Abortion is on the ballot. But so is loyalty to Trump: Will voters connect the dots between policy and party in 2024?

A long-promised Donald Trump statement on abortion has finally been released. As expected, it was vague and pleased few. The former president both bragged about his appointment of three Supreme Court justices who overturned Roe v. Wade, and stopped short of endorsing a national abortion ban, instead pledging to leave the decision up to the states.

While it may anger the faction of his party endorsing a national ban, the statement proves the almost certain Republican Party presidential nominee, as transactional and self-serving as ever, can read the polls and the political winds.

Remember, this is the man with a history of declaring himself “pro-choice,” “pro-life” and in favor of punishing women who seek abortions. I’m not sure what he truly believes, but it’s clear from his dancing around the issue that he knows he could pay a price for the GOP’s anti-abortion rights stance in November.

But maybe dealing in contradictions won’t hurt him and his party as much as Trump believes and Democrats hope.

It may not make perfect sense, but a certain voting pattern has been happening lately. Citizens in red states surprise observers when they lean blue on the issue of reproductive and abortion rights, yet continue to reelect the politicians who support those bans.

Ohio has proven that two things could be true at once: Democrat Tim Ryan, Ohioan through and through, could experience defeat in a 2022 Senate race at the hands of Donald Trump-endorsed Republican J.D. Vance, who just a few years ago was tagged as an elitist leaving behind background and family with his best-selling “Hillbilly Elegy.” This was after calling Trump an “idiot” in 2016.

And those same voters could troop to the ballot box in November 2023 to make sure a right to abortion is enshrined in the state’s constitution — after earlier rejecting a state GOP attempt to make it more difficult to win that right.

Vance was shaken by that result last year, writing “we need to understand why we lost this battle so we can win the war.”

But in spite of the surprise Ohio voters handed Republicans, incumbent Democratic Sen. Sherrod Brown is still facing a tough reelection race in the fall. That’s despite his working-class credibility across the state, a record of accomplishments that have benefited Ohio and endorsements from groups such as the 100,000-member Ohio State Building and Construction Trades Council. Brown criticizes free-trade agreements, even those coming from his own party, when he says they hurt his constituents.

His GOP opponent, wealthy businessman Bernie Moreno, may have no experience and a background many voters are still filling in, but he has something much more important — a Donald Trump endorsement.

In a state that voted for Trump in 2016 and 2020 by a comfortable margin, that may be more than enough. The fact that Ohio voters have proven to be on board with a Democrat’s record and his party’s stand on the issue of reproductive rights is fighting a growing partisan divide that sees a lot less ticket-splitting.

Inside Elections rates both Brown’s race and that of established Montana Sen. Jon Tester, another Democratic incumbent in a red state, as Toss-ups.

Democrats see abortion rights giving them a fighting chance in states they’ve recently seen as lost causes. It wasn’t that long ago (2008 and 2012, in fact) that the party won both Ohio and even, yes, Florida. With an abortion rights initiative on the Sunshine State’s ballot in November, Democrats have even been dreaming of a resurgence in the land of Ron DeSantis and Donald Trump.

It will take more than dreams in a time when party is also identity.

When it comes to political persuasion, why emotion matters

“The Political Brain: The Role of Emotion in Deciding the Fate of the Nation” might have been published in 2007, but its message is as relevant as ever, especially as the 2024 campaign ramps up. Author Drew Westen, a professor of psychology and psychiatry at Emory University, has for 20 years explored the role of emotions in how the brain processes information.

That’s true in life — and in politics. And that explains why Westen has advised or worked as a political consultant for Democratic candidates, progressive and labor organizations and Fortune 500 companies for 20 years. Equal Time speaks to Westen on how a better understanding of the mind and brain translates into more compelling political messaging. Who is doing it right, and who could most use his help right now?

NC Abortion Bill, Senate Budget Talks and AI Concerns

Abortions are banned after 12 weeks following the override of the governor’s veto. The NC Senate announces a $30 billion budget proposal as the nation’s debt ceiling deadline looms. AI concerns in the face of increased warnings. Host Kenia Thompson discusses with Natalie Murdock, NC Senator; La’Meshia Whittington, Executive Director of the Green Majority; and Mary C. Curtis, Roll Call columnist.

Local News Roundup: Break Point proposal in River District; County tax hike probable; No 4-year terms for council; Cooper on statewide tour on abortion veto

Gov. Cooper visits Davidson to talk about his plans to veto the abortion bill on his desk, saying he just needs one Republican member to defect and vote to keep his veto.

City and County officials are considering plans for an international tennis tournament project in the River District, west of the airport. Project Break Point would be a public-private partnership and developers hope it would be the home of the Western and Southern Open.

Mecklenburg County Manager Dena Diorio says additional funds are needed to fund all the county’s proposed projects in the upcoming budget, which means a property tax is likely. The budget will be presented next week.

This week – the Charlotte City Council voted against holding a referendum this year on four-year terms.

We’ll have more information on last week’s story about the hotel and food taxes that Mecklenburg County legislators proposed to be extended.

And the naming rights are up soon at Bank of America Stadium in Charlotte.

Mike Collins and our roundtable of reporters delve into those stories and more, on the Charlotte Talks local news roundup.

GUESTS:

Mary C. Curtis, columnist for Rollcall.com, host of the Rollcall podcast “Equal Time”
Steve Harrison, WFAE’s political reporter
Joe Bruno, WSOC-TV reporter
Shamarria Morrison, WCNC reporter

Charlotte Talks With Mike Collins

Is former battleground North Carolina becoming a Florida clone?

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — North Carolina is a state on the verge. Of what? Well, that depends on whom you ask. Some residents are thrilled that the state seems to be politically falling in line with a bunch of its neighbors to the south, most recently with an abortion bill. Others, particularly those who felt protected in relatively progressive urban bubbles, aren’t happy with the shift and are vocalizing their displeasure.

To back up a bit, in the past few years, the state’s tint could reasonably have been described as a reddish shade of purple. You could see it in its Democratic governor, Roy Cooper, with moderate policies and a calm demeanor that shielded his resolve, and a competing state legislature with a Republican majority big enough to flex its muscles but still subject to a veto when it pushed too far right.

There were the occasional cautionary tales, as in 2016, when then-Republican Gov. Pat McCrory signed the infamous HB2, or as it was nicknamed, the “Bathroom Bill.” It was the state GOP’s response to a Charlotte anti-discrimination ordinance, particularly the part that said people could use the bathroom for the gender with which they identified.

That installment in the ever-present rural vs. urban culture clash attracted the national spotlight as well as late-night comics’ jokes. Both proved harsh.

When concerts — including “The Boss,” Bruce Springsteen — and beloved basketball tournaments were canceled, once-bold politicians backtracked and McCrory lost his reelection race to Cooper, who is now approaching the end of his second term.

But memories are short, especially after the 2022 midterms, when the stars and voters aligned for North Carolina Republicans.

While Democrats did better than expected nationally, Republicans held their own and even made gains in North Carolina. Ted Budd, who as a House member voted against certifying Joe Biden’s 2020 presidential victory, won the U.S. Senate seat of the retiring Richard Burr, one of the seven GOP senators who voted to convict Donald Trump on an impeachment charge of inciting an insurrection.

That’s a philosophical, if not party, change.

In the state General Assembly, Republicans won a veto-proof majority in the state Senate and came one vote short in the House. The state’s Supreme Court changed as well, with a 4-3 Democratic majority shifting to a 5-2 Republican advantage.

When Democratic state Rep. Tricia Cotham, months after her election in a blue district, donned a red dress for her April announcement of a switch to the GOP, any gubernatorial veto became vulnerable to an override.

A word about Cotham: Shocked constituents and folks who knew her when — meaning: all her political life — asked how someone who campaigned with support from those who supported LGBTQ rights, someone who spoke of her own abortion when she stood firm in support of reproductive freedom a few short years ago, who had said, as The Charlotte Observer pointed out, she would “stand up to Republican attacks on our health care” as well as “oppose attacks on our democracy, preserve fundamental voting rights, and ensure all voices are heard” could turn on a dime? Well, she explained, Democrats hurt her feelings; many feeling burned by the bait-and-switch are not quite buying it.

Attention, though, is now focused on a GOP agenda in overdrive, mirroring moves in Ron DeSantis-led Florida, with a few extras.

Why the rush, in a state with registered voters roughly split into thirds among Democrats, Republicans and the unaffiliated, and where elections up and down the ballot are always close?

Because Republicans can.

Will Democrats raise the volume on expressing what they believe in?

Does this mean Democrats don’t have to be afraid anymore?

You know what I mean. Though Democratic politicians and the party itself stand for certain values and policies, sometimes, when they promote and defend them in the public square, well, they do it in a whisper. This is despite the popularity of many of these views, and despite the fact that the folks they are trying to persuade with cautious hedging were never going to vote for them in the first place.

It’s a problem Republicans traditionally have not had. No matter how extreme or unpopular the opinion, you have known exactly where they stand. Hit them with truth or logic, science or math, and you could bet they would double down. And it has worked; bluster and browbeating have the ability to drown out most everything else.

All that may be changing.

Do Abortion Pills Actually Need FDA Approval?

A judge has revoked FDA approval of mifepristone. But the FDA could fight back – in more ways than one.

Last week a federal judge in Texas refuted the FDA approval for mifepristone, a pill used for medication abortions, which would suspend that approval across the country.

But some experts say – plenty of drugs don’t have FDA approval, and are still widely distributed… from baby formula, to multivitamins.

Guest: Rachel Rebouché, dean and James E. Beasley professor of law at the Temple University Beasley School of Law and faculty fellow at the Center for Public Health Law Research.

How do you make a 10-year-old disappear? It’s easier than it should be

I prayed for that 10-year-old child, raped and impregnated by a man who has confessed to the monstrous crime, a young girl who then had to travel from her home state to end that pregnancy.

Then, I prayed for America.

Just when you think things can’t get worse, that human nature couldn’t sink any lower, something happens to prove you wrong, to make you realize that the country is truly broken in ways that each day make the path to healing more difficult to imagine.

It is the case of the girl child who was quickly transformed from flesh and blood human being, used and abused by adults tasked to take care of her, to political cudgel, used and abused by a country that says it cares about its children most of all — and obviously doesn’t mean it.

If you cheered the Supreme Court decision overturning Roe v. Wade, the constitutional protection for those seeking and providing abortions, this is the ultimate nightmare. It’s not the vision of a post-Roe world you want to present to the world, this story of a 10-year-old abandoned by the courts and the country’s health care system, a child many would have forced to bear a child conceived in violence, no matter the physical and emotional costs.

So, does that mean the most extreme foes of abortion rights have started to rethink the wisdom of their plans to enact ever harsher and stricter abortion bans in the states?

Of course not.

Instead, the narrative quickly shifted from stories of the indecisive giving birth and feeling vindicated by the choice forced upon them — to be sure, an occurrence that does happen — to a harsher alternative: Erase a 10-year-old, or worse, turn her into a weapon dreamed up by abortion rights activists and the party whose members overwhelmingly support that right.

For those with blinders on, softening an anti-abortion stance might require compromise, which equals hypocrisy if you sincerely believe life begins at conception — no exceptions allowed. But that kind of compromise simply makes room for the complexity that is real life.

Local News Roundup: Early voting, local public safety conversations, CATS driver shortage and more

Early voting started Thursday in the election for Charlotte mayor and city council. The election was pushed to July from last year because of delayed census data needed to draw new districts. We’ll talk about who is running and how it’s going.

Conversations about safety during large-scale events are top of mind this week for Charlotte-Mecklenburg Police after a deadly Fourthof July parade in Illinois. CMPD officials say they’ll be on high alert for Charlotte’s next big public event, August’s Pride Parade.

In other CMPD news, Chief Johnny Jennings defends and praises actions taken by police during a dangerous high-speed chase this week.

Driver shortages within Charlotte Area Transit System continue to impact travel for Charlotte transit commuters. The shortages have been happening for weeks.

As the heat continues in the Charlotte region, Mecklenburg County activates cooling stations to provide relief to residents.

And Salisbury becomes the backdrop for an upcoming movie.

Mike Collins and our roundtable of reporters talk about those stories and all the week’s top local and regional news.

GUESTS:

Mary C. Curtis, columnist for Rollcall.com, host of the Rollcall podcast “Equal Time”

Joe Bruno, WSOC-TV reporter

Ann Doss Helms, WFAE education reporter

Shamarria Morrison, WCNC reporter

What’s the state of our rights? Stay tuned

The concept of states’ rights has never been pure.

The Confederates who eventually went to war over the right of their states to own men, women and children ditched their reasoning — that what they did was none of the federal government’s business — when the enslaved escaped to states willing to grant these brave human beings their freedom.

Then, it was time for Southern politicians to demand revisions and ever harsher penalties added to existing Fugitive Slave laws that punished those who escaped and anyone who aided them, including offering bounties that ensnared even freed Black citizens (“12 Years a Slave,” true story).

Hypocrisy has always been a feature, not a bug in the American way, especially for those deemed not worthy, not possessing “rights which the white man was bound to respect,” as Supreme Court Chief Justice Roger Taney wrote in the infamous Dred Scott v. Sandford opinion in 1857.

You don’t have to reach back to pre-Civil War days for examples that prove the philosophy of states’ rights can be quite malleable when it interferes with a desired outcome.

A current proposal favored by a Missouri legislator, aimed at a clinic in neighboring Illinois, seems cut from the same cloth. It would allow private citizens to sue anyone who helps a Missouri resident obtain an abortion, including the out-of-state doctor or the person who connected patient to clinic.

Such laws, if approved in Missouri and elsewhere, while unconstitutional on their face and sure to be subject to a slew of lawsuits, could nonetheless serve as chilling warnings for anyone tempted to help a desperate client, friend or family member.