18 Comments

Thank you for raising the question of whether a 6-week abortion ban would help or hurt DeSantis in a general election in this morning’s column. I was having the same debate with friends last night about this after he signed the bill. Would love to hear what other readers think as well.

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A Floridian here, it will hurt him, no doubt. Everything DeSantis has done, including his arrogant fight with Disney will and should backfire him. Stay tuned!

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I'd argue the recent WI Supreme Court election suggests that abortion is a voting issue.

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I feel it would hurt him. Women in general are tired of being told what they should and shouldn’t do. It’s true there are some whose religious beliefs dictate their vote but as a whole majority of folks understand how complex the issue is and a ban doesn’t solve any of the underlying issues impacting Americans today, it only creates more unnecessary issues and all at the cost of women’s health.

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I'm sure he signed it in late-night darkness to minimize coverage, knowing it would make him a poster child for extremism, but he signed it anyway.

Big mistake.

Huge.

He owns it now. I hope it chokes him.

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The sad part about all this is, most conservatives don’t actually believe in these bans themselves but they are in a financial position to travel to find the appropriate health care for themselves or loved ones if need be. It’s those who cannot afford to travel or able seek better medical care who will be impacted most and not to mention the generational impacts, especially to women, from these politicized decisions. There are much better ways to minimize unwanted pregnancies than banning abortion but those ways make too much sense & don’t provide enough angry sound bites to the folks in power 😑

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The sad reality is that most poor people get screwed every possible way, in every aspect of life… but they don’t have the means to stop it.

What America needs are more people that have the means that afford decent health care, safe transportation, healthy food, retirement, etc…. To stand up for those that don’t.

I am retired, have more than enough to live happily, even extravagantly, but I work tirelessly to help those that don’t. Railing about republicans online is just a fun way to pass the time for me, but being involved in local, state and national causes is what I feel I owe Americans for the path my life took.

So many people are so busy just trying to survive that they don’t have the ability to rise up and fix what’s wrong… and so many people who have made a comfortable life for themselves feel that rocking the boat in anyway could somehow hurt their cushy lifestyle.

It’s a shame what we’ve become - greedy and scared and ready to throw someone else under the bus if they think it will help themselves.

Damn.

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Yeah. It really is a shame. Politicians love to exploit that fear. It’s how they control the narrative, add fuel to the fire of that fear, encourage an “us vs. them” mentality among the masses, and stay in power unfortunately. I’ve been looking into Ranked Choice Voting as a possible solution to the dysfunction in our politics. It would help even out the playing field in our elections, reduce extremism, and also help minimize the polarizing messaging while actually electing folks that represent more than just a tiny portion of the people. Who knows. Keep fighting the good fight Steve.

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It’s great for him to have a chance at winning the primary… but in the general, decent people will never vote for that fascist.

The vast majority want safe abortion, and a six week ban, before any woman knows she’s even pregnant, is insane. But… that’s what the red meat hateful fake Christian base is all about.

I think this single bill will save the country, because he will lose big time in literally every state.

This is because I think he’ll win the primary, trump will go third party, and the dem candidate will waltz in, even with more filthy lies about a rigged election.

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Your lips to God's ears.

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Why the hell did Musk ban you from Twitter?

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author

Musk blocked all Substack links for several days in one of his weird fits about competition. For a while, no links worked to any Substack newsletter just because

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My impression of Musk is still changing, but as time passes he strikes me as someone with world-class technical and business instincts coupled with a primitive world view resembling that of a gang or cult leader who expects everyone around him to follow orders, no questions asked.

His first fortune came from selling his stake in X(dot)com (later renamed Pay Pal) where he had been a co-founder, using the proceeds to launch Tesla and Space X, both of which proved to be technologically cutting edge. Add in Starlink, Neuralink, Boring and now Twitter and we see the emergence of a modern conglomerate not unlike those of past centuries, all with Elon Musk pulling the strings. One or two of these ventures might be called luck but as a group that level of technological success points to the instincts of one individual.

It's a shame his moral compass is so badly broken.

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Literally everything you wrote shows what garbage the GOP is. How does anyone defend their lies and corruption and abuse?

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My first hearing about the Main Street Caucus. It's been around since last year and has a website. I notice a few names missing from the membership list.

https://mainstreetcaucus.house.gov/

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The GOP won’t put up their own budget, because once it’s on paper and it gets torn apart, Biden has all the power. So… they’ll twist and turn and blame Biden for everything, and when we go to a government shutdown, America will lose billions.

Because republicans/conservatives/nazis/morons… whatever you choose to call them, suck.

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These are dark days for legacy Republicans but believe it or not they still outnumber the nut cases. The GOP is under the MAGA cloud which will pass like the bad weather across the country. By excluding extremists the Main Street Caucus gives me hope.

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I don’t believe that so-called moderate republicans are the majority of the GOP, but it’s possible that they are… they are just to damn cowardly to stand up against trump and the far right wing terrorists that are running the House & Senate.

So what good are they? They’re like the “good cops” who see despicable actions by bad cops, and do nothing to stop it.

As long as the gop as a whole displays this disgusting, inhuman and indecent behavior, they are the problem with America. And they suck worse than any party in history.

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