The "fuck the Dems" mentality ITT could not more perfectly encapsulate why the right was able to succeed at this.
Conservative evangelicals and Republicans have been on the anti-abortion crusade for *50 years*. And across those five decades, did they ever say fuck the GOP? Did they blast both parties as the same? Did they seriously threaten to vote third party or form a new party or not vote at all? Did they say they would flee the country or burn the system down?
No. They spent 50 years mobilizing voters, electing as many anti-abortion Republicans as they could, kicking those who weren't sufficiently anti-abortion out of the party. They played an extremely long game and won it because they never took their eye off the ball: that the key to making policy is winning elections. No politician was too odious to ally with. Donald Trump should've been the most obvious candidate to run away from; instead they pledged their full support to him and had it pay off dividends. Meanwhile, so many progressive and other left-of-center voters basically spend every two years looking for an excuse not to vote.
Voting doesn't not work; it works extremely well! What doesn't work is this constant attitude of trying to take yourself out of the equation. And it's frustrating that so many on the left still can't learn this lesson when the right is teaching it to us all the time.
