The Republicans blocked equal rights for women. Really??
The "GOP" sinking of the ERA is part of a pattern of shamelessness for which this US party seems to pay no price
The most remarkable thing about last month’s vote in the United States Senate blocking ratification of the Equal Rights Amendment to the Constitution is how unremarkable it was. No one was surprised that all but two Republicans opposed something so basic—but it deserves examination and punishment. How can that be?
The century-old effort would enshrine the notion that “equality of rights under the law shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex,” and that Congress can enforce it. The ERA has been ratified by the needed 38 states, but several missed a 1982 deadline which the proposal would have eliminated. It failed, because it needed a supermajority of 60 out of 100 Senators, requiring some GOP support.
But the sweeping Republican rejection of an idea as basic as equal rights for women is not the most surprising thing here. Two things are more surprising: that almost none of those who voted against seemed to feel the need to justify themselves—and that almost no one demanded it of them. And that’s because the Republican position is not only expected but part of a pattern.
Consider the Republicans’ astounding record of taking positions that either go against the clear will of the majority of Americans or are easily presentable as ethically dubious or even morally wrong—or both.
A prime example of this is July’s near party-line vote against banning assault weapons, whose only purpose is to kill many people at once. Most polls, of course, show most Americans want stricter gun laws.
Republicans also showed no shame in pursuing measures that would throw millions of people off health insurance, or enact effective tax cuts for the rich in the developed world’s most un-egalitarian country.
Perhaps most shockingly, the Republicans also refused to convict Donald Trump in the Senate after he tried to steal the 2020 election and the Jan. 6 Capitol riots—in which people were killed—and continued to normalize him to the point that he may well be the 2024 nominee.
The common factor is that the Republicans rarely seem inclined to exert themselves offering explanations. This is odd, because it is human to at least show empathy and to try to persuade the other side—and it is just plain good debating tactics to concede the occasional point if only to then show why the counterarguments are stronger.
For example, it is not normal to just ignore that the US has the developed world’s most firearm deaths by multiples. Or that the rushed appointment of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court weeks before the 2020 election was the epitome of hypocrisy after the Republican-run Senate refused to hold hearings for Merrick Garland almost a year before the 2016 election, claiming not enough time.
No normative conservative party in the democratic world behaves in quite this way, with the possible exceptions of Fidesz in Hungary and the Law and Justice in Poland. In my travels as a foreign correspondent, I’ve turned every conservative stone. It’s close to unique.
What are the explanations?
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