Thread by @erintothemax

To: @nytdavidbrooks

From: An actual Democrat who works on landslide winning elections in the Trump age (hi, Virginia!), NOT a conservative white male columnist

Re: A paragraph-by-paragraph correction of your misleading abortion memo (INTRO)

Access to abortion is indivisible part of progressive agenda — there is no economic justice without reproductive justice. Progressives believe in science, access to healthcare, ending discrimination, gender equality, racial justice. Abortion rights part of all those things. (1)

Is math hard? Because your conflation certainly isn’t backed up by the medical community or even basic division by two. 20 weeks is second trimester, and literally the halfway point of a 40 week pregnancy. How is that “late term?” (1)

Let’s start with some history. Indeed the pre-Roe anti-abortion movement was largely connected to the Catholic Church hierarchy, which is liberal in some areas but has always been draconian and punitive on matters of women and sexuality; and largely unpopular with its own. (2)

As with same-sex marriage before the Supreme Court gave a ruling, some states legalized and some states didn’t. And some Democratic Party leaders were flaming disappointments. Patchwork laws proved need for SCOTUS to take a stand. (3)

Conveniently, you take one quote out of context from Roe, and not another which clearly laid out that blanket abortion bans prior to the third trimester are unconstitutional. The 20 week ban you are arguing for is a direct challenge to Roe, not a logical consequence of it. (4)

Your argument about everything polarizing conveniently leaves out Republican strategist Paul Weyrich plotting how to win elections by making abortion a wedge issue. It was not Ds who changed. It was Rs. (5)

The merger of the Republican Party with the religious right over abortion was always rooted in a theory that held racism deep within its core, and then shifted a good-sized part of its ‘protect the white family’ crap to anti-abortion rhetoric. (5)

It was a marriage of the Catholic Bishops with the right-wing evangelicals, and the Republicans. It was cynical and it came from the top. That is what changed politically after Roe. (5)

Here we can agree. Without single-issue voters who say they are pro-life and project moral purity, we would not have elected Donald Trump who brags about sexual assault and dismisses “shithole” countries. They love this guy! True colors. (6)

In fact, Donald Trump’s strongest allies are the anti-abortion advocates. Truly, they are willing to stand behind *anything* repugnant so long as they find the right president to deliver upon sending women who have abortions to jail. (6)

Okay, this is where you are most full of shit. Ralph Northam won convincingly in Southern state Virginia — in the general and the primary — with unapologetic support for abortion. It was a top issue in both successes. I know. I was there. (8)

Are you ready to trot out the statewide candidates excuse? Because the Virginia House of Delegates — Democrats snagged 15 Republican-held seats in 2017. All 15 of those legislators are pro-choice. (7)

(Whispers again): “Our agendas on poverty, immigration, income equality and racial justice” by necessity include abortion, Mr. Brooks. Abortion rights is not just for rich white people, not even those who are Dem donors. (7)

There’s a good chance that if Roe were overturned, gerrymandering would ensure that millions more people lose access to abortions in clinic settings. Your attempts to minimize that are unconscionable. (8)

And how convenient to trot out non-sequitur comparisons to Europe, where access to health care is much greater and more guaranteed by the government. (8)

Did the comparison to Europe to be made about Savita Hallappanavar, who begged for a life-saving abortion and died in an Irish hospital because “this is a Catholic country” get edited out? Or did you purposefully avoid it? (8)

Polls contradict exactly what you say. The most motivated voters against abortion will take an anti-abortion Republican, given a choice with a Dem. And, actual Democratic voters resoundingly want pro-choice candidates. (9)

Democrats have not lost large numbers of seats over the decades because of Roe v Wade. Democrats have lost seats because of race, racism precisely. Both white flight from party and gerrymandering. (10)

It turns my stomach to read you, a conservative man who does not respect my humanity, arguing with me, a mother who knows damn well what it means to be pregnant and give birth, over what humanizes a pregnancy. (11)

How dare you argue that women who are pregnant are capable of being “barbaric” in their decisions about their own bodies, lives, and families. PS, this seems to have nothing to do with what Democratic voters want, which is leaders who lead. (11)

You are not the voice of young people. Nor are the anti-abortion activists twisting desperately at polls to pretend that young people rubber stamp their regressive agenda. They don’t. (12)

Hell yes, gender equality is an urgent priority of the movement to defeat Mr. Trump. No shame. (13)

You are not an imaginary consultant. You are a conservative white man who wants more policy + political power by neutralizing and weakening your opponents. You are the imaginary friend who punches you in the eye and says your new eyeshadow looks great. In the New York Times. (14)

P.S. I recommend this to you and your readers, an actual poll. “Democrats may have more to lose than to gain by compromising on about abortion.” vox.com/2018/1/22/1691…