Donald Trump, who described himself as “very pro-choice” on Meet the Press in 1999, came almost full circle on the same program this weekend.
READ MORE from Dan Flynn: What’s the ADL Got to Do With Antisemitism?
He called Florida’s ban on abortions after six weeks “a terrible thing and a terrible mistake.” He talked of brokering a compromise between the pro-lifers and pro-choicers to craft a federal law leaving both sides pleased, a scenario as outlandish as Mexicans paying for a border wall.
“It could be state or it could be federal,” he said about the floated kumbaya legislation. “I don’t frankly care.”
Many do. Rather than take a victory lap in his success in limiting a procedure that takes human life, he says he wants to undo these “terrible” state laws put in place largely by his supporters.
He does not get pro-lifers. He also does not understand federalism.
Whatever one thinks about abortion — surely a wide spectrum of opinion exists among the readership — conservatives stood united on Roe v. Wade pulling justifications out of the ether. It was a decision based on neither the Constitution nor precedent but whim. It deserved to fall.
Allowing states to govern themselves, rather than a one-size-fits-all law brokered by Trump but modified by any Democrats who may succeed him, seems like the best compromise of all. Who cares if New Yorkers hate the laws in Ohio? Donald Trump, apparently.
Subscribe to The American Spectator to receive the entirety of Dan Flynn’s Spectator A.M. newsletter.
*****
Preorder R. Emmett Tyrrell, Jr.’s New Book
Have you ever wanted to know how The American Spectator got started? Written in Tyrrell’s trademark unfailing and bitingly satirical style, How Do We Get Out of Here?: Half a Century of Laughter and Mayhem at The American Spectator — From Bobby Kennedy to Donald Trump is an invaluable and intimate recount of the political and cultural battles that shaped our contemporary politics, written by a raconteur whose fearless muckraking materially impacted the politics of the modern era.
