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Shamelessness is a superpower

AP Photo/Patrick Semansky

The Monica Lewinski scandal was a turning point in the history of the Democrat Party. It was only then that the Democrats fully grasped that they had a superpower if they chose to use it: sheer, utter shamelessness.

It is a superpower that few Republicans can use–Trump can, ironically for the opposite reason that it works for Democrats. Democrats can lie, turn on a dime, commit crimes in public, and use the most ridiculous smears on their opponents without consequence and generally effectively because the MSM backs them up 100%.

Trump can do the same because the MSM relentlessly attacks him whether he is totally innocent of their charges or guilty as sin. In both cases the MSM is the root cause of shamelessness working, because the general public and especially partisans tune out the controversy because it becomes just so much noise.

Bill Clinton lied shamelessly and violated what until that moment was a line in the sand for Democrats: abusing women in the workplace. He got away with it because the Left and the MSM circled the wagons–they lionize him to this day–and Clinton simply refused to exhibit any shame at all. Credible accusations of rape? No biggie. They were trailer trash anyway. Move on.

Trump’s shameless superpower is similar: Republicans hate the Elite and the MSM so much that anybody subjected to so much vitriol simply has to be good, right? No, but we genuinely should defend him because the accusations against him are generally lies. I would prefer not to defend his worst excesses, but often have to given the outsized and often ridiculous accusations leveled against him.

So while shamelessness can be a superpower, generally speaking the Democrats’ shamelessness matter more because it extends beyond personal issues into the most serious moral and political issues. Trump lies about crowd sizes. Democrats lie about killing babies.

During the debate last night Democrats were live-tweeting the event and spewed all sorts of nonsense, but the most shameless one came from Circle-Back Barbie:

No one supports abortion until birth,” says Jen Psaki.

Uh, yeah, right. Except every Democrat in office. Democrats won’t name even one restriction on killing babies in the womb.

Earlier this year Republicans tried to pass the most modest of abortion restrictions: making it illegal to kill a child who was born alive in a botched abortion and requiring that it be given necessary medical treatment.

The Democrats not only said no, but they and the MSM spent countless hours decrying the extremism of those who supported it.

On the House floor, Democratic Representative Suzanne Bonamici called the “born-alive” bill “extremist, dangerous and unnecessary.” She decried the provision for the punishment of up to five years in prison for doctors that refuse to provide healthcare to the abortion victim. Under the bill, an individual who intentionally kills or attempts to kill a child born alive is subject to prosecution for murder.

In the House every Democrat but two voted against the Born Alive abortion bill, with one voting “Yes” and another “Present.”

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-New York, said “the vote made clear Republicans were going to do everything they can to impose a nationwide ban on abortion, detonate reproductive freedom, criminalize abortion care, and impose government mandated pregnancies on the American people. … That’s this week in extreme MAGA Republican-land.”

That is what they say about demanding doctors not kill a child OUTSIDE the womb. The mother wanted it dead, and doctors should be required to deliver a dead baby whatever the means.

Ask Democrats–even Jen Psaki–what restrictions on abortion they do approve of and they will be clear: absolutely none. As you can see in the video everything is about “necessary medical care” and “women and doctors,” and nothing about protecting the life of the child. They are correct that no Democrat wants to SAY they support abortion up until birth–and sometimes after–but they certainly DO support it.

The fallback position is that while they don’t support restrictions on late-term abortions, the fact is that they are quite rare. Katie Couric trotted that out last night.

Notice how every Democrat screams bloody murder if anybody tries to restrict access to those “rare” third-term abortions. If they are rare and nobody supports them then why is there an objection to restricting them? Why is it extreme to ban something that almost never happens and that nobody supports?

Born alive? Kill it!! That is the Democrat position. That isn’t hyperbole. They insist that it is extreme to demand that living children not be killed if the mother wants it done.

Last May I wrote about Warren Hern, a proud late-term abortionist whose business is booming. He begs to differ that nobody supports late-term abortion or that a woman would not choose to kill her healthy child in the womb. He does just that for a living, and is proud to do so.

Circle-Back Barbie can’t claim to be unaware of Hern–this profile was in The Atlantic–liberal must-read stuff–and was widely discussed when it was published for obvious reasons. Hern admits that at least half of the late-term abortions he performs are simply to get rid of the child, and he does sex-selection abortions in the third-trimester as well.

The reasoning? Pregnancy itself is a “life-threatening medical condition” so if a woman wants the baby gone for any reason, it goes.

Democrats keep saying such things never happen, yet they know they do. If they never happened they have no reason to object to making them illegal.

Plenty of evidence suggests that women get late-term abortions for the same reasons they get early abortions: birth control. The pro-life Charlotte Lozier Institute found that both medical literature and late-term abortion providers show most late-term procedures are not performed for “maternal health complications or lethal fetal anomalies discovered late in pregnancy.” That finding corresponds with a pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute study contending most women who seek late-term abortions “are not doing so for reasons of fetal anomaly or life endangerment.”

There is no ignorance on the part of the Democrats or the MSM on these issues. They know exactly what is happening, and support it. Some have enough conscience to be privately disturbed by it, but almost nobody is willing to stand up and declare that the practice is abhorrent and must be stopped. Many support requiring doctors who have moral objections to abortion be taught to perform them.

Democrats get away with this because of their superpower of shamelessness. Circle-Back Barbie and every other Democrat can simply assert “Nobody supports this” when it is an obvious lie. You and I can sputter, point to the evidence, and it simply doesn’t matter. Fact check after fact check out there insists that we are lying.

As frustrating as Donald Trump’s forays into shameless insults and hyperbole are, for the most part they are about silly things like insults and crowd sizes. Almost every shameless act of Trump’s that bugs me is, in the end, about stupid stuff. He lies about his opponents (DeSantis is a globalist RINO? Come on) and preens about stupid stuff. It is bravado. We shrug it off partly because it doesn’t matter that much, and partly because we hate his enemies more and love that they are frustrated.

Democrats? They lie to your face about the most serious issues. They pass the Green New Deal as the “Inflation Reduction Act,” they brag about a roaring economy that isn’t, create racial strife by lying about White Supremacy, and call transing children “life-saving medical care.”

Such things matter. A lot. And in a decent world people who take these positions should have to defend them.

Instead they are allowed to assert bald-faced lies, without shame.

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David Strom 4:40 PM | December 13, 2024
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