This past week, the Supreme Court heard oral argument in Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization, a case that has the potential to reverse Roe v. Wade.  Some justices' questions left pro-life people optimistic that Roe is on its way out and pro-abortionists hysterical for the same reason.  For leftists, though, the silver lining in losing Roe is that it might galvanize voters in 2022, preventing what looks like a red tsunami.  However, Megan McArdle, a sensible leftist (which sounds like an oxymoron), believes that Democrats and progressives are misreading the political tea leaves.

I don't believe that the Supreme Court will reverse Roe v. Wade.  We've all seen that Chief Justice Roberts, while conservative on the smaller issues that don't matter too much to Democrats, is a reliable leftist vote on the big matters, whether it's Obamacare or same-sex "marriage."

The same pattern shows up with Gorsuch, Kavanaugh, and Barrett: when the Democrats need an outcome, one of them becomes the sacrificial lamb, betraying the Constitution.  I won't speculate why this is so; it's enough to say that it is what it is.  Therefore, I'm pretty sure that, even if Roe v. Wade is blunted slightly, it will continue to exist.

Image: The Roe v. Wade demographic.  Rumble screen grab.

For now, though, Democrats and Republicans are both assuming that Roe is at an end, with Republicans seeing it as a good thing and Democrats as a bad one.  Both know that overturning Roe might affect the 2022 midterm elections.  For now, it looks as if it will see an overwhelming Republican victory.  Democrats hope to optimize a Roe reversal to stem that tide:

Vulnerable Democrats from Nevada to New Hampshire are promising to make abortion a centerpiece of their political strategy in midterm elections. The new intensity comes amid signs that the Supreme Court could weaken or reverse Roe v. Wade. https://t.co/wSQOQA78jZ

— The Associated Press (@AP) December 2, 2021

They have a point.  Nothing rouses leftist women like the thought that abortion will be taken from them.  I used to live in a solidly middle-class people neighborhood, with old-fashioned values.  The one reliable issue, though, that would ensure that the women voted Democrat was to tell them that the Republicans were going to take away abortion.  However, that was a rarefied world in which I lived.  Megan McArdle, a sensible progressive who writes for the Washington Post, also understands the narrow demographic that gets energized by abortion.  She has warned her fellow proggies not to rely on this demographic, not just when it comes to abortion, but when it comes to everything related to the whole diversity shtick:

This is a symptom of a broader problem with how American elites approach diversity. We emphasize certain kinds of demographic diversity a lot--which, yay!--but forget that highly educated professionals are unrepresentative of basically any demographic group they belong to.

— Megan McArdle (@asymmetricinfo) December 3, 2021

Certainly many of my readers are surrounded by progressive women who are absolutely passionate about preserving abortion rights. But almost all my readers are college educated and highly politically engaged, which makes them very unlike the average voter.

— Megan McArdle (@asymmetricinfo) December 3, 2021

The fact that you know a lot of people who care more about abortion rights than anything else is interesting, but it does not tell you how the general public will vote.

— Megan McArdle (@asymmetricinfo) December 3, 2021

I'm not saying your concerns are invalid! I'm just saying that you should not assume that most women think about abortion the way you do, much less that they will vote accordingly.

— Megan McArdle (@asymmetricinfo) December 3, 2021

Incidentally, McArdle clearly views as a virtue the fact that the women in her circle — and that of her political peers — are college-educated.  I would beg to differ.  Young women who have graduated from college within the past 25 years or so are not educated; they are indoctrinated.

One of these days, I'll get my act together and write a post showing how badly damaged these young women have been thanks to academia.  If you cast your mind back to the screaming harridans (mostly White) at the BLM protests last year, or the women who have embraced vulgarity and ugliness as part of feminism, or the ones who have willingly ceded women's spaces to mentally ill or opportunistic men, you know what I mean.

This video perfectly exemplifies my point because this woman has made herself ugly, angry, and stupid (language warning):

These angry young women aren't going to be too affected by inflation, but the suburban women who are the real backbone of the pro-abortion movement are facing huge Democrat-driven inflation.  They'll have to choose between maintaining their lifestyles and voting for abortion — and I'm betting that enough of them will choose lifestyle over abortion, blunting any political benefit Democrats might get from a Court ruling overturning Roe.

Hat tip: Twitchy.

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