JULY 6, 2018, KEIZERTIMES, vAGE A3
KeizerOpinion
KEIZERTIMES.COM
Moral implications
By MICHAEL GERSON
With President Trump’s forthcom-
ing nomination of a Supreme Court
justice likely to rally and unify the
Republican coalition, some commen-
tators are (again) declaring the end
of Never Trump conservatism. “On
issue after issue,” says the Ethics and
Public Policy Center’s Henry Olsen,
the Never Trumpers “are in the mi-
nority of their own party.” According
to Emerald Robinson, writing in the
American Spectator, they
are “preposterously out of
touch.” Robinson points
to the passing of colum-
nist Charles Krautham-
mer as an indication that
“the eclipse of the neo-
con intellectuals is com-
plete.” Nothing like danc-
ing on the fresh soil of a
giant’s grave.
It is diffi cult to deny Trump’s
strength in the base of the Republican
Party, evidenced by the degree of po-
litical intimidation felt by many elect-
ed Republicans. But the most interest-
ing and important questions remain: Is
Trumpism a compelling ideological
basis for the Republican Party going
forward? Is it really the wave of the
political future?
It should give the advocates of
Trumpism—defi ned by some mix
of protectionism, nativism and bitter
resentment of elites—pause that the
strongest advocates of the creed are
some of the most frightening fi gures
in American politics. I am not nec-
essarily referring to the politicians
Trump chooses to endorse in prima-
ries -- given that the president’s favor
is more based on loyalty than ideol-
ogy. I am talking about that subset
of Republicans who take the ideals
of Trumpism most seriously. People
like West Virginia Senate candidate
Don Blankenship, who, before los-
ing the primary, ran ads highlighting
the Taiwanese heritage of Majority
Leader Mitch McConnell’s wife. Or
Iowa Rep. Steven King, who argues,
“We can’t restore our civilization with
somebody else’s babies.” Or Arizona
Senate candidate and former Sheriff
Joseph Arpaio, known for extreme
ethnic profi ling, terror raids, and cruel
and unusual punishment. Or Virginia
Senate candidate Corey Stewart, who
has associated with white supremacists
and thrown his state party into tur-
moil.
The phenomenon of Republican
extremism is hardly new. At the height
of the tea-party movement, the GOP
had candidate fi tness crises in Nevada,
Delaware, Colorado, Missouri and
Indiana. But two things are now dif-
ferent. First, the GOP establishment is
weaker than at any time I can remem-
ber. Second, the rhetoric of Trumpism
is more explicitly racial than at any
time I can remember.
For a party at its height of infl u-
ence, Republicans remain in a tenu-
ous position at the national level be-
cause of Trump. They lost the popular
vote count by nearly 3 million in the
2016 presidential election, and Trump
has done almost nothing to expand
his appeal. Long-term demographic
trends are running against the GOP,
with the non-Hispanic white popu-
lation declining from 76 percent to
63 percent over the last two
decades and the country on
track to be majority minor-
ity by 2045.
Some Trumpites are bru-
tally honest about the politi-
cal challenge in this environ-
ment. “I believe that white
voters will begin voting for
Republicans in larger num-
bers than they do now,” says Thomas
O’Malley in the American Thinker.
The political challenge for the GOP,
in the meantime, is to “seriously re-
duce immigration and encourage
population growth within the coun-
try.” Which clearly means population
growth in that portion of the country
with less melanin.
The problem? Trump already won
the white vote by more than 20 per-
centage points in 2016. So how does
the GOP rack up even greater white
support? If Trump’s political strategy
is any indication, this will involve a
relentless emphasis on race and im-
migration -- on kneeling black ath-
letes, on immigrants who “infest” our
country, and on Muslims who are tar-
geted for suspicion.
A strategy of feeding white back-
lash against a multicultural future
worked for Trump—barely—in 2016.
Will it work for Republicans in 2018
and 2020? Perhaps, if Democrats
move precipitously to the left. But in
the longer run, will Trumpism appeal
to millennials (who now consistently
give Trump around a 25 percent ap-
proval rating)? Will it work with sub-
urban women?
And what are the moral implica-
tions of a political strategy that em-
ploys racial and ethnic antagonism as a
motivating factor? Is this really the set
of values that Republican leaders want
their children to absorb? Will conser-
vatives so easily abandon conservatism
for white identity politics? It is an ap-
proach to public life that will indelibly
stain all who employ it—and all who
excuse it.
“This is the question for Repub-
licans going forward,” Amy Walter
of The Cook Political Report told me,
“Will the GOP be defi ned not just as
the party of Trump but as the party
that’s hostile to non-whites?” And
what if there is no difference?
michael
gerson
(Washington vost Writers Group)
Who is independent voice on SCOTUS?
By DEBRA J. SAUNDERS
As Justice Anthony Kennedy pre-
pares to retire, all eyes in Washing-
ton will be on the battle to confi rm
whomever President Donald Trump
nominates.
Prepare for warnings by Senate
Democrats that the new nominee
will not be suffi ciently “independent,”
as Senate Minority Leader Chuck
Schumer, D-N.Y., and others said last
year of now Justice Neil Gorsuch.
An appointee of President Ron-
ald Reagan, Kennedy was reliably
independent, the famous swing vote
who at times stood with the four fel-
low justices appointed by Republican
presidents and at others with the four
appointed by Democrats.
On the high-profi le political de-
cisions, the four justices appointed
by Democrats pretty much can be
counted on to vote as one. Indepen-
dent? No, they’re too high-minded to
deviate.
Even when it comes to free speech.
Wednesday the court issued an
opinion by Justice Clarence Thomas
that ruled against the Freedom, Ac-
countability, Comprehensive Care
and Transparency Act, a California
state law that required anti-abortion
pregnancy clinics to post information
about where women can fi nd free or
low-cost services, including abortion.
The 2015 California law violated
freedom of speech as protected in the
First Amendment, Thomas opined, as
it forced individuals with deeply held
beliefs against abortion to promote
the procedure by posting a “govern-
ment-scripted” speech.
The legislation should be as offen-
sive to free speech fans as a law re-
quiring that abortion clinics distribute
anti-abortion material. And yet four
justices dissented with the decision in
NIFLA v. Becerra. They are Stephen
Breyer and Ruth Bader Ginsburg,
who were nominated by President
Bill Clinton, as well as Sonia Sotomay-
or and Elena Kagan, who were nomi-
nated by President Barack Obama.
The California law is the sort of
legislation that states pass when they
are heavily weighted to one side and
want to use that weight to force their
views on others, even after they’ve
won the day.
Abortion is legal and readily avail-
able in California. According to the
Guttmacher Institute, “California does
not have any of the major types of
abortion restrictions -- such as wait-
ing periods, mandated parental in-
volvement or limitations on publicly
funded abortions -- often found in
other states.”
So with no legal or fi nancial hur-
dles facing women who want to ter-
minate their pregnancies, what do
abortion-rights advocates do? They go
after people who disagree with them.
They argue that abortion opponents
mislead pregnant women and that
pregnant women don’t realize what
type of clinic they have visited. And
they pass a law that requires abortion
opponents to do their pro-abortion
advertising for them.
Breyer wrote that the California
law cannot be considered “viewpoint
discrimination” because the law is
purely informational. It doesn’t re-
quire that anti-abortion clinics en-
dorse abortions, he argued, but simply
requires that licensed clinics inform
pregnant women about the medical
care available to them and that un-
licensed clinics inform women that
they do not provide medical services.
Breyer compared the California
law to legislation that requires signage
for seat belt use, the location of stair-
ways and garbage collection.
Writing for the majority, Thomas
chided the Ninth Circuit Court of
Appeals, which upheld the FACT Act
on the dubious grounds that it ap-
plied to “professional speech” -- as the
court never has recognized political
speech as less worthy of protection.
As for the law’s alleged goal of in-
forming the public, Thomas wrote, the
state could wage a public information
campaign instead of forcing people
who oppose abortion to advertise it.
Kennedy agreed with Thomas, but
wrote a concurring opinion to address
the insidious issue of “viewpoint dis-
crimination” and “the serious threat
presented when government seeks to
impose its own message in the place
of individual speech, thought and ex-
pression.”
Keep in mind that Kennedy, a de-
vout Catholic, upheld Roe v. Wade in
the 1992 Planned Parenthood v. Casey
ruling and opposed a Texas bill to re-
strict access to abortion in 2016.
But with free speech at stake,
Kennedy continued in his NIFLA v.
Becerra concurrence: “For here the
State requires primarily pro-life preg-
nancy centers to promote the State’s
own preferred message advertising
abortions. This compels individuals to
contradict their most deeply held be-
liefs, beliefs grounded in basic philo-
sophical, ethical, or religious precepts,
or all of these.”
That violation of the First Amend-
ment Kennedy could not abide.
In the coming weeks, you’ll hear
critics charging that Trump’s pick is
not suffi ciently independent, that he’s
no Anthony Kennedy. They do not
ask: Why is there no Anthony Ken-
nedy on the left side of the big bench?
(Creators Syndicate)
A new day for women in Saudi Arabia?
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It was reported recently that Saudi
women are now allowed to drive cars
and can decide where they’ll go with
them. A few Saudi women with the
temerity to drive have actually done
so before now but were stopped and
punished as soon as the authority
there—a religious one—could catch
up with them.
Formerly, Saudi women
were required to have a
husband or any male fam-
ily member to chauffer
them around. This re-
quirement was sometimes
both humorous and scary
as even young boys, who
could barely see over the
dash board, were com-
monly seen at the wheel with a moth-
er or sister sitting frozen in place dur-
ing the ride.
The Saudi prohibition against their
own women did not apply to women
of other nationalities as long as those
foreign women did not drive outside
the “compounds” (the compound in
Dhahran, where we lived, was about 5
miles across) in which most ARAM-
CO employees lived. My wife and I
applied for and held Saudi driver li-
censes while we were there: a bona
fi de Oregon driver’s license suffi ced
to accelerate the deal.
The female driver reform and oth-
er current Saudi reforms have come
about by 32-year old Saudi Crown
Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the
son of current King Salman, the king
apparently having granted his son
and heir considerable fl exibility at
modernizing the country. During the
1980s, while we lived there, the Saudi
religious enforcers banned music in
public places and detained unmarried
men and women for so much as sit-
ting together.
Sticks were used by the Islam po-
lice to beat women who had the te-
merity to display so much as their
hair or face. The habia with veil in
black, covered the entire female body;
meanwhile, the male wears an ankle-
length shirt and headdress all in white,
held in place by a cord circlet that
serves double-duty to hobble a camel
should a Saudi guy park
his camel at the local oasis.
The women bake in black
while the men stay rela-
tively cool in white.
More freedoms for
women have not been
welcomed by the religious
majority there that views
anything from the West as
heretical. Nevertheless, Crown Prince
bin Salman has been shaking things
up in monumental proportions by al-
lowing music concerts, making movie
theaters available, modifying restric-
tions on gender interactions, and,
perhaps most threatening to the ultra-
conservatives and most dangerous of
all to the royal family’s preservation:
lessening the powers of the religious
police.
Mitigating factors in favor of re-
forms is a new era in Saudi Arabia
where lower oil prices and the esca-
lating threat to oil profi ts by renew-
able fuels has provided the Crown
Prince the leverage to push reforms
for a different future from when oil
was discovered there in the early
1930s. The Crown Prince and King
Salman are future-sighted enough to
see that more and more Saudis must
become less reliant on the Kingdom as
provider of jobs, handouts and subsi-
dies. Further, the reforms forecast the
arrival of more Saudi women in the
work force and they will predictably
add to productivity gains and innova-
gene
h.
mcintyre
tions in a new order of things much as
women have done so in the U.S. since
the 1940s and World War II.
The extreme persecution turning
holocaust of Jews by Germany’s Nazi
regime eliminated the participation in
Hitler’s government of tens of thou-
sands of German citizens who may
have greatly contributed to the suc-
cess of that nation’s quest for domi-
nation over Europe. The Saudis have
and continue to persecute tens of
thousands of their citizens who could
make signifi cant contributions to the
success of Saudi Arabia in the modern
day world. What’s referenced is the
second class status of Saudis who are
minority Shia, not majority Sunni.
The Shia in Saudi Arabia make up
about 5 percent of that nation’s people
although they are more than 30 per-
cent of the population in its eastern
province on the Persian Gulf where
Saudi wealth derives. Yes, there have
been uprisings and riots by Shia, most
recently for about 12 months during
2011 and 2012. These occurred main-
ly because the Sunni majority harshly
discriminate against and practice un-
equal treatment of the Shia. The cre-
ation of the two Muslim groups began
with the passing of Mohammed in
632 A.D. and the ensuing—and ever-
lasting—fi ght over who should have
succeeded him.
Since the Saudi royal family wants
a new direction for that country, it
would seem rather obvious that the
kingdom’s self interest would want to
work at fi nding the ways and means to
integrate Shia with Sunni. By doing
so, the royal family would increase that
nation’s wherewithal to succeed on a
world stage less and less dependent on
crude oil. Such a scenario will require
extraordinary effort as change is al-
ways diffi cult.