Republicans are on the wrong side again, as 52% see the attack on
Planned Parenthood as terrorism and half of Americans think that
anti-abortion groups encourage violence.
These are not good numbers for a party that is hanging on by a cultural divide thread.
According to research from a
YouGov/HuffPost poll
published Friday, 52% of Americans polled view the attack in which
Robert Dear killed three people at a Planned Parenthood clinic in
Colorado Springs last week as an act of terrorism.
The news gets worse for Republicans, because although there is a partisan divide noted in the
analysis of the poll,
with two-thirds of Democrats saying it was terrorism and a full half of
Republicans say that it was not a terrorist attack, Independents side
with calling it a terrorist attack 50% to 32%.
If you don’t live under a rock, you’ve seen the conservative claims
that killing people who are performing or supporting or getting an
abortion is a legitimate form of protest. While those people are most
likely outliers for the anti-abortion crowd, the violent, bloody
rhetoric and lies perpetrated by elected officials about Planned
Parenthood can’t be denied. It is mainstream and it has a big old “R”
branded on its forehead.
Eight-nine percent of Americans polled, including those very opposed
to abortion, see violence against abortion providers as unacceptable. So
this idea that bombing and killing and targeting doctors and clinics is
acceptable is not mainstream at all. In fact, 82% called it morally
unacceptable.
That’s not a great position to be in when a party is clinging to alleged moral superiority as a lifeboat.
Republicans might have left things as they were, with public opinion
shifting gradually toward various ways of limiting choice (even while
supporting choice as an overall value) according to polls over the last
decade. But instead they chose to try to double down and use
anti-abortion beliefs as a get-out-the-vote tactic, not only encouraging
but elevating crack pot conspiracy artists calling themselves
journalists, as they violated laws and ethics in an attempt to smear
abortion providers.
While these tactics worked for a while and they certainly aren’t
helping the general perception of abortion providers like Planned
Parenthood, there’s another, more politically dangerous side to this
story.
The poll showed that 49% of Americans believe that the actions of
anti-abortion groups encourage violence. Only 27% say they don’t think
this is so. The analysis pointed out that there is divide on this even
among Republicans, “37% of Republicans believe that the actions of
anti-abortion groups encourage violence while just under half (47%) say
that their actions do not encourage violence.”
Following the Republican cabal’s televised false attacks on Planned Parenthood, which included deceptively edited videos and false graphs, a Planned Parenthood in Thousand Oaks, California burned in what authorities investigated as an
arson attack.
The same clinic had been attacked weeks earlier. This is but one
example of the ongoing violence aimed at abortion providers and doctors.
Republicans have hung their hats on playing off of the resentments of
the fading white male dominance. Abortion is just one piece of that
puzzle, as it represents women’s freedom to choose their own destiny and
have full agency over their bodies and full personhood rights. Abortion
was the one area where Republicans were making headway, but once again,
playing to extremists by pushing known lies and jacked up rhetoric
meant to incite blind rage has backfired politically.
Innocent people have been murdered due in part to this inflammatory
rhetoric and lies the U.S. Congress continues to elevate. These facts
are proof that the alleged “pro-life” movement is not about protecting
actual life.
