EVERYTHING was going according to plan. Consistent with American political history, and therefore expectation of events’ outcome forever, the Republicans (the party outside the White House) would wipe the floor with the Democrats (the party in the White House) in the 2022 midterms. The groundwork was already observed: an economy on the edge of a recession, if not partway through one; a stubborn supply-chain bottleneck contributing to higher prices for anything and everything; a president whose mein and optics were uninspiring, and at times flat-out dispiriting; and a general malaise hanging over the country, stinking like a burn pit in Iraq. The Dems would pay the price this November, the GOP leadership strategized, and they’d pay it again in 2024.
Well, sometimes, the best laid plans get flattened by reality. The people guiding the electoral destinies of those within the Republican Party know this firsthand, thanks to the seismic Aug. 2 election results from the Pantone-red state of Kansas. In the first test of Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, the U.S. Supreme Court’s let-the-states-decide overturning of Roe v. Wade, the people of Kansas voted by a resounding margin (58-41) not to end the state constitution’s extant protections of a woman’s right to abortion on demand.
Because SCOTUS reversed Roe on June 24, effectively washing its hands of abortion as something worthy of the protections of unifying federal oversight, Kansas voters’ decision to stand pat on its current constitution repudiates the contraction of personal rights approved by Dobbs, the SCOTUS decision that overnight created a patchwork of states whose laws on abortion access literally change from one state borderline to the next. ... Kansas just kicked the partisan rulebook to the curb. ...
Read the full analysis at Daily Kos
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