Across a range of massive policy issues, including abortion, same-sex marriage, climate change, and education, the warriors of former president Donald Trump have taken positions that put them on the fringe of the Republican Party, let alone the nations as a whole.
But the nature of political partisanship has changed over the past decade, raising doubts about whether conventional wisdom still holds at all in America.
There is much attention being paid right now to Trump’s favorite candidates running in the midterm election in November. And a massive part of Trump’s blessing comes from candidates who support his disproven conspiracy theory that the election was stolen.
It is regularly seen that candidates say things to win a primary, and then downplay those statements or views when facing a general election. But now that partisanship has changed, is this the case anymore?
Experts fear that the starkness of these candidates’ positions is clear, and that the Trump crowd could potentially shove American politics even more sharply towards the right.
Abortion is one of the key issues that shows Trumpian candidates are pulling politics towards the extreme right fringe. It has become a much more urgent litmus test on the right since the Supreme Court overturned Roe v. Wade.
For example, the Republican nominee for Arizona governor Kari Lake has said she supports enacting a “carbon copy” of the controversial, sweeping Texas abortion law in her state. The law does not include any exceptions for incest or rape. It also contains a loophole provision that was meant to completely circumvent the constitutional right to an abortion before Roe was overturned, where anyone can report someone violating the law and win a $10,000 bounty from the state.
The list goes on. The Republican nomination for Senate in Arizona, Blake Masters, supports a federal “personhood” law that would establish that fetuses are people. He also has raised questions about whether couples having the federal right to use contraception is right. In Georgia, GOP Senate nominee Herschel Walker told reporters there should be a national ban on abortion. Pennsylvania Governor nominee Doug Mastriano introduced a fetal heartbeat bill as a state senator, with no exceptions for incest or rape.
Climate change is another massive issue. The extreme right-wing ignores all mounting scientific evidence that there is a connection between climate change and extreme weather, and also ignores scientific evidence that it is human impact causing climate devastation.
For example, Mastriano called climate change a “theory” based on “pop science.” Republican candidate for Senate in Pennsylvania Mehmet Oz has decided to take a “pro-carbon” position, which is remarkably unscientific, and has gone as far as to say the ideology that carbon is bad “is a lie.” Senator Ron Johnson, seeking re-election in Wisconsin, is a massive climate denier.
Education is another huge issue being dragged to the right. Across the board, Trump’s people support redirecting tax dollars towards private religious schools and other “school choices.” But some go even further, calling for the elimination of the federal Education Department altogether. Senate nominee in Missouri Eric Schmitt wants the money to go to the states instead. Oz called the department a payback to the teachers’ union and said it was trying to “indoctrinate” teachers with critical race theory and other ideas.
Same-sex marriage is within the scope of the far-right. Trump republicans say the Supreme Court made a mistake in legalizing same-sex marriage in 2015. Masters, in Arizona, have decried that marriage is only between a man and a woman. And he is not alone in his cohort, where others like Nevada’s Adam Laxalt, North Carolina’s Ted Budd, and New Hampshire’s Bolduc and Kevin Smith have expressed opposition to same-sex marriage in more muted terms.
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