We all know Republicans can’t govern. One of the reasons why they can’t govern is because they’re very, very bad at coming up with any actual policies. One of the reasons for that is that they tend to confuse policy with ideology, and have a hard time translating the latter into the former, usually because the ideological objective can’t really be achieved legislatively or administratively. To the extent the GOP has been able to put its ideology into policy, the results have been uniformly disastrous; Republican “policy,” by design, harms far more people than it helps. And Republican voters seem to like it that way.
That’s one of the main reasons why the GOP did not bother to come up with a policy platform for 2020, which the Party would have us believe compares itself favorably with the Democratic Party and its detailed, 90-plus page platform released last week. But there’s another reason, and it’s not that hard to see.
During last night’s acceptance speech, Grand Nagus Drumpf provided us with this dusty, old-reliable nugget of Republican ideology:
“Tonight we proudly declare that all children born and unborn have a God-given right to life.”
Lay aside the dishonesty, hypocrisy, cynicism, &c., of calling oneself “pro-life” and lay aside the question of whether the Nagus or anyone else actually believes this pablum. He put it out there because Republican voters find this idea appealing, and they’ve always figured that others will find it appealing as well, and vote accordingly. In fact, there are still “single-issue” voters who vote the way they do just because they find this idea, that “unborn” “children” have a “right to life,” appealing.
But that’s not policy.
That’s ideology. And there’s a difference between policy and ideology. So, the question is, what is the actual policy that accompanies this purportedly appealing ideology? We’ve never actually heard a Republican explain that, and I doubt it’s ever actually appeared in a Republican platform. And it’s obvious why.
The policy, as best as it can be described, and laying aside constitutional limitations, is: (1) that all pregnant women and girls must remain pregnant against their will, against medical advice, regardless of the risk, under penalty of law, until the pregnancy ends naturally; and (2) that public resources (including, but not limited to, police, prosecutors, courts and prisons) should be devoted and deployed to enforce the foregoing requirement and to investigate, as a criminal matter, every pregnancy that does not end in a live birth.
That’s ^^ the policy.
That policy is appalling.
And that’s why Republicans don’t do policy. Even where their ideology is appealing, their policies are appalling.
