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Originally Posted by The Soup Nazi

Yes; now, since most Unitedstateseans are too dumb (sorry not sorry) to understand the horror that that entails, Democrats need to hammer the abortion issue (don't even call it "reproductive rights", even if it's more accurate) with a hammer bigger than Harley Quinn's. "Issue 1", as it was called in former swing state Ohio, won big time tonight. Motherfucking Republicans love to scare the electorate with bullcrap like "They're gonna take away your guns!"; well, fuckit, let's use scare tactics as well, only about shit that will ACTUALLY HAPPEN if they win.

okay im not into most comic books so i deleted the picture, but here is my small fear with issue 1: that having defanged the matter of forced pregnancies, ohioans might just say case closed and vote for whoever next time. let me explain.

on the marketing side, "reproductive rights" is a better term than "abortion," for 2 reasons.

one is that abortion is an ugly word, nobody is "for abortion" really, i mean, it's always a remedy of last resort, not something anybody enjoys.

second is that due to loss aversion bias, people fight harder when they lose something than to gain something, in spite of the "having nothing left to lose" expression, losers are more pissed off than winners are greedy.

so, LOSING RIGHTS feels worthier of a battle than gaining rights. it's human psychology. it's not good math either, but that's how we are.

so this is my hesitation, that once those rights have been secured, the will to fight in the next round might be lost. the classic "resting on one's laurels." but maybe. we'll see if people are mobilized in a year. here's to a strong continuation.

on the other hand, i am very encouraged by the approval of legalized marijuana. maybe im making crazy extrapolations, but hear me out. while i am no stoner, i think that this signals more relaxed social mores in ohio. a different mindset from angry, moralizing right wing christians.

(of course let's not forget that john boner (eh) is from ohio, and a marijuana lobbyist nowadays, having been an oppositional speaker of the house under obama. well not as bad as the current batch of donkeys. but anyway, maybe he had something to do there in the weed vote.)

but seriously the marijuana policy barometer i see as a big signal of social change there. even if "legal" marijuana is a big corporate move and not a rasta paradise, it does signal a change in the public's mindset. or so i hope. a less angry and less drunk electorate will lean less maga, is my demented hypothesis.