Why devote an entire post -- even a short one -- to a stupid, conspiratorial tweet from a twice-failed presidential candidate? Because it harkens back to a previous election narrative that Democrats and their media allies concocted out of nothing to badger and smear Republicans. Back in 2012, Mitt Romney became memorably perplexed and bemused when former Democratic operative George Stephanopolous tried to trip him up with a series of questions during a GOP primary debate. Romney understandably couldn't seem to grasp why the ABC anchor was asking him to weigh in on a hypothetical birth control ban, which no one was supporting or proposing.
At the end of the exchange, Romney said, "contraception? It's working just fine. Just leave it alone:"
That answer didn't stop Democrats from using Stephanopolous' bizarre predicate as a prong in their 'war on women' attack line against Romney's campaign in the general election. Media allies piled on, conjuring up dark images of Republicans tearing birth control away from American women. One representative and deranged example:
How much will former Gov. Mitt Romney and the Republican Party's hostility to birth control cost them with voters, especially women voters, in the fall? This is not about religion. This is about a Republican party actively campaigning against contraception, something that is enormously popular with the electorate. I would love nothing more than Mitt Romney going around the country telling voters he wants to take their birth control away, which he's pretty much doing already.
This bore no resemblance to any actual reality, as Romney made quite clear in his 'what the hell are you talking about?' response to Stephanpolous. But that didn't matter. The Left flogged this fiction to frighten and confuse voters -- much as they subsequently tried to do in conflating the discreet and narrow constitutional question of whether religious employers could be forced by the government to pay for other people's contraceptives with some (nonexistent) generalized effort to ban birth control. Hillary Clinton now appears to be laying the groundwork to rerun this playbook:
Notice Sen. Graham's phrasing here: "legal birth control."
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) February 26, 2024
On abortion rights, Republicans spent years whittling away legality and access until Trump's MAGA Supreme Court majority blew the whole house down.
They think we're going to trust them now? pic.twitter.com/cZ2AUBdyrC
What? Graham referred to legal birth control because it's...legal. Nobody is trying to change that. Not a single GOP legislature or governor or presidential candidate has proposed or talked about anything of the sort. Indeed, 92 percent of Americans told Gallup in 2022 that birth control is morally acceptable, including nearly nine-in-ten conservatives. There is no desire, appetite, or effort to do anything to alter the status quo on this non-issue. The conspiratorial sleight-of-hand Clinton uses to float her dumb, ominous-sounding warning is to pretend that birth control and abortion are the same, and to suggest that pro-lifers had previously lied about their goals on abortion jurisprudence and policy. Neither element of this is accurate. Pro-lifers could not have been more open and clear about their multi-decade concerted movement to overturn Roe and restore representative democracy on a difficult and thorny issue (on which most Americans hold fairly moderate views). There was no hiding the ball. The goal was explicit. No such movement or goal exists at all on birth control. Banning birth control isn't a thing.
Clinton is grasping at straws, desperate to help her party survive an election with a deeply unpopular incumbent president at the helm. Doing so might require scaring voters, especially women, with lies. Don't ignore it; rebut it. On a related topic, I'll leave you with one of the most incoherent rants -- to put it kindly -- that I've seen in a long time. This person has a primetime program on a network devoted to politics and news. She is paid handsomely to know stuff and make arguments. She recorded this, um, 'commentary,' presumably reviewed it, then decided, 'yes, let's publish this for the world to see:'
"The U.S. has a population of 327 million people… why do we need more kids??"
— End Wokeness (@EndWokeness) February 26, 2024
Watch the entire clip. MSNBC's Joy Reid is clinically insane. This might be the most deranged rant I've ever seen. pic.twitter.com/mjd7bU2VCW
I'd try to refute this dog's breakfast of mind-numbing idiocy, but it's not worth it. If someone is persuaded by this message, let the Democrats have them.