Victory Remains Fragile

My Fellow Pro-Life Conservatives: Please Stop Drilling Holes in the Life Boat (My Most Controversial Take Yet)

Jul 13, 2024

I have a shameful confession to make: I want to win in November.

Despite what some may say, I do not want to win because I am in some cult, or brainwashed, or in the thrall of some tyrant. I don’t want to win because Election Night 2016 was a peak experience and I just need another hit.

I don’t want to win because I love Donald Trump so much, or because it would be hilarious to see him saunter back into the White House (it would).

I don’t want to win because of how I enjoy watching the media and liberal in the throes of a thermonuclear meltdown. (But please, God, let me taste this nectar this one more time!)

I mean, I want all these things to happen, but that’s not the main reason.

The reason I want to win—why we must win—is because of what I want later. In five years. Ten years. 100 years. I want to live. I want the country and its citizens (even my haters!) to thrive. I want my children and grandchildren to not be sent to die in a hole in Kharkov for a madman. I want to keep my house and not have it confiscated in the coming Commie “equity” schemes.

I want to stop reading about kids get raped and killed by illegals. I want to prevent a nuclear war. I really, really want prices to go down so everyone can enjoy life and eat food again without panicking over grocery bills.

I want it to be okay to fly the American flag and NOT okay to fly the transgender flag. I want meritocracy back. Color blind admissions. Competence. Excellence. I want a Gen 4 nuclear plant in every city that brings energy costs down to virtually zero, triggering the greatest prosperity the world has ever known. I want these bummer late-state empire vibes to smash-cut to an exuberant, ebullient Springtime for Americans.

In short, I, too, have demands!

I am not content with demanding a tweak to a line item on some flimsy, nonbinding party platform.

Instead, I demand a full restoration of the country I was promised as a child. I understand that even if we win, we will not be able to restore it fully, but we can—hear me out—staunch the bleeding. Dam the flood. Plug the leaks. And begin to revivify the morale and will of the people. In a dying late Empire, people lose faith. They no longer hope for things to get better and dream that one day, they’ll get to live the life they want.

Instead, they give up. They turn to escapes that offer short-term numbness and they stop trying to build a good life for themselves and a family (that they won’t ever have).

The Left set out on a 100-year march; they are on Year 99.9. They are mere moments away from achieving the total Communist-kleptocrat takeover of the American republic.

We only have a very narrow chance to stop this. Do not be deceived by polls! They plan to “fortify” this election with ferocity. Samsonite suitcases are getting stuffed. U-Hauls are ready for the 3 AM ballot drops. Sketchy voting machines are set to glitch. Somewhere in an SEIU basement, boxes of ballots are being stored so they can be “found” three weeks after the election. The counts will continue until the correct result has been attained.

Did I mention they are likely to imprison the GOP candidate before November?

They will twist any law, use any tool to achieve their end goals, including fomenting coups against sitting presidents; they attempted to depose Trump in 2017, and as we speak, they are colluding to insurrect the current sitting president.

This is a time for strategic thinking. Of selfless thinking. Of trading some of the things you want right now in favor of getting much more of what you want later.

When your toddler demands a third scoop of ice cream after finishing his chocolate sundae, gently remind him that he can have more ice cream another night.

This brings me to the GOP’s controversial edit of their stupid Party Platform.

No Enemies to the Right to Life

When the GOP recently released their new “platform,” many of the biggest pro-life activists in America got upset—due to a language change around abortion. Full disclosure: I have never once read a single party platform in my life, and always thought they were fake and cheesy. What’s the point of one? Based on the last few presidential election cycles, the point is to feed talking points to their enemies.

This year, “the RNC platform committee adopted new Trump-backed party priorities, which for the first time in four decades did not include a national ban on abortion.”

This is the new platform language in question:

“We believe that the 14th Amendment to the Constitution of the United States guarantees that no person can be denied Life or Liberty without Due Process, and that the States are, therefore, free to pass Laws protecting those Rights.”

In other words, instead of reiterating their 40-year old call for a national ban on America’s most popular med-spa procedure after the BBL, the GOP is wisely shifting to the reality of the post-Roe world.

However, now some of these powerful pro-life activists and influencers—many of whom I respect and like—are vowing to stay home and not vote, and even calling for their fellow pro-life Catholics to do the same.

Guys. Hang on.

I posted a short defense of this platform change on X and got praise from a lot of conservative pro-life Christians—and made a lot of people mad. Maybe this post is making you mad! If it is, that’s okay, but I hope you’ll hear me out:

Hot take incoming: Abortion activists are betraying the only man on Earth who gave them the one thing they wanted—the thing no other GOP politician could for 50 years.
I am pro-life, obviously. Abortion makes me sick. But—trigger warning—I'm super confused at the anger among pro-lifers re the GOP platform.
1. Why are reasonable, intelligent people under the ludicrous impression that the GOP (lol lmao!) is some sort of religious moral authority that has the power, desire, or ability to transform and heal the human heart? How long have they had this delusion about [all] politicians?! Reminder: render unto Caesar what is Caesar’s.
The transforming of human hearts is the job of the apostles, not politicians. Sorry the Church totally failed you, but blaming a political party seems like scapegoating. You should be mad at your religious authorities, not a political party.
2. Activists demanded Roe be overturned and the issue returned to the states. President Trump delivered this on a platter. Now you’re mad and want to punish him? He deserves your vote and support for delivering on the issue 50 years of losers could not give you. I fervently hope pro-life activists keep fighting at the state level. I totally support you in this!
My wish, like yours, is zero abortion. But there is no mortal craft we here possess that can perform that miracle. If the people angry at the "GOP Platform" refuse to vote for Trump because he won't support a new federal ban, then YOU will be the authors of a coast-to-coast abortion free-for-all—and the final surrender of the country to open-borders lunatics. Never underestimate the ability of the GOP to own goal themselves into oblivion.

Reminder: The 40-year old platform plank that called for a national ban failed for 40 years. If it is in the platform this year, brace yourself: it will fail again. Leaving it in there does not meme it into reality. Oh, if only the GOP platform was that powerful!

The one thing this abortion language did was ensure many electoral defeats for GOP candidate after candidate. Worse: abortion REMAINED LEGAL for 40 years, coast to coast, in every state.

Until….

Until the unlikeliest event in the world happened. (Well, some people knew it would happen. I bet on Trump on the PredictIt betting site and won bigly.)

It’s important to remember that Donald Trump won for reasons that had nothing to do with much in the GOP platform. Some say he won by sheer meme magic. Some say because he dared to buck the usual GOP boilerplate and awakened a latent longing in the hearts of forgotten Americans.

His win, of course, was buoyed by his vow to overturn Roe vs. Wade.

And lo and behold, to the shock of the Jeb! conservatives who reluctantly voted for him over Hillary, he delivered. In his first term!

For years I’d listened to the arguments made by pro-lifers that the law was poorly constructed, and that abortion rights and restrictions had to be returned to the states. “Return it to the states!” was the rallying cry, for years. And then, after 50 years of marches, parades, signs, prayer, and donations, Roe vs Wade was gone!

Thanks to President Trump—and a certain tiny dancer who kept pirouetting on the Supreme court til her bitter end.

This was a stunning victory for the Right, courtesy of President Trump. My Catholic friends and I were thrilled. Ding dong the law was dead! Many reluctantly admitted they were shocked he was so good on abortion. “He’s the most pro-life president we’ve ever had,” was the consensus.

States immediately began either restricting abortion (“heartbeat” bills) or legalizing it up to a certain number of weeks. This was, I thought, what my pro-life activist friends had wanted.

But apparently in 2024, the goal posts have shifted. The goal posts have teleported across the football field! A new talking point emerged: a “national ban” on abortion. I admit: that sounds amazing. A national ban on abortion would be a miracle. So many babies saved! Why would anyone not want this? What kind of monster would not include this on its list of political priorities three months before the election?!

If passed, it could join the other popular national bans we have against murder, rape, and child abuse, which have completely eradicated those terrible behaviors from the population. Er…

But the reasons why it’s okay to remove “a national abortion ban” from the GOP platform is simple. First of all, taking it out of the platform doesn’t mean the GOP or Donald Trump suddenly loves abortion. Second, including a ban in the platform doesn’t mean it will get banned. Based on history, one could actually argue that including a national abortion ban in the platform is what has kept abortion legal for 40 years! It sounds scary and extreme to everyone outside my own personal religious fundamentalist bubble, which, while cozy, is quite small and extremely provincial (in the best possible way).

But there is another reason a national abortion ban—a wonderful idea I support in theory—is not possible in reality and does not belong in the (toothless, mostly useless) GOP platform. And that is this:

Campaigning in 2024 on a national ban in the wake of overturning Roe! would inevitably make the election about this single issue, blot out all other existential issues facing us, and irrevocably brand the candidate in question as an extremist among extremists.

Donald Trump is an “extremist” on many issues, and to liberals, he is an “extremist” on abortion. But it’s one thing to overturn Roe and return the decision to the states, and quite another to run on banning abortion in Marin County or Manhattan or even Ohio, Michigan, and Kansas, which all passed state laws post-Roe protecting abortion rights. Kansas!

And I say this as an extremist among extremists.

The bottom line is: I too would love a world with zero abortions. But this is not the year or the candidate to push for a national ban. The candidate who ran on this would lose 50 states. Even if the candidate did not run on this issue, the other side sure would! It didn’t used to matter that a federal ban was in the GOP platform, but in the post-Roe Trump era, it matters to the Left.

It is one of the few weapons they have against him—Kamala Harris has made abortion her signature issue. According to the Biden-Harris campaign, the Republican Party DOES want to ban abortion nationwide! They say this because it has the potential to destroy Trump’s chances in 2024 and they know it—no matter which brain-dead candidate they decide to run.

A “National Ban on Abortion” is a Luxury Belief that Will Have to Wait

Today, bitter Trump-hater Mike Pence and his Advancing American Freedom group published a letter from the most highly respected voices in the pro-life movement demanding that the GOP revise its platform to call for a national ban. Many of the people who signed the letter are longtime Trump haters, which makes me think some of them actually would prefer President Biden-Harris for four more years.

I want everyone on that list to know that any pro-life person who chooses to boycott Trump is giving full-throated support to the Democrat candidate (TBD). You are essentially actively campaigning for the Biden-Harris (or worse) ticket.

Feel free to demand whatever changes you want, but then I ask you to pledge to support the candidate that will prove his pro-life bonafides by ending the Ukraine war and preventing a nuclear war.

I am Catholic. I am even what my liberal (former) friends would call a “religious fundamentalist.” In fact, I am so extreme on “trad” issues that many people might call me a domestic extremist.

I have huge affection for pro-life activists—my children have spent many hours holding signs outside local Planned Parenthoods getting the middle finger from commuters driving by. They are active in the pro-life movement.

I used to be pro-choice, since that was the default position of a secular know-nothing. Fortunately, I was red-pilled on abortion 22 years ago. In the time since, my views on abortion have gotten, I confess, pretty extreme. I think life begins at conception. (Which is also when the gender is assigned. I think freezing or discarding unwanted embryos is a travesty. I even think a baby conceived through rape is still—trigger warning—a baby.

In short, there is no daylight between my position on abortion and the pro-life activist position.

They are free to demand changes to the GOP party platform. But I would say this: putting it in the platform doesn’t magically make it happen. To make it happen, you need to WIN THE ELECTION.

And while the GOP platform wish list itself is mostly a lame, perfunctory exercise that is immediately forgotten after the convention (for good reason), it is always used as a weapon by the other side.

Kamala Harris is crossing the country scaring women into thinking Donald Trump wants to outlaw abortion in all 50 states and put women in jail. If enough women believe her, will it make a difference? Maybe not. But I’d rather not find out.

How to Actually End Abortion

If you want to eradicate abortion in America, or at least reduce it as much as we possibly can, then the fight to focus on is the fight in the states.

No, you probably will never get Illinois to ban abortion. Or California.

(California has a lot of terrible laws. If anyone can overturn the abortion laws here, please be my guest—and while you’re at it, maybe you can get our idiot governor to seal our border, lower our taxes, and repeal Prop 47. Because here, if you like your small business, or your quality of life, or your personal safety, you can’t keep it.)

So what then? It’s outlawed in red states, legal with no restriction in blue states?

I would argue that there is another way. It’s harder than writing a law, though. But the path to banning abortion is not and never has been a legal or political fight. Murder is illegal; thousands are committed each year. Feminism has been tricking women into doing the unthinkable to their unborn children for decades. Roe was downstream of feminism changing the culture. It was downstream of the sexual revolution. First, the culture had to change, and then the laws had to catch up.

Work on the culture and the laws slowly change. Defund K-12 public education that teaches kids how to have sex without consequences starting in 6th grade. Teach girls the value of abstinence and chastity. Most abortions are given to married women with children at home; the grim economics of parenthood are a reality that few people are willing to confront.

To reduce abortion to all-time lows, first increase morale, boost patriotism and national pride, give people hope, and end illegal immigration to boost wages. Help people make more money, so they can feed a growing family and buy a house with a yard for the kids they didn’t abort.

No words typed on a GOP platform can do any of that.

But a singular leader might.

With respect, it took 50 years to get this far. Maybe it’s okay to exercise long-term thinking and a tiny bit of prudence now—so we one day claim the big prize.

Peachy Keenan's Extremely Domestic

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