It was never fine. There have been anti-abortionists demonstrating outside Planned Parenthood offices for decades. Planned Parenthood personnel have been harassed, assaulted, and murdered for decades. What changed was that the right, seeking a way to desperately maintain any relevance in a quickly liberalising political environment made deals to fight for the same people who we’d’ve labelled terrorists and criminals. At this same time a dumb ass named Bill Clinton removed the regulations that kept corporations from owning huge swathes of television stations. In addition, Murdoch started Fox News which was born with the only reason to be a propaganda arm of the conservatives. Oh, and then there was the rise of the radio talk show propagandists like Rush Limbaugh, may he suffer eternally in hell. All these worked together to push a more and more extremist conservatism on the masses. They made it seem okay to be hateful and spiteful and mean. They pushed the idea that intelligent people could not be trusted(unless they were conservative and they towed the conservative line). They pushed the idea that empathy was a weakness and that the only person you should care about was yourself.
It didn’t suddenly change, it has always been like this. The problem is the masses on the left tend towards being self absorbed dumbasses blind to what was going on around them - especially the white ones. The white ones thought everything was just fine and dandy because it was for them and they had that one black friend so they totally weren’t a racist. And racism was dead because of that, too. The Democrat Party has, for decades, been a disjointed mess led by people who are only vaguely competent to lead a room of kindergartners. There is one saying I’ve known for decades - “The Democratic Party is the only one who can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.” In addition, hubris on the part of Ruth Bader Ginsberg kept her from retiring when Obama had a majority of Democrats in the Senate. So instead she wound up giving her seat to Trump to fill.
There are so many more things I could list, but won’t because I don’t want to spend all night going over what you’d get in a polisci course about the last 50 years of American politics. There is, however, one last thing I’ll touch on - that every time the Democrats have had a control of the Presidency and Congress, or even a veto proof majority, they never, ever took the time to legalize abortion. Consider that for a moment. This whole mess could have been avoided had the Democrats had the fortitude to do the right thing. They never did. They played just as much a game with women’s bodily autonomy as the GOP did. There’s no side that is innocent in this mess. I am not “both sides”-ing here. They’re both responsible for it in different ways - the Democrats because they valued their seats more than women’s autonomy and wrongly banked on RvW always being there and the Republicans who actively sought(and still seek in many states) to destroy women’s bodily autonomy not because they believe in it, but because it gets them votes.
Back in the 90s, I worked at a car dealer. There was a doctor in town who provided abortion services. He drove a VW Jetta. (Or was it a Passat?) We sold several windshields to that doctor.
It was never fine. There have been anti-abortionists demonstrating outside Planned Parenthood offices for decades. Planned Parenthood personnel have been harassed, assaulted, and murdered for decades. What changed was that the right, seeking a way to desperately maintain any relevance in a quickly liberalising political environment made deals to fight for the same people who we’d’ve labelled terrorists and criminals. At this same time a dumb ass named Bill Clinton removed the regulations that kept corporations from owning huge swathes of television stations. In addition, Murdoch started Fox News which was born with the only reason to be a propaganda arm of the conservatives. Oh, and then there was the rise of the radio talk show propagandists like Rush Limbaugh, may he suffer eternally in hell. All these worked together to push a more and more extremist conservatism on the masses. They made it seem okay to be hateful and spiteful and mean. They pushed the idea that intelligent people could not be trusted(unless they were conservative and they towed the conservative line). They pushed the idea that empathy was a weakness and that the only person you should care about was yourself.
It didn’t suddenly change, it has always been like this. The problem is the masses on the left tend towards being self absorbed dumbasses blind to what was going on around them - especially the white ones. The white ones thought everything was just fine and dandy because it was for them and they had that one black friend so they totally weren’t a racist. And racism was dead because of that, too. The Democrat Party has, for decades, been a disjointed mess led by people who are only vaguely competent to lead a room of kindergartners. There is one saying I’ve known for decades - “The Democratic Party is the only one who can snatch defeat from the jaws of victory.” In addition, hubris on the part of Ruth Bader Ginsberg kept her from retiring when Obama had a majority of Democrats in the Senate. So instead she wound up giving her seat to Trump to fill.
There are so many more things I could list, but won’t because I don’t want to spend all night going over what you’d get in a polisci course about the last 50 years of American politics. There is, however, one last thing I’ll touch on - that every time the Democrats have had a control of the Presidency and Congress, or even a veto proof majority, they never, ever took the time to legalize abortion. Consider that for a moment. This whole mess could have been avoided had the Democrats had the fortitude to do the right thing. They never did. They played just as much a game with women’s bodily autonomy as the GOP did. There’s no side that is innocent in this mess. I am not “both sides”-ing here. They’re both responsible for it in different ways - the Democrats because they valued their seats more than women’s autonomy and wrongly banked on RvW always being there and the Republicans who actively sought(and still seek in many states) to destroy women’s bodily autonomy not because they believe in it, but because it gets them votes.
Quick personal anecdote:
Back in the 90s, I worked at a car dealer. There was a doctor in town who provided abortion services. He drove a VW Jetta. (Or was it a Passat?) We sold several windshields to that doctor.
Very, very, very succinct & accurate.