tossup and Texas could very well become a tossup as well due to higher Democratic appeal to white evangelicals and Latinos.
 
You could probably do it district by district.

Rhode Island, for example, has a very solid pro-life Democratic majority in its legislature. The districts are so small that the Church and pro-life activists are able to exert a tremendous amount of political force in the state. Massachusetts and New Jersey have sizable pro-life Democratic populations due to their large Catholic populations.

Bob Casey, Joe Donnelly, and Joe Manchin all voted in support of a 20-week abortion ban recently as well. Dan Lipinski and Stephen Lynch are pro-life Catholics as well.


If Democrats weren't seen as being so opposed to pro-lifers, they'd probably do a lot better. If you look at Feinstein, Harris, and Hirono's comments in some judicial confirmation hearings, it really has started to cross a line into anti-catholicism.
 

manav95

Banned
You could probably do it district by district.

Rhode Island, for example, has a very solid pro-life Democratic majority in its legislature. The districts are so small that the Church and pro-life activists are able to exert a tremendous amount of political force in the state. Massachusetts and New Jersey have sizable pro-life Democratic populations due to their large Catholic populations.

Bob Casey, Joe Donnelly, and Joe Manchin all voted in support of a 20-week abortion ban recently as well. Dan Lipinski and Stephen Lynch are pro-life Catholics as well.


If Democrats weren't seen as being so opposed to pro-lifers, they'd probably do a lot better. If you look at Feinstein, Harris, and Hirono's comments in some judicial confirmation hearings, it really has started to cross a line into anti-catholicism.

If they had taken a centrist, vague, and opportunistic stance on abortion instead of on healthcare or labor rights, they would be the majority party rn.
 
Have a worse Lewinsky scandal that causes Hillary to divorce Bill Clinton, Monica to get pregnant, Bill Clinton forced to resign just before the 1998 midterms, and the Democrats suffering substantial losses in 1998. Given the DLC control of the party and their opportunistic ideological flexibility, they try to rebrand the party in a more socially conservative direction to win back white social conservatives.

Al Gore goes back to leaning pro-life and moderating his views on guns, while also quietly throwing the LGBT cause under the bus. He also makes a point of being photographed at church regularly and meets with leaders like Jesse Jackson and Frank Griswold, and this helps him win a close election against Bush. He wins states like West Virginia, Missouri, Tennessee, and Arkansas, while only losing Oregon and New Hampshire as per OTL. 9/11 breaks out and the Democrats join Republicans in the mass hysteria against radical Islam, causing Democrats to do better among the evangelical, nationalist conservatives. While not a majority, winning around 40% of this demographic causes growth of the pro-life faction in the party. It also helps Democrats solidify the Latino vote and do even better among black voters by winning over evangelicals.

I think Democrats would gain in the South and Southwest, while losing ground in the Northeast politically. New Jersey, Delaware, Nevada, Virginia, and Colorado are likely to be lean Republican states due to Democrats not appealing to social liberals in these states, while they hold on in Appalachia and the Deep South. Florida remains a tossup and Texas could very well become a tossup as well due to higher Democratic appeal to white evangelicals and Latinos.

Not only is this implausible, but in this scenario it is much, much more possible that a progressive party supplants the Democrats as the main opposition to the GOP.
 
Maybe if you could tie it in to being more than just Pro Life, and include quality of life, with it integrated into better healthcare, education, sex ed, no anti-Planned Parenthood, etc. Have a POD where teen pregnancy isn't so stigmatized, and where people who want kids but have issues are more tuned into adoption rather than all the "fertility treatments" people seem to jump through these days. Less "my biological kid" than "child of my heart". You'd also need better support for children born with severe medical issues, and better control over the foster care system.
 
Have a worse Lewinsky scandal that causes Hillary to divorce Bill Clinton, Monica to get pregnant, Bill Clinton forced to resign just before the 1998 midterms, and the Democrats suffering substantial losses in 1998. Given the DLC control of the party and their opportunistic ideological flexibility, they try to rebrand the party in a more socially conservative direction to win back white social conservatives.
They can only go so far into social conservatism before alienating the base, though. It's hard to imagine such an effort having more than marginal appeal to conservative voters, and easy to imagine such an attempt having no more long term impact on the party and its strategy than the 2012 RNC autopsy did on the Republicans.
Al Gore goes back to leaning pro-life and moderating his views on guns, while also quietly throwing the LGBT cause under the bus. He also makes a point of being photographed at church regularly and meets with leaders like Jesse Jackson and Frank Griswold, and this helps him win a close election against Bush. He wins states like West Virginia, Missouri, Tennessee, and Arkansas, while only losing Oregon and New Hampshire as per OTL.
If Clinton's been discredited, I'd expect socially conservative voters to be even less likely to vote Democratic in '00, and with Gore associated with a president whose reputation is so tarnished, would he even get the nomination? Would Bush, for that matter? With two years of butterflies, there's a lot that could change by the time the 2000 election rolls around.
9/11 breaks out and the Democrats join Republicans in the mass hysteria against radical Islam, causing Democrats to do better among the evangelical, nationalist conservatives. While not a majority, winning around 40% of this demographic causes growth of the pro-life faction in the party. It also helps Democrats solidify the Latino vote and do even better among black voters by winning over evangelicals.
I don't see how a worse Lewinsky scandal gets you a reversal of the slow decline in white evangelical support for Democrats, and policies that try to appeal to nationalist conservatives are ones that will alienate Hispanics, black people, and the progressive base. It's just not a viable strategy.
 

manav95

Banned
They can only go so far into social conservatism before alienating the base, though. It's hard to imagine such an effort having more than marginal appeal to conservative voters, and easy to imagine such an attempt having no more long term impact on the party and its strategy than the 2012 RNC autopsy did on the Republicans.
If Clinton's been discredited, I'd expect socially conservative voters to be even less likely to vote Democratic in '00, and with Gore associated with a president whose reputation is so tarnished, would he even get the nomination? Would Bush, for that matter? With two years of butterflies, there's a lot that could change by the time the 2000 election rolls around.
I don't see how a worse Lewinsky scandal gets you a reversal of the slow decline in white evangelical support for Democrats, and policies that try to appeal to nationalist conservatives are ones that will alienate Hispanics, black people, and the progressive base. It's just not a viable strategy.

Well but a lot of those social conservatives were and are alienated from the Democratic party bc of social issues, especially abortion. Its a wedge issue that's been helpful to the GOP. Remove that and Democrats can win back these voters on economic issues, which affect everyone. Besides, the jingoism and nationalism happened in OTL with the majority of congressional Democrats voting for the Iraq War in 2002 and a significant amount of hawks like Hillary Clinton and Joe Lieberman in the party in that decade.

And notice I said that it would not make them dominant among white evangelicals, but rather do better among this group of the population. Don't forget that many black Americans and Latinos are also religious and somewhat socially conservative, so their margins would be higher among these demographics. They would really only suffer in the long term with well-educated moderate women, who would still face issues voting for the GOP anyway.
 
FT_18.01.19_abortionReligiousGroups.png


http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tan...abortion/ft_18-01-19_abortionreligiousgroups/

Catholics are about 50-50. And even among Southern Baptists, 30% support level abortion in all or most cases.

So, if the Democrats remind people that a Constitutional amendment is usually pie in the sky, and instead talk about such things as expanded Medicare for pregnant women (solidly building off an existing program) and paid leave for new parents, then the Democrats come off as the practical people.
 
I'd love to see numbers on voters who are pro-life but favor the Democrats on some/all other issues. I'm mostly going off my own canvassing experience, but it seems to me that people who identify as pro-life voters tend to be single-issue voters. So the points some people bring up are true: a lot of voters might have more in common with Democrats, but won't support them because of their position on abortion.

However, I don't think any of the suggestions that the Dems moderate will change all that. Why? Because they'll remain single-issue voters and continue to vote for the policy that best reflects their belief on this issue. So if you have ambivalently anti-abortion Democrats and extremely anti-abortion Republicans, they'll stick with the Republicans.

This isn't an issue most people are willing to haggle over.
 
Many good points. With the Democrats being more flexible on abortion could they remain competitive in parts of the South and Midwest like areas with a large Catholic presence? Also I was not just focusing on more successful Blue Dog Democrats but also pro-life liberals like Bob Casey or Raymond Flynn (former Mayor of Boston) could politicians in this mold be liberal enough to keep liberals from leaving the party while also pleasing some social conservatives?
 
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