Divided We Fall by David French

Author:David French [French, David]
Language: eng
Format: epub

13

Texit

When he was sworn in as governor of Texas, Francisco Gonzalez had no idea he would become the first president of a nation that critics derisively called the “New Confederate States of America.” He had fought secession. He hated separation. But events forced his hand, and by “events” he meant a movement started by the governor of Alabama—a charismatic black Republican who believed with all his heart that the defense of the unborn was the greatest cause of his life.

Two years earlier, the Supreme Court had overturned Roe v. Wade, and instantly the South and much of the Midwest was transformed into an abortion-free zone. The wave of heartbeat bills and trigger bills that had previously passed in states such as Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia had spread throughout every southern state except blue Virginia and purple North Carolina. Texas had passed a trigger bill. Oklahoma and Nebraska had passed heartbeat bills.

After Roe fell, protests had convulsed the big blue cities of Texas, but in general the transition went smoothly. There were few abortion clinics left in the South or Midwest, abortion rates were very low and getting lower, and—truth be told—few citizens noticed a meaningful cultural difference. The political difference, however, was profound.

Among the base voters of the South, there was an immense outpouring of cultural and regional pride. Labeled “deplorable” for so long, called “racist” for generations, they celebrated their place on the “right side of history.” The historical equations were decisively reversed. In their telling, the region of slavery and Jim Crow was now the region of life and love. By contrast, the region of abolition and Union represented the culture of death and hate.

But there was no mistaking the fury and revulsion in blue America at the Supreme Court’s decision—a fury compounded by the distinct regional division. To blue America, the South’s distinctive stand had nothing to do with life and everything to do with its historical role as the most backward, most oppressive American region. There was no “culture of life.” How could they claim that they respected life when they preserved the death penalty and had the highest infant mortality rates in the nation? How could they claim the mantle of social justice when they stood as a stubborn firewall against universal health care?

And so, as the presidential race approached, each Democratic candidate made a singular pledge—the assault on women’s rights would not stand. Each Democratic candidate promised to expand the Supreme Court, to nominate new justices who would respect a woman’s right to control her own body and restore Roe.

The Senate majority leader and every single blue-state Senate candidate signed a pledge to pack the Court, even if it meant ending the legislative filibuster. Purple-state Democratic Senate candidates balked, but when the economy entered a deep recession and a Democratic wave beckoned as the election approached, it became clear that for the first time in a generation, the Democratic Party was likely to control the presidency and both houses of Congress.

That meant no more filibuster.

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