However, as is well known, the Catholic bishops made a hard right turn in response to the Supreme Count ruling in Roe v. Wade in 1973 that legalized abortion, but this turn to the right did not stop them from advocating universal health care, even though it did motivate them to make sure that no public funding would go to funding abortions (which I myself do not think is right). As is well known, the Catholic bishops still like to denounce abortion. At the urging of the Catholic bishops, how many Catholics have voted for Republican candidates over the years based on the single issue of abortion?
Yes, of course Krugman is correct when he says, "The lessons learned by Republicans about how to exploit cultural backlash would serve movement conservatives well in future decades, even as the sources of backlash shifted from hippies and crime to abortion and gay marriage" (page 99). However, as a man of conscience, Krugman does not seem to understand how the abortion issue is a matter of conscience for those people who are concerned about abortion.
Because I grew up in Kansas City, Kansas, I myself was not "bowled over" by Thomas Frank's What's the Matter with Kansas (2004), as Krugman says he was (page 177). On the contrary, I thought it was a superficial satirical work, not a book that I would ever be bowled over by or even take seriously.
In Krugman's various comments about the religious right and the Christian right and value voters (pages 161, 190-92, 196, 211-12), he does not seem to acknowledge that these different people are motivated at least in part by matters of conscience, as he himself is motivated at least in part by matters of conscience. By virtue of the title of his book, he has acknowledged that Goldwater invoked his conservative conscience. But how about acknowledging that the religious-type conservative people about whom he is writing in his book are moved and guided by their consciences, even if their consciences strike him as conservative consciences as distinct from his own liberal conscience? Once we recognize and acknowledge the role of conscience in guiding different political positions, then we will have clarified why debate about certain political issues such as abortion will be hard for politicians and columnists and others to undertake. Furthermore, many of antiabortion voters are not motivated by typical Republican interests in big business. For example, many Catholic antiabortion voters, but not all, who vote for Republicans do so as a way to express their antiabortion anguish, which is to say as a way to express their consciences. Just as there are conscientious objectors to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq, so too there are conscientious objectors to legalized abortion.
In the 1968 election, people who were conscientious objectors to the war in Vietnam had no choice but to vote for one candidate or the other who both supported the war in Vietnam. Today conscientious objectors to the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq find themselves faced with two major political parties who refuse to end those wars.
But conscientious objectors to legalized abortion think that the Republican party today will fight to bring legalized abortion to an end, or else to legally limit it. In this way, the conscientious objectors to legalized abortion hope that one major political party today will work in their favor. But are liberals today prepared to mount a defense of legalized abortion? We'll see.
Even so, I agree with Krugman about "movement conservatism's genius at exploiting emotional issues" (page 177). Emotional issues obviously involve emotions or pathos in Aristotle's terminology.
Nevertheless, I want to comment on the following statement that Krugman makes: "What really happened in the sixties was that Republicans learned how to exploit emerging cultural resentments and fears to win elections" (page 82). Resentment and fears would be further examples of emotions or pathos in Aristotle's terminology.
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