A cartoon has been floating around social media for about a year, recently amplified into virality by Elon Musk. The creation of evolutionary biologist and Quillette writer Colin Wright, this comic depicts a series of stick figures placed on the left-right political spectrum. Over the course of 13 years, the little stick man, center-left in 2008, stays in the exact same spot while the political left endlessly elongates, leaving our hero on the center-right by 2021. The cartoon is Wright's attempt to make sense of his own political shift by insisting that it is society that has changed, not him — an argument that resonates with many, including Musk himself.

The cartoon, however, is a half-truth. All but the most abject and unhinged left-wing partisans will acknowledge that today’s left is quite a bit more extreme than the cohort who propelled Barack Obama to the presidency. But the political right, whom the comic depicts as static and unchanging, has gone just as far off their own deep end since 2008. To rattle off a few highlights: The Tea Party, Birtherism, white nationalism, the alt-right, Trumpism, QAnon, the Big Lie about the 2020 election, and the January 6th Capitol Riots. Ring any bells? And the cherry on top is the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the majority GOP-appointed Supreme Court.

To those claiming that Republicans have not moved to the right, here’s a little something to chew on: Five GOP-appointed Justices voted in favor of abortion rights in Roe v. Wade in 1973. Now, five have reversed that same ruling. A post-Roe America will kick the issue back to the states, where 13 have “trigger laws” that will automatically ban abortions now that the overturning has occurred. Another 10 are likely to pass new bans of their own.

The human cost and impact on women will be considerable. Women who have abortions could be tried for murder in some states. Increases in dangerous back-alley abortions will lead to double digit increases in maternal mortality. Forced births will further impoverish already low-income women, especially considering that the deep red states where abortion will be banned also tend to have the least robust social safety nets. And children born of unintended pregnancies have been shown to be less likely to succeed in school, more likely to be delinquent, more likely to live in poverty or require public assistance, and more likely to engage in criminal behavior. Family planning is essential for families to thrive — and most Americans agree. A recent CNN poll found that nearly seven in ten Americans opposed completely striking down Roe v. Wade, including 65% of independents. A Wall Street Journal poll found that 55% of voters wanted abortion to be legal in all or most cases, with only 30% saying it should be restricted, and a mere 11% favoring an unconditional ban.

It’s fitting that this latest far-right triumph is resoundingly unpopular, because since when have Republicans cared about public opinion? They have only won the presidential popular vote once in the past 34 years. Their relevance as a national political party relies almost entirely on the constitutional anti-majoritarian checks of the electoral college and US Senate, without which they would practically be forced to disband. Even with this massive advantage, they still struggle to win, resorting in 2020 to a naked attempt to steal an election by force. Does this sound to you like a party in touch with the general public? Or does it call to mind a party that has increasingly gone insane every bit as much, if not more, than the left?

Former George W. Bush speechwriter David Frum wrote in 2018, “If conservatives become convinced that they cannot win democratically, they will not abandon conservatism. They will reject democracy.” He was half right. The political right has rejected democracy, but they have abandoned conservatism, too, in favor of right-wing populism. To be a conservative is to protect our institutions, and none is more sacred than democracy itself. This is conservative bedrock. To deny that the right has gotten more extreme is an act of willful blindness.

With Roe knocked down, there are grounds for genuine concern that marriage equality may be docketed for the chopping block next. Like Roe, same-sex marriage is remarkably popular, climbing to a record-high 70% approval in 2021, up from 27% in 1996 — an incredible achievement in these polarized times.

In the leaked draft opinion, Associate Justice Samuel Alito, a GOP appointee, invokes Lawrence v. Texas (2003), which ruled that criminal punishment for sodomy was unconstitutional, and Obergefell v. Hodges (2015), which legalized same-sex marriage. He argues against the use of such cases as valid “Attempts to justify abortion through appeals to a broader right to autonomy” (p. 32). Like abortion, Alito goes on to say, “None of these rights have any claim to being deeply rooted in history.” History, it seems, is very important to Alito, such as where he quotes Sir Matthew Hale (p. 17) to bolster his case, a 17th-century Puritan witch trial judge who sentenced two women to death for witchcraft and wrote a landmark ruling defending marital rape that influenced the law for centuries. Alito later insists that “Our decision concerns the constitutional right to abortion and no other right. Nothing in this opinion should be understood to cast doubt on precedents that do not concern abortion” (p. 62).

Of course, few expect the overturning of Roe v. Wade, in itself, to immediately repeal any other rights. Rather, the fears concern a potential domino effect, where a majority Christian conservative high court, emboldened by their success, will attack other rulings opposed by the religious right as well. Justice Alito was one of four dissenters to Obergefell, three of whom still serve. In 2020, Justices Alito and Thomas wrote that Obergefell endorses “A novel constitutional right over the religious liberty interests explicitly protected in the First Amendment”, referring to any civil servant who would refuse to issue a marriage license to a same-sex couple on religious grounds. They went on to say that “Obergefell will continue to have ruinous consequences for religious liberty.” Of course, by “religious liberty”, they don’t mean the liberty to peacefully practice one’s own religion, but the liberty to shove it down other people’s throats while taking their liberties away.

Unlike in 2015, Republican SCOTUS appointees now enjoy a commanding 6-3 majority. The Supreme Court had five votes to overturn abortion rights. Are there five votes to overturn marriage equality, too? It’s a real possibility. With the hard-right flank and their unhinged activist class firmly in the driver seat of what passes for the conservative movement these days, there is no reason to suppose that they’ll stop at abortion. As the recent flare up of absurd “groomer” discourse has shown, Republicans may have gotten quieter about their homophobia, but it’s very much alive and well.

As the cancers of postmodernism and critical theory colonize the minds of the left, the right, for all their claims of opposition, have internalized the same pernicious teachings: that there is no such thing as truth, and our democracy is a farce — there is only power. Or, as Donald Trump would put it: “Winning!” There are no more principles. Politics is now waged like total war, where the only object is destroying your enemy by any means and at all costs. The right have sold their souls in a Faustian suicide pact to “own the libs”. But hating wokeness is not a worldview. Drinking your enemy’s tears is not a governing philosophy. And wielding political cudgels is not democracy. If you have no regard for public opinion, persuasion, consistency, or liberal values; when all you’re after is grabbing the power to crush your opponents, you’re simply doing the Republican version of Critical Social Justice.

The maintenance of a free society is not easy. Our institutions are flawed. And while the far-left and right purport to be one another’s arch nemeses, they share the same myopic instincts to trash norms and set terrible precedents in exchange for short-term victories. It doesn’t have to be this way.

To break this spiral of illiberal tribalism, one area of focus should be party primaries, which have contributed to polarization by giving the fringes outsized representation. Only about 60% of eligible voters turn out for presidential general elections, and 40% for midterms. Primary turnout is even lower than midterms, in some places dropping into single digits, and tends to attract the most hyper-partisans. Reforms such as open primaries, where any registered voter can participate regardless of affiliation, and ranked-choice voting, where voters can rank their top several choices, would diversify and grow the voter pool while also discouraging extremism. Potentially, the universal adoption of ranked-choice voting for all elections might obviate the need for primaries altogether, eliminating their bad incentives while also blessedly shortening election seasons. Living through a permanent election cycle is deranging politics.

In the meantime, striking down Roe v. Wade will have wide-spanning effects, not just for women, but for future elections. Democrats have been handed a potent rallying cry for years to come. You can take away a woman’s right to choose, at least in certain states, but you cannot take away her right to choose at the ballot box. In the fullness of time, Republicans will come to regret the cost of their extremism, if not morally, then politically, as we have already seen in the 2022 midterm elections. The flames of a burning bridge may be dazzling and thrilling in the moment, until you’re sitting amid the ashes, alone and cut off.

Published May 11, 2022
Updated Nov 23, 2022