Here's What You Don't Do

 

“Joe Biden’s goal in responding to Dobbs is not to satisfy some activists who have been consistently out of step with the mainstream of the Democratic Party.” - @WHCommsDir

A deep dive on Biden’s response to Roe w/ @AshleyRParker + @yabutaleb7 https://t.co/7Bs9KIRo1x

— Tyler Pager (@tylerpager) July 9, 2022

“Joe Biden’s goal in responding to Dobbs is not to satisfy some activists who have been consistently out of step with the mainstream of the Democratic Party. It’s to deliver help to women who are in danger and assemble a broad-based coalition to defend a woman’s right to choose now, just as he assembled such a coalition to win during the 2020 campaign,” she said. 

While many exasperated Democrats and activists argue the administration could do much more, others say they understand the White House view that its options are limited and that most major steps would need to come from Congress or the states.

 Emphasis mine. Points to Bedingfield for expressing that the Biden Administration wants to do what is useful and necessary and means to help pregnant people who are in jeopardy of losing their rights right now, but how in the hell do you detract from the activists who have been in the trenches doing the work? 

Here's what you don't do--detract from the people you should want to be your biggest supporters. Bag on the indefatigable and beleaguered people who put your guy in office. I am dead serious. I completely understand the straddle that the Biden Administration comms is trying to make, and it is not worth splitting your pants over. More people approve of the protection of pregnant people and the right to bodily autonomy we had under Roe than currently approve of the SCOTUS, Congress, or even the White House. Why not embrace it? Instead of being the champion of the worst case scenario (the ten year old who had to leave her state), why not champion the basic right itself? As is. As needed and wanted by the many people who experience pregnancies, and should not have to beg, explain, or wheedle for their lives. 

I truly believe that the Biden Administration wants to do the right thing, and also wants to control their political message and not seem radical. But wanting human beings to own their own bodies and not be subject to the whims of state is already a not-radical position: it should be the norm! We should not want theocrats to determine how much any human should suffer just for the right to plan their reproductive future. It shouldn't be about suffering at all, but comfort, medical care, and choice. 

I don't know what decade this reticence comes from, but in 2022, fifty years into our having choice, however locally endangered the radical Red State governments tried to make it, we should not be hedging support for everyone's bodily autonomy but embracing it without squeamishness and without judgement. These critical activists aren't the enemy--they are to be listened to because they are doing the work and warned everyone ahead of time this would be on the Administration's plate sooner rather than later. And if the White House was still unprepared, who is to blame for that? 

I'm not trying to kneecap them--I support this Administration I voted for. But they need to not do what the Obama Administration did to piss away the midterms because the stakes have only gotten higher. You want to talk about the coalition? Look at the poll numbers, look at what is genuinely possible, tell the truth, and don't ever, ever show contempt for the people in your corner because you think you have fan capture or whatever.  I am not your fan, I am your client. That's what public service is. So serve.