For Trump’s Backers in Congress, ‘Devil Terms’ Help Rally Voters in 2016
By Chris Murray
11/17/14 7:12 PM EDT
Presidential candidates often promise an election that will be fought over every single issue. But the promise of a “full-throated” fight over abortion rights or immigration has attracted more heat than air.
In fact, both promises might have helped propel Republican Donald Trump to his stunning victory over Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
“I can think of lots of issues where Donald has the kind of fire — if you saw any footage of him on that issue, you’d have to agree,” said Jeff Jones, Clinton’s campaign spokesman, in a recent conversation with The Daily Beast. “He’s very clearly a pro-life candidate.”
Both candidates have promised to appoint justices to the Supreme Court who will uphold Roe v. Wade — a cornerstone of a woman’s right to obtain an abortion — and to build the border wall. Trump has said that the Supreme Court should rule immediately on a case, currently running in Texas, that would prevent women from having an abortion by passing a federal law with a “trigger” to defund Planned Parenthood. Clinton has promised to nominate Supreme Court justices who would overturn Roe v. Wade and, at a minimum, overturn lower court rulings that have overturned state laws regarding pre-abortion-seeking.
But both have failed to deliver on those promises. The Supreme Court has ruled on cases in which it has been asked to overturn or gut major abortion rights protections and in lower court rulings that have gutted abortion rights in states like Texas and Ohio. The high court has not come close to overturning Roe v. Wade since the 1973 case, in which the Supreme Court established that the federal government can have no role in regulating abortion.
“The issue of Roe v. Wade is one we’re going to take up in November,” Trump told The Washington Post on Monday. The Supreme Court is scheduled to hear a case about the meaning of “substant