If you still doubt whether elections have consequences, this past week’s Supreme Court ruling on a Tennessee statute should clear things up.
In a 6-3 ruling, the high court upheld a state law protecting minors from transgender experimentation that includes puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and in some cases, surgical removal of healthy body parts. In other words, permanent child abuse.
All six of the Republican-appointed justices voted in United States v. Skrmetti to protect children and reject radical transgender ideology. All three Democrat appointees dissented.
Justice Sonia Sotomayor, a Barack Obama appointee and self-described “wise Latina woman,” wrote the main dissent. She was joined by another Obama appointee, Elena Kagan, and Biden appointee Ketanji Brown Jackson.
Justices Kagan and Sotomayor sided with the 5-4 majority in the Obergefell case that created a “right” to same-sex marriage in 2015 in a ruling authored by Republican turncoat Anthony Kennedy. They also dissented in the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Center case in 2022 that overturned Roe v. Wade. They are reliable votes for whatever erodes the moral order while expanding the power of the state in all other areas.
As for Ms. Jackson, whatever else she does, she’ll forever be famous for stating, “I’m not a biologist” when asked the simple question “What is a woman?”
Judging by her stance in the Tennessee case, Ms. Jackson still appears to think there’s no obvious answer.
The point here is that Republicans need to tie Democrats at all levels to the Democratic Party’s radical appointees and policies. Among other things, they need to pin the party tail on the power-mad district federal judges that are even now issuing nationwide injunctions against the Trump agenda.
All too often, Democrats vetted for judgeships and running for office get away with pretending to be moderates. Once in power, they invariably back the Democratic Party’s radical agenda. They need to be exposed for enabling many things that Americans reject.
As we’ve seen over and over, the media are willing accomplices. The coverup of President Joe Biden’s mental decline is exhibit A of their dishonesty, but it permeates everyday political coverage.
For example, the Washington Post ran an article on Thursday entitled, “Three centrist women aim to steer Democratic Party in 2025 elections.”
The featured ladies are Abigail Spanberger, Elissa Slotkin and Mikie Sherrill.
Spanberger, a former congresswoman, is Virginia’s Democrat nominee for governor in the upcoming, off-year November election. She has managed not to sound as zany as, say, New York Democrat Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, but her voting record is far left.
The Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) rates Ms. Spanberger at 4 percent for 2024 and 7 percent lifetime. She sided with Joe Biden and leftists more than 93 percent of the time, voting no on bills curbing illegal immigration, protecting parental rights, and protecting babies who survive abortions.
The GOP nominee, Lt. Gov. Winsome Earle-Sears, should have a field day with this anywhere outside deep-blue northern Virginia.
U.S. Rep. Mikie Sherrill, the Democratic nominee for governor of New Jersey in this year’s election, has a 5 percent lifetime CPAC rating. That’s only 3 points better than Ms. Ocasio-Cortez, who wants to ban cow flatulence to save the planet.
Ms. Sherrill has been in lockstep with congressional leftists, including a vote in January against the “Protection of Women and Girls in Sports Act.”The GOP gubernatorial nominee, former state Assemblyman Jack Ciattarelli, should make Ms. Sherrill’s radical record clear to Garden State voters.
Elissa Slotkin, a Michigan freshman U.S. senator who was chosen to rebut President Trump’s address to Congress, also has a lifetime 5 percent CPAC rating. Ms. Slotkin is a rising star who is preparing a “war plan” for Democrats.
This will entail covering up the dismal Biden record, ignoring the growing list of Trump successes, and pretending that Democrats at the national level have not gone off the ideological deep end, cackling all the way.
The centrist pose works. Presidents Barack Obama and Joe Biden, both of whom governed from the left, campaigned as moderates.
Bill Clinton won in 1992 and in 1996 by aligning with the moderate Democratic Leadership Council. The idea was to stay liberal on social issues while adopting some conservative economic stances.
In the 1990s, the gay movement was very active, but there was no transgender crusade to steer children into irreversible bodily harm and put boys on girls’ sports teams.
The overturning of Roe was years away from unleashing hordes of angry feminists who helped Democrats in 2022 to keep control of the U.S. Senate and blunt GOP gains in the House.
Under Mr. Clinton, there was some bipartisan consensus. Welfare was reformed and the federal budget was last balanced on a yearly basis. Despite media amnesia, much of the credit should go to then-Speaker Newt Gingrich and the Republican House.
A lot of Americans still vote Democrat, saying, “Well, my guy or gal is okay, not like those nuts we read about.”
Republican campaign strategists need to do a better job connecting the dots and exposing the enablers.
Although there are liberal Republicans, the party itself does not worship at the altar of abortion, LGBTQ activism, socialist economics, and open borders.
For their part, Democrat voters need to pressure their party to come back to reality, not just pretend to do so at election time.
This column was first published at the Washington Times.