• assassin_aragorn@lemmy.world
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    9 months ago

    The President does not have the power to codify abortion rights. That power lies with Congress. And I believe I’ve previously explained why Democrats were unable to do that. They had a 60 vote majority for all of a few months, and you had Democrats more conservative than Manchin in those days.

    It’s kind of funny in a sense. The two parties were much more similar in the 2000s. Clinton’s third way in the 90s allowed Democrats to win, but at the cost of becoming more conservative. They’ve since diverged significantly. Abortion didn’t used to be nearly as partisan.

    I think people really underestimate how badly Reagan fucked up the country. His era led to conservative dominance in US society, that’s only recently started to be torn away. Society has moved much more to the left since 2010. Another way to look at this – Sanders wouldn’t have gotten the support he did in the 2000s or earlier. His message has only recently resonated with American society.