Republican strategists are exploring a shift away from “pro-life” messaging on abortion after consistent Election Day losses for the GOP when reproductive rights were on the ballot.
At a closed-door meeting of Senate Republicans this week, the head of a super PAC closely aligned with Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., presented poll results that suggested voters are reacting differently to commonly used terms like “pro-life” and “pro-choice” in the wake of last year’s Supreme Court decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, said several senators who were in the room.
The polling, which NBC News has not independently reviewed, was made available to senators Wednesday by former McConnell aide Steven Law and showed that “pro-life” no longer resonated with voters.
“What intrigued me the most about the results was that ‘pro-choice’ and ‘pro-life’ means something different now, that people see being pro-life as being against all abortions … at all levels,” Sen. Kevin Cramer, R-N.D., said in an interview Thursday.
Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., said the polling made it clear to him that more specificity is needed in talking about abortion.
“Many voters think [‘pro-life’] means you’re for no exceptions in favor of abortion ever, ever, and ‘pro-choice’ now can mean any number of things. So the conversation was mostly oriented around how voters think of those labels, that they’ve shifted. So if you’re going to talk about the issue, you need to be specific,” Hawley said Thursday.
“Pro-Life” is the best branding in the history of branding. If you’ve screwed that up there’s no where else to go.
Especially since in reality they are pro-birth only, they don’t care about providing adequate pre-natal care to all pregnant women, they don’t believe that safe birth conditions are a basic right, and they lose all the interest in the kids’ well being as soon as they are out.
It’s almost like they are only doing it to control women or something. /s
“Boy, these conservatives are really something, aren’t they? They’re all in favor of the unborn. They will do anything for the unborn. But once you’re born, you’re on your own. Pro-life conservatives are obsessed with the fetus from conception to nine months. After that, they don’t want to know about you. They don’t want to hear from you. No nothing. No neonatal care, no day care, no head start, no school lunch, no food stamps, no welfare, no nothing. If you’re preborn, you’re fine; if you’re preschool, you’re fucked.”
― George CarlinIronically, they don’t care about the life after it’s birthed. Do they support free breakfast and lunch at public schools? Hell no they don’t.
I’ve just been calling it anti-choice.
This is the first time I’m confused by the sarcasm tag….
Is the tag itself the sarcastic bit?
The sarcasm is that they’re pretending to not know/just be coming to the realization that conservatives are misogynistic hypocrites.
It reminds me of subways five dollar footlong. They made a slogan so piecing and effective that they can’t escape it. Every time I go to subway I notice how much more a sub costs than the five dollars it used to be and every time I hear “pro-life” I think of a very “particular” kind of person.
How about “anti choice?”…? “Anti -women.” ?
Or maybe “theist zealots”?
“Asshole” seems too generic.
“Anti” sounds so negative though. How about “pro forced birth”?
“Forced Birthers”
“Pro forced birth” is much more accurate. If they were truly pro-life they would champion universal healthcare that included at the minimum abortions when the woman’s life is in danger and when the fetus couldn’t possibly survive.
They don’t care about women at all, only controlling them.
what will actually happen is they’ll rebrand 6 week abortions to “near birth abortions” and 0-6 week abortions as “medically unnecessary abortions” and then say “we only want to ban near-birth and medically unnecessary abortions”
Many voters think [‘pro-life’] means you’re for no exceptions in favor of abortion ever
Remember that scene from The Boys where Stormfront said:
People love what I have to say, they just hate the word Nazi. That’s all.
Now why would a party that bans abortion with no exceptions in many states, even to the point of banning abortions after a raped 10-year-old got one in a state because she couldn’t get one in hers, not be thought of as “pro-life”?
Yeah, they never were really into pro life, were they? It’s more about neo-slavery:
- Ensure less fortunate people end up so overburdened with financial trouble that they desperately take a pittance from “job creators” with a smile.
- Cult-of-personality the shit out of idiot billionaires so that people overlook their evils for moment-to-moment trivialities and hot takes.
- Make up culture war bullshit to ensure the fighters end up just expending their angst on the other less fortunate people rather of those who actually manufacture their hardships.
Very few people seem to recognize all the divide and conquer tactics that are constantly used on us.
Yes the specific marketing term for it is what people aren’t resonating with. That must be what is wrong.
Yes. In Republican eyes what you said is literally correct.
The long-term goal of Republican leadership is to ban all abortion from the moment of conception, ban all hormonal birth control (because it can prevent implantation of a fertilized embryo and therefore cause abortion), and return the question of whether to ban condoms and other barrier methods to the states.
Republican leadership realizes the American people don’t support a complete abortion ban.
Republican leadership believes the American people are wrong and it’s their responsibility, as Christian leaders, to protect the innocent children of America and impose a complete abortion ban anyway.
And Republican leaders know if they go hood off and call for a complete abortion ban they’ll lose power in the backlash and abortion will become even more normalized.
So they’re gradually restricting abortion rights while heavily pushing right-wing propaganda to children and teenagers - fucking PragerU is partnering with the Florida and Oklahoma Departments of Education to produce videos for school children, did you know that? - in order to shift the cultural consensus away from abortion is a right and towards abortion is a sin so that future generations of Republican leaders can complete their work and impose a total abortion ban.
So, yes, the Republican leadership is very much aware that what they need is marketing. They know abortion bans are unpopular. They’re walking a fine line, trying to work towards a highly unpopular policy goal while still protecting their legislative control of Congress and the states, knowing their control of government would be at risk if the American people realized their actual policy goal.
And so you have Republicans talking about “pro-baby policies” now. Because who doesn’t love babies? That sounds like WIC and infant nutrition programs and daycare and better neonatal care and all those good things that Democrats support. Hard to tell that the Republican is actually talking about forcing women to give birth to babies dead in the womb and babies with fetal defects incompatible with life, but that’s the state of the national dialogue in the year of our Lord 2023.
deleted by creator
Right?!?! Couldn’t be the policies.
This feels like 10 years ago when people said gops have a presentation or communication problem. Fox was all like “people just aren’t understanding what the republicans have to say” but the whole time is obvious that their message was clear, just fucking awful.
but the whole time is obvious that their message was clear, just fucking awful.
Yeah, that’s the communication problem. They don’t want the message to be clear.
They have a marketing problem that they’re trying to fix. They’re not trying to fix their stance on abortion. It’s the same shit, just trying to make it sound not as extreme.
It’s just that they’ve been messaging wizards for so long, that they think they can message their way out of this one.
“How can we trick the voters into thinking we’re less shitty than we know we really are?”
“Many voters think [‘pro-life’] means you’re for no exceptions in favor of abortion ever, ever”
But, that’s true… Every GOP state legislature has passed bills without exceptions.
So their argument is what exactly?
They argument is “We are evil, but we don’t want to sound evil - it limits recruitments”
“Anti-Women”? Because that’s what Republicans are…
Call it what it is, Anti-choice
Proof once again that Republicans don’t stand for anything.
“Republicans” never gave two shits about abortion. It was always a wedge issue that whipped the evangelicals into a frenzy and got their preachers to stump for Republican candidates from the pulpit, and drove them to the polls.
The problem is, if they legit want to go “Pro-Baby” then they have to explain this:
But I guess nobody ever forced them to explain how they could be Pro-Life but also Pro-Death Penalty…
“Freedom Fries!”
Oh wait. That ones already taken.
That made me so mad. How fucking stupid.
How fucking stupid
Republicans know how to market to their Base.
It would have made more sense to try to rename them Belgian Fries, since that’s where the dish originated.
Republicans don’t need accuracy. We’re lucky they didn’t try to call them Jesus fries.
