The Republican Party knows it has a fundamental problem: We live in a democracy, but the party’s ideas and “policies” are unpopular. This was most recently exposed in 2022, as Americans showed up to vote against the draconian anti-choice maneuvers enabled by conservative Supreme Court justices and red-state legislatures across the country, ending the talk of a “red wave” election cycle. This is why conservatives lean into taking away the voting rights of millions of Americans while covering themselves in an archaic evangelical cloak of paternalism.
Axios congressional reporter Sophia Cai held a standing-in-front-of-voters-style interview with South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, a Republican candidate for president. Like his GOP brethren, Scott’s biggest bugaboo is being asked anything about reproductive rights. As the topic of abortion is Republican kryptonite these days, its deleterious effects on conservative candidates are compounded when those questions come from a woman.
So when Cai reminded Scott that he recently called South Carolina’s six-week abortion ban “good news” and asked the guy who wants to be president, “Would you support a six-week national ban?” Scott predictably rolled into a 40-second babbling brook of word-salad nonsense. Cai understandably re-asked the question, at which point Scott got snappy and condescending before launching into another 15 seconds of not answering the question.
And it gets better (or worse) from there.
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Here’s a little more than two minutes of this election cycle’s subgenre: Tim Scott winning the hearts and minds of voters when answering questions from a woman.
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We have Rural Organizing’s Aftyn Behn. Markos and Aftyn talk about what has been happening in rural communities across the country and progressives’ efforts to engage those voters. Behn also gives the podcast a breakdown of which issues will make the difference in the coming elections.