By Garry J. Moes

 

Even before he made his iconic descent down the golden escalator at Trump Tower on June 16, 2015, to announce his plan to run for president, Donald Trump had repeatedly painted himself as a non-politician. He continued to make that claim throughout his controversial presidency, a claim that largely proved true as his policies were more principled than politically pragmatic. He would strive to Make America Great Again by doing what had made America great in the first place — contrary political considerations be damned.

 

That commitment may have scuttled his hopes for re-election as historic American principles had long been abandoned by the entrenched “Swamp” that considers itself the rulers of the nation. Trump’s principled approach became so hated by fleckless politicians who literally profit from the old order and by “Swamp” dwellers in governments at all levels, that Trump became the Great Satan (if there were such a mythical creature).

 

Virtually every move he made caused his foes to boil and seethe with demonic, burning hatred; and every weapon they could muster has been trained at him, most prominently the prosecution of criminal charges heaped upon him by the score.

 

Among the most hated of his accomplishments in office was his providential appointment of justices to the Supreme Court, swinging the majority to constitutional conservatives.

 

Most feared was the possibility of a conservative high-court majority overturning the nearly 50-year-old Roe v. Wade decision of an earlier Supreme Court which mysteriously found a broad abortion privacy provision in the U.S. Constitution, despite the fact that not a word of that supposed provision could be found in the written founding document.

 

That ghostly fact was largely the basis for the Trump majority’s conclusion that there was no national constitutional right for abortion, a finding that had the effect of bringing abortion law to where it was prior to the 1973 Roe ruling — namely that all state laws concerning abortion were once again as they were before the phony federal right to abortion became the “law” of the whole land.

 

Prior to Roe v. Wade, abortion had been illegal in virtually every state, with the late exception of a few, like Hawaii, Washington, and Alaska, that were determined to test the issue with limited approval for fetal homicide.

 

Since the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision by the Trump court, the abortion picture has become chaotic as many states have reinstated limits or outright bans on abortion while others have doubled down on their belief in an inalienable right to abortion even to the point of birth (and maybe even later). Governors like California’s Gavin Newsom seem to be attempting to boost their states’ tourism by inviting mothers who wish to dispose of their offspring to “come on down.”

 

As polling has begun for the 2024 presidential election, a major issue favoring Democrats is free access to abortion. According to some polls, a strong majority favor all or some levels of abortion being legal. According to a 2023 Gallop poll, only 13 per cent of Americans believe abortion should be illegal in all circumstances. Many pundits believe that the abortion issue was key to the failure of a number of pro-life candidates in the off-year elections in 2022.

 

The polling on this critical issue is likely the reason former President Trump has now chosen to abandon principle and become a classic politician during his 2024 presidential campaign, much to the chagrin of diehard pro-lifers.

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When the erstwhile conservative U.S. Senator Lindsey Graham began pushing his proposed legislation for a national ban on abortions, Trump began taking hefty swipes against the man he had endorsed during Graham’s last election bid.

 

Trump insisted that the Supreme Court had found that abortion regulation is strictly a state power with no role for federal regulation.

 

“Senator Lindsey Graham and (anti-abortion activist) Marjorie Dannenfelser should study the 10th Amendment and States’ Rights,” he said. “When they do, they should proudly get on with helping Republicans to WIN ELECTIONS, rather than making it impossible for them to do so!”

 

And there you have it. The abortion issue is at the heart of winning or losing elections.

 

In taking this poll-driven stance, Trump sadly has become a politician and no longer can claim to be a principle-driven statesman. Policy has become politicized for the purpose of winning back power. To avoid the full wrath of his own pro-life base, Trump has decided to make this a classically conservative “states’ rights” issue—never mind that some states are rocketing headlong toward full license to add to the millions of slaughtered children whose spilled blood and mangled limbs cry out to their Creator.

 

"Politics is the art of the possible," Otto von Bismarck once famously said, encapsulating the essence of the pragmatic political landscape. At its core, this statement signifies that in the realm of politics, decisions and actions are guided not by lofty ideals or wishes, but by what is realistically achievable. Perhaps Trump’s “Art of the Deal” has truly become the politician’s “Art of Compromise.”

 

We can only hope that populist Trump will somehow stumble upon what political philosopher Hannah Arendt once said: “When evil is allowed to compete with good, evil has an emotional populist appeal that wins out unless good men and women stand as a vanguard against abuse.”