Same-sex marriage

The Democrats need a new rulebook

From our US edition

Donald Trump’s triumphal return to the White House is the end of more than just the Joe Biden era. Since Bill Clinton’s presidency, Democrats had adhered to a formula they thought unbeatable: They would be socially progressive, economically centrist and staunchly internationalist. Republicans, they thought, had staked their future on demographics that were in decline — whites and the most conservative Christians. Democrats were the party of twenty-first-century America, an ethnically diverse and more secular, or at least religiously liberal, land. What went wrong? When Trump won in 2016, Democrats dismissed it as a fluke.

Democrats

The pro-life problem

From our US edition

The pro-life movement has reason to be grateful to Donald Trump, even as it has reason to feel exasperated as well. For forty-nine years, overturning Roe v. Wade was its highest immediate policy priority. Thanks to Trump’s Supreme Court appointments, pro-lifers achieved their aim. But even in 2016, Trump often distanced himself from the pro-life cause — and now he insists that abortion will remain a question for states to decide, a legalistic argument which doesn’t fit with the principle that human life and the rights that come with personhood begin at conception. His campaign — even Trump himself — issued statements touting his support for “reproductive rights,” usually a euphemism for legal and readily available abortion.

pro-life