Wednesday, November 6, 2024

Part I

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An Election Night for the Ages: It Was a Clear and Convincing Win for the Former President

Well, it was an election night for the ages. Now, just remember, we went into the 2024 national election being told that it was one of the closest races in all of presidential history. Polls, surveys, media pundits, everyone said the race is close. There were indications coming from the Republican camp that they did not believe the race was going to be so close, but they didn’t offer hard data for public consumption. On the other hand, the media seemed to argue that there was a turn in momentum towards the Democratic ticket just in the last days and hours of the campaign. As it turned out, nothing like that was happening at all.

It was a huge night, and it was a huge night for the Republican ticket. It was an historic night for former president Donald J. Trump. He became only the second man in American history to be elected to a second term as President discontinuous with the first term. Thus, he will be both the 45th and the 47th President of the United States. Before you go and look it up, the other president was Grover Cleveland in the 19th century. Let’s just say, it’s been a while.

The election began pretty much as had been predicted. And thus, you had several states including the states of Georgia and North Carolina that were among the seven so-called swing states that we all knew would determine the election. Both of the candidates were aiming for the electoral college count of 270. It looks like former President Trump will exceed that, though the final count is not yet known. What is known is that the predictions of an extremely close race were not correct.

Now, I pointed out at the time and tried to warn us all that even as polls are presented as instruments of, say, scientific measurement, they are actually also weapons of political warfare. Political warfare is particularly hot when you get to the highest office in the land, the most powerful office in the world, and where the expectations gain plays into the political analysis. It’s one of the weapons of political warfare.

But nonetheless, as we now know, it wasn’t close, and as we now know, it didn’t take days, much less weeks in order for the victory of Donald Trump to be understood, basically, in both parties across the line, across media platforms, and, frankly, among anyone who was watching the returns coming in. We go back to those early states that were reporting. But Georgia and North Carolina took some time and perhaps that was accentuated by the fact that both were so much in the national spotlight in terms of the 2024 election. But patterns began to develop pretty early in the counts coming in on Tuesday night.

Now, those patterns had to do with a couple of things. Number one, the pattern, of course, comes down to which states on the map end up red, which ones end up blue. But the pattern is also detectable even before a state is red or blue, and that is because you can measure returns. The analytics are now incredibly deep. Both political parties have access to political returns, election returns, all kinds of demographic data. It became very clear that Donald Trump was showing electoral strength basically all over the map, beyond what he had demonstrated in the 2020 election and, in some cases, beyond what he had demonstrated even in 2016.

In 2016, Donald Trump won the presidency. But he won it in the electoral college. This time, of course, he is going to win the case in the electoral college. He’s going to win that count. That’s determinative. It’s also important and historic that he won the popular vote as well. Even as, a little footnote here, there have been many people who were pointing to this election as demonstrating the strains of the electoral college system, the fact is it worked because it works. All that was demonstrated very clearly last night.

But last night was a big night as people were watching the returns, partly out of the shock of how clearly defined the race became so early. Of course, it’s not just the presidency. We have several Senate races, absolutely crucial races. The big question is, which party will have a majority, and we’ll control the Senate. Now, keep this in mind. Not only did Donald Trump have a big night, he also had considerable coattails. That’s not always the case. Even when you have a pretty big presidential victory, sometimes the coattails, so to speak, within the President’s own party are not so clear. This time it is really clear that the win for Donald Trump in terms of winning another term in the White House is also a win for Republican control in the Senate.

As of right now, we don’t have the final number. But it’s going to be a pretty considerable number. It is beyond what Republicans had hoped. It is beyond what Democrats had feared. As of right now, it is not clear which party will control the House of Representatives, and it may be a matter of hours/days before that picture is absolutely clear.

We also need to understand that as we look at the presidential election, because it does dominate just about everything else, we’ll also today be talking about the votes on the abortion issue in the states. But as we look to the presidential election, it is as big as we think it is because of the importance and the power that is now made, often, I think, improperly centralized, in the President of the United States, which is to say I think this office is stronger than was intended in our constitutional order. But the framers of the Constitution could not envision a nation as big and as powerful and frankly operating at the kind of speed with which the American government has to operate.

But the fact is, that we are looking at the most powerful office in the world. I’m very thankful that it is an elected office. I’m thankful for the clarity that the American people achieved last night through our constitutional system. That clarity is healthy for the Republic. I think the choice, in this case, was also healthy for the Republic, given the alternative. Kamala Harris was an untested candidate. Remember that even as she ran for the Democratic nomination, in 2019, she exited the race before, frankly, even fighting out a single primary or much less winning a single delegate vote. She was basically handed the Democratic presidential nomination when President Joe Biden was effectively shown the door by his own party.

Now, it was about time. The inadequacies and issues related to the president’s health are abundantly clear. But it also became quite clear to the American people that Kamala Harris was not ready to be president. Again, it wasn’t so clear in the polls, but it is certainly clear in the electoral result. It wasn’t just the vice president’s relative inexperience and the fact that, evidently, a majority of voters could not see her as president. It should also, I would argue, be seen as a repudiation for the liberal very progressivist positions that she had held in the past and tried unsuccessfully to mask or confuse in the present. The American voters just didn’t buy it. You can count on the fact that the Democratic Party will be doing a very intense autopsy on the 2024 race, and we’ll talk about that issue when it’s time.

But I just want to remark on former President Donald Trump now President-elect Donald Trump’s victory statement to his supporters last night in Florida. It was a very gracious and, frankly, hope-filled speech. It was exactly what he should have delivered at the time. It was a statement of celebration, but it also reflected the former president’s understanding of the fact that his life had been spared in that assassination attempt that took place months ago. It was a healthy sign that he sees his election, frankly, his life, as a stewardship for which he is responsible and will give an answer.

This is a very rare opportunity granted to any American. It’s only been granted one time before. That is a second term discontinuous from the first term. This is a remarkable opportunity for Donald J. Trump as a man. It’s a remarkable opportunity for a Trump administration. It’s a remarkable stewardship for the American people as well. At the very least, American Christians know this: we need to pray for our nation. We need to pray for our President-elect. We need to pray for a smooth transition as we pray for the health of our nation in light of the challenges of the world. But as these early hours of this Wednesday morning made clear, there are other challenges closer to home to which we must turn.

Part II

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The Future of the Pro-Life Movement is in Trouble: The Pro-Abortion Movement Gathers Major Momentum in At Least 8 States with Abortion on the Ballot

But at this point, I think the most important thing we can talk about is the future of the pro-life movement in the United States because the pro-life movement and the fate of the unborn, the structure of American laws and state constitutions on the issue of abortion, it was on the line in no less than 10 statewide votes. As it turns out, it looks like eight of them are big wins for the pro-abortion movement. Two of them are wins for the pro-life movement. But we really need to take a closer look, especially at Florida.

Let’s start with Florida. What was proposed there as Amendment 4 was a radically pro-abortion amendment. Now, remember that Florida has a ban on abortions after six weeks right now, a very conservative law, a very pro-life law, and the constitutional amendment proposed as Amendment 4 would’ve turned Florida into an extremely liberal state. It basically would’ve established abortion, at least, up until the time that the fetus would be declared viable as something of a fundamental right and thus without restriction. That was going to place Florida in a very pro-abortion category, whereas, right now, it’s in a very clear pro-life category. But it didn’t pass. It did, however, gain a majority.

In Florida, it looks like the vote is something like 57% versus about 43%. Final numbers aren’t in yet, but it is clear, and even the pro-Amendment 4 forces have conceded they’re not going to reach the 60% necessary for an amendment to the Florida Constitution. That’s a win. We’ll hold that thought. It’s a giant win. Even as we’re looking at it as a win for the cause of the sanctity and dignity of human life, I want to say that Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, a Republican governor in that state, deserves huge credit for putting his own personal reputation on the line for becoming personally involved in arguing against Amendment 4 and, frankly, putting his own political future on the line. That was an act of political courage, and it was an effective act of political courage. The pro-life movement owes a very great deal to Florida Governor Ron DeSantis.

The other win for the pro-life movement took place in the state of South Dakota. It was on what was known as Amendment G. Again, it would’ve liberalized abortion rights as they are termed in that state. 36.6% of the voters voted yes. Now, that’s not with all the votes in, but at least with the votes available to us as of the recording of the briefing, 36.6%, yes, 63.4%. No. It looks like those numbers are at least going to hold solid enough that it’s unlikely that Amendment G will go forward in South Dakota.

Now, Florida is a state with a very large population. South Dakota is a state with a very small population. That leaves eight other states. Those states would include Arizona and Missouri, Nebraska, New York, Colorado, Montana, and Nevada. Now, I read all those states in order for you to understand that these include states that would be more liberal and states that would be more conservative, states that would be more red, as in Republican, states that would be more blue as in Democratic. I say that in order to underline the fact that we’re in a very dangerous position. The pro-life movement in the United States needs to realize that we are in big, big trouble. I want to be very clear about what that trouble is, and I want to be equally clear about the fact that we have to meet that with an even greater determination to speak up for and contend for the unborn in the womb.

Let’s just talk about why we are in such a difficult position and what all this means. Well, I’ll tell you what it means. It means that in 2022 when the Supreme Court handed down the Dobbs decision reversing Roe, it turns out that many fewer Americans were actually pro-life, even as many by the millions that indicated previously that they were pro-life in some way. It turns out that it was very easy to say you’re pro-life when the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision was in place, and you didn’t have to pay anything for the price of saying you’re pro-life. But when the social capital begins to become costly, when it becomes personally, maybe even politically and professionally, costly, costly in your neighborhood with your friends to say that you are ready to restrict abortion under just about every circumstance except for the life of the mother, you start speaking honestly in those terms, and guess what? It turns out that Americans weren’t nearly as pro-life as they said, or to put it a different way, far fewer Americans were consistently pro-life when it started to matter, as it did in a big way in 2022.

State measures came up. That’s exactly what was blocked by Roe. So long as Roe was in place as a Supreme Court decision, states had very limited right or power to limit abortion. But once Roe was reversed, that’s what many states began to do. But at the same time, you had efforts in other states, sometimes surprising states like Kansas and Kentucky, in which you had pro-life measures that went down for defeat. You also had pro-abortion forces that began to see and then to seize an opportunity.

As you look at what just happened yesterday, just look at a state like New York, it’s hard to imagine a state more liberal than New York on this issue to begin with. You say, “Well, then why was it moving forward in this kind of a constitutional amendment?” In New York, it’s Constitutional Amendment 1. It’s basically a form of the old ERA, the Equal Rights Amendment, and it is because, on the Left, and when you look at mainstream and elite culture in this country, it is so adamant about sexual autonomy. It is so adamant about a woman’s so-called right to an abortion that it wants to put it in the state constitution because it wants to make it very difficult for any restriction at any time to be put in place by any governmental authority, period. That’s just where we stand.

But that’s the state of New York. It has been very liberal on this issue for a very long time. But what about the state of Missouri? Amendment 3 in Missouri appears to be just about certain to pass likely by something like 53 or 52% to something like 47 or 48%. You look at the state of Missouri. You say, “Well, if it had the same constitutional threshold as Florida, that is 60%, then it wouldn’t have passed.” But guess what? In Missouri, it’s 50%, so it is likely almost assuredly going to pass. You look at that, and you recognize here is a very, very radical constitutional amendment. It looks like a state which isn’t radical, a state which has been voting Republican, a state which I’m glad to say re-elected Senator Josh Hawley to the United States Senate, that same state in a way that’s almost, well, like a split personality. It also turned around and apparently is going to pass Amendment 3, which declares abortion to be a fundamental right.

As I discussed on The Briefing, a fundamental right is a right that stands as something pre-constitutional. A constitution is then supposedly going to recognize this pre-existent right. If fundamental, it means that all limitations on this right have to pass a very high constitutional test in order to pass muster. That really means you’re going to have very few restrictions on abortion in the state of Missouri all the way up until the point of viability. Even that, as we know, is often just treated as a legal fiction, sadly enough.

I mentioned that the language in the Missouri amendment actually opened the door. Senator Hawley and several others pointed this out, including the governor of the state. That language could well be used in court by someone trying to make the case that it applies not only to abortion, horrifyingly enough, but also to, say, a teenager’s claim to a right to gender transition. It’s going to take a while for all of this to settle out. It’s going to take years for all of this to settle out. But you know what? It isn’t going to take any time at all for it to be clarified that the pro-life movement in the United States is in big, big trouble.

As someone who has been fighting for the pro-life cause in the United States for my entire adult lifetime, this is a very sad place to be. At the same time, we do have to understand that we didn’t join this as a cause because we care about abortion as an issue. We joined this as a cause because we believe that the sanctity and dignity of human life is a moral priority. It’s not an issue that we believe in. It is a truth that we recognize and a truth we must defend.

We’re about to find out who are the fair-weather friends of the pro-life movement because they’re going to fly away very quickly when you look at numbers like these. I think that’s just going to be a reality. Those of us in the pro-life movement are going to have to face for some time. I will go further and say this is going to be a true test for Christian institutions, Christian denominations, and Christian congregations because when it comes to something as basic as when human life begins and whether or not we have an absolute responsibility and divine mandate to protect that unborn human life, if you have a split on that, it’s very hard to know how you could handle that within a single congregation, how you could handle that within a single denomination or a Christian institution. We’re talking about life and death here. Let’s just say, that is not an unnatural dividing line.

Part III

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The Job of the Pro-Life Movement is Just Beginning: The 2024 Presidential Election Has Only Further Revealed the Great Battle Over Unborn Life

At this point, I want to just step back from this election a little bit because there are still a lot of figures to be determined, a lot of results and returns to come in, and, no doubt, debates to be had. I just want to talk about the deeper issue. This reminds us that, as Christians, the political reflects something that is prior to the political. To speak in very traditional political language, Christian theological language, the political implies the even greater importance of the pre-political. That’s one of the reasons why Christians say it really doesn’t save things if you have the right, say, national structure or even state structure if you don’t have the right family structure. The family is pre-political. The politics doesn’t create the family. The politics is simply to honor the family as a pre-existent good.

The sanctity of human life, to say the least, is a pre-political affirmation. But once it becomes politics, things get really rough. Once it becomes political, the math becomes very important. Let me just walk you through the math for a moment, and let’s just think about the pro-life movement in the United States. For the better part of the last several decades, the political movement known as the pro-life movement, and it’s moral. It is more than political. But it is political because we’re trying to change the laws. You look at the pro-life movement in the United States, and it has become highly associated with one of the two political parties. That’s just the way things work in a partisan system.

You have one party that says, “We are for this,” and the other party says, “We’re against this.” As you and I both know, the Christian worldview explains why there’s a linkage between these issues. Why? If you tell me what your position on abortion is, I have a pretty good idea of what your position on same-sex marriage is. That’s not a perfect gauge because people aren’t perfectly consistent, but I think people are more consistent than they may even recognize themselves to be.

But as you’re looking at this, you understand that in order to gain election, you’ve got to have about 50% plus one, let’s just say, to make it easy. You’ve got to have some majority. You have to win. That’s the math. You look at a state like Florida, and you say, “Here’s the really, really good news.” The really, really good news is that in Florida Amendment 4 failed. Let’s be thankful that it failed. But it failed because of the 60% threshold. But you know what? Election to the Senate, election to the House, election to political office doesn’t require 60%. It requires either a plurality or a majority depending on the situation. To put it bluntly, you don’t win political office when you accept the fact that something like 57 or 58% consider you on the wrong side.

On an issue like abortion, which has, to use a very technical term that’s very important here, it’s salient. That is to say, people make decisions based upon the issue of abortion, and they prove it in the voting booth. While I just mentioned how tough our job is going to be, not in order that we back off of it, but because we’ve got to lean into it, but we need to lean into it wisely and with our eyes open and, frankly, soberly and with our heart’s understanding. As we contend for the dignity and sanctity of every single human life, we’re going to have to do so in a situation in which we’re going to find an awful lot of people we thought were our political friends trying to renegotiate that issue very, very fast.

Members of the House of Representatives can look at this figure and say, “I got two years to figure out how I’m going to explain this or change my position,” and new people coming into politics, they’re going to say, “Well, this is already something baked into the cake. I’m going to have to create my political identity in such a way that I can get elected.” Even former President Donald Trump, speaking of the 2024 presidential election and the issue of abortion said, “Well, you have to get elected if you’re going to affect change.” Well, you understand how that argument works. It is a matter of math. It represents the scale of the challenge that we will face in the pro-life movement. It’s going to be a challenge of holding people accountable for their position and conviction on the issue of abortion for their votes on abortion, for their words on abortion, especially for their actions on abortion. It’s going to require us to help to build a culture of life in this country knowing that the challenge is massive as it’s set before us.

We’re looking at Americans who really have bought into the idea of personal autonomy, and they have bought into the ideas of the feminist revolution. They bought into ideas of the sexual revolution, to such an extent, they actually, when put under stress, if they’re speaking honestly about how they’re going to vote, they make very clear, “I think abortion needs to be a part of the equation.” And they are voting in just that way. That means to say, we’ve had people look at us straight in the face, ask for our vote, and tell us they are absolutely committed to the cause of defending unborn human life, and I guess the best way to put it is they were until they weren’t.

Now, an honest assessment of our political prospect means that in a fallen world, we have to make some very hard decisions. Sometimes as I say, heading into this election, there are things that are clear that aren’t easy. It isn’t easy to vote for a candidate who has disappointed us. But sometimes, it can be the clear choice. When you are looking at two different alternatives, and especially as you’re looking at a partisan situation, and you’re looking at the United States Senate, you’re looking at a congressional seat. You’re looking at the presidency. At times, you have to try to do as much good as you can and block as much damage as you can. But we have to be incredibly honest about what we’re doing here, and we can never step back from the absolute conviction that our ultimate goal must be to see every single unborn human life treasured, and protected, and welcomed.

Honestly, from a Christian worldview perspective, it seemed that this is the most important issue to discuss with clarity today, even as we’re waiting for other political developments that are absolutely huge, massive, and significant to be determined in the course of this day, and perhaps in days yet to come. And even as we are looking at the prospect, which many of us had hoped for of a change in the presidential administration and having someone more pro-life and more committed to conservative causes, or at least more open to those causes in the White House. The fact is our job isn’t done. Our job is just beginning.

But we also need to recognize that the changed political landscape that has to be on our screen has to do with what goes on in the states because, after all, we’re just talking about the votes in 10 states on abortion. That means that every single state legislative position, this means that every governorship in every state is vitally important as we think about the cause of protecting and honoring the sanctity and dignity of unborn life. You just look at this. You say, “Okay, that means we’ve got to go into the trenches in every legislature. We’ve got to go into the battle for every governor’s mansion and every governor’s desk. We’ve got to go into battle over legislation in every state’s legislative session, as well as every congressional session. We have got to be involved in every congressional election. We have got to be involved in every election for the United States Senate, and, yes, of course, all the way to the President of the United States and the Vice President and all the way through the process of presidential nominations to the courts, ultimately even to the Supreme Court of the United States.”

How’s that for an inspiring word for the day after election day? But you know what? Let’s be honest. The Christian worldview says that there are no ultimate political victories there are. No ultimate political defeats until Jesus comes. Until Jesus comes, we have to be determined that in our own time, we will be found faithful. That is no small challenge. That’s the challenge to which we’re called. We’re called to this challenge together. We’re going to know a lot more about Election 2024 in days ahead, but we already know enough right now to see the scale of the challenge before us. Let’s be determined to get at it.