Ever since they successfully achieved their multidecade quest to overturn Roe v. Wade, Republicans – epitomized by their presidential nominee, Donald Trump – have been in a bit of a bind.

You see, having achieved such a monumental goal, the natural question that pro-life politicians have to answer – not only from their opponents, but from the general public and their own base – is “What’s next?” This is a natural part of human behavior. Humans rarely have a singular goal, actually achieve it, and then stop doing that activity entirely. Even though this may be human nature, politicians often articulate their proposals otherwise, assuring voters that their proposal will be the one solution that will finally fix some problem for good. The problem for them is that voters, often foolishly, believe them.

For all of those years that they spent trying to overturn Roe, many conservative politicians insisted that doing so would simply return the issue back to the states, where it belonged. That was completely accurate. Overturning Roe didn’t make abortion illegal; it just pushed the federal government farther away from regulating it. It didn’t take the government completely out of the equation, though: It didn’t create some libertarian ideal world where all government only lightly regulated the procedure for health and safety reasons. Instead, it allowed states to do whatever they want, and that’s put the Republican Party and their candidates in a bit of a bind.

Every time any state takes any action regarding the issue now, it will cause a fissure within the conservative movement. As an example, look at the Alabama Supreme Court’s ruling on in vitro fertilization treatment and the landmine it planted in the campaigns of Republican candidates all over the country. Or examine Florida’s six-week ban that Trump denounced, which led to a referendum repealing it that Trump seemed to endorse before rapidly backtracking.

The particular problem that Donald Trump has with this issue stems from his inexperience as a candidate and with the conservative movement as a whole. Pro-life activists may be grateful that he installed a conservative Supreme Court and got them the decision they wanted, but with that done, he’s gone back to waffling on the issue. It’s not necessarily that he doesn’t support a complete nationwide abortion ban. Many Republicans don’t, even ones who consider themselves very pro-life. Rather, the issue is that he doesn’t seem to have any definitive view on the topic, and that makes it look like he, and his running mate JD Vance, are winging it on a day-by-day basis.

Meanwhile, his replacement opponent, Vice President Kamala Harris, has made it one of her signature issues. That’s a good strategy for her personally and for the Democrats as a party, since it’s unifying for them. The pro-life wing of the Democratic Party has been gradually dwindling for decades, just like pro-choice Republicans, but since Roe was overturned, it’s been completely obliterated.

For Harris personally, this strategy allows her to distract from other areas where she’s weaker, like on immigration, the economy or specifically stating why she’s different from Biden on the issues. For Democrats as a whole, it’s smart, too, as it motivates voters to vote a straight party ticket up and down the ballot regardless of divisions that may exist within the party on other issues.

All of this could have been avoided if Trump had simply decided on a specific strategy to deal with the issue before he even began to run again. If he’d picked a specific number of weeks at which abortion could be allowed, then he could make it clear that he opposes states that go further. He could also have decided what the next steps now were: further restrictions at the federal level, or increased federal support for single mothers, for instance.

Instead, it appears that he doesn’t have, and never really did have, any clear plan for how to deal with the consequences of his decision. He may think that affords him convenient political flexibility on the issue, but it also enables Democrats to portray him – and other Republicans – as supporting the most extreme proposals. This isn’t an area where voters seem to want flexibility; instead, they want clear answers. At the moment, Harris and the Democrats are providing that, while Trump and Republicans have failed to do so, leaving themselves open to attacks.

Regardless of how one feels about the issue, Harris has pursued the winning strategy here, and it may be a big factor in how she wins this election.

Jim Fossel, a conservative activist from Gardiner, worked for Sen. Susan Collins. He can be contacted at:
jwfossel@gmail.com
Twitter: @jimfossel