Thread by @MattLRobison

I want to offer a reminder of history - one that really matters now.Key point: the American religious right made abortion their big issue *not* out of moral conviction, but as a tactical choice to cover their broader agenda, especially protecting segregation.
1/16

This matters so much because we are very much living with the impacts of that decision right now. We will continue to for years to come. Let's look at what happened and why it is such an ongoing issue.
2/16

Look at this statement from 1971 from SOUTHERN BAPTISTS. This was basically where evangelical leaders were for 5 years AFTER Roe. They were essentially where most of America is right now in polling. They were essentially pro choice.
3/16

What changed? Evangelical leaders had created “segregation academies" like Bob Jones University. But the Civil Rights Act forbade racial segregation & discrimination. Discriminatory schools were now not “charitable." And under Nixon, the IRS started cracking down.
4/16

Paul Weyrich, founder of The Heritage Foundation, was trying to build a conservative electoral coalition to gain power:"a new political philosophy must be defined by us [conservatives] in moral terms, packaged in non-religious language, and propagated throughout the country"
5/16

But every issue that he and evangelical leaders tried to get people excited about fell flat: pornography, prayer in schools, the ERA, etc. Until they stumbled on abortion as a rallying cry late in a 1978 Senate election in Iowa.
6/16

Sensing that they were on to something, they ran with it. By 1980, evangelical leaders saw that they had a defining wedge, a shibboleth, to rally a new base of voters, protect their segregated schools, and gain power.
7/16

Meanwhile, Weyrich was busy creating an intellectual justification for radical right wing economic & social policy at Heritage (@ejfagan is writing the definitive history on this, and provided a closer look in our riveting interview last year):
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the…
8/16

The combination -- a religious right base of voters galvanized around abortion & elected leaders willing to adopt trickle-down "Reagonomics" (based on economic fantasy aronud the Laffer Curve) -- fused to birth the modern right wing in this country.
9/16

This is not conjecture. The history is exhaustively documented by Dartmouth College professor Dr. Randall Balmer, and provided in this @politico feature from 2014 politico.com/magazine/story… and in our full podcast / radio conversation yesterday: podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the…
9/16

So why am I telling you this? Not to argue that evangelicals are bad. Or that people don't have genuine religious conviction in opposition to abortion. Many people have such deeply felt beliefs that are worthy of respect.
10/16

Rather it is a reminder that the anti-abortion movement that became the defining axis for the judiciary on the right was a cynical creation of political operatives in order to win elections, grab power, and protect their own interests -- including their segregated schools
11/16

But like the Tea Party a decade ago - another organized AstroTurf effort meant to look organic - the anti-abortion fervor on the religious right and their takeover of the Republican Party escaped lab containment and took over.
12/16

As a result, we have now had successive generations of federal judges/justices who make this positioning central to their judicial being, and a party organized around maintaining the fervor of the religious right. We have the draft Alito #RoeVWade ruling is one result.
13/16

Though we also have Hobby Lobby and cries of "religious freedom!" to cover bigotry, not to mention the entanglement of the religious right and the KKK (for more on that, listen to Dr. Balmer in the interview). podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the…
14/16

And now with all of these legal precedents, especially the new Alito ruling, conservatives have been "invited back to the court for the next round" to go after *anything* that depends on a right to privacy, according to Constitutional Law scholar Mary Ziegler of Harvard.
15/16

In short, the decision to clothe the grab for power in the politics of abortion 45 years ago gave us today's Republican Party and this Court, which will now give us decades more of right-wing ideologues trying to take away the rights of everyone the disapprove of.
16/16

Bonus tweet--thanks to everyone who has been RTing. I really appreciate Dr. Balmer for his work. I also always appreciate Twitter follows, so please do! I try to provide this kind of connect-the-dots analysis on Beyond Politics, so also please subscribe!
podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/bey…