why did the ruling class do this? i have vague ideas but not sure what is the actually correct analysis
- jesus
republican people with power actually believe the crap they say and/or know their voters do, so they genuinely just dont want abortions to happen because jesus
- class warfare
millennials arent having enough babies to support the labour pool + people with children make for better cogs, since they are less likely to stir shit and cause problems for their employers/landlords as they will feel they have more to risk
- fascist state
hearing stories from people reporting on their neighbours in texas, its about creating a fascist panopticon with people increasingly policing themselves and everyone they interact with across the country, with more things to police about each other to be added in the future
is it one of these, or a mix, or something else, or is it pointless to even search for the "correct" analysis here?
US history is in many ways the story of the capitalist class leveraging white reactionaries to accomplish their objectives. But the hogs can't live on propaganda alone. You gotta feed them every so often. For a while it was ripping land away from the native inhabitants and doling it out like candy to white folks. They don't have any more land to hand out but the capitalists can make still buy the loyalty of white reactionaries with cheap treats, a military force that keeps their white enclaves free of non-white people (i.e. the "police"), and letting them feel like they're a big deal by letting them victories in the social sphere (like abortion).
Yeah, abortion isn't really a complete project on its own.
From what I've read in the past (a long time ago tbf) the whole abortion movement was an astro-turfed effort to capture voters by drawing the line in the sand on an essentially arbitrary issue. Granted it had SOME genuine momentum too in the beginning, but it was mostly catholics who cared. Then it was raised to a national issue via astro-turfing specifically to gain conservative votes. Despite the astro-turf, I'm sure today, many of these ruling class people pushing for it are genuinely pro-life. Seems to me like it went from astro-turf to a genuine movement.
I guess it's not too dissimilar from democrat anti-racist idpol. After 2020 BLM shit, I would bet many dem insiders consider themselves to be genuine anti-racist warriors (who are working within the capitalist electoral system because if you're smart you'll understand that's the only way guys!!)
Neither abortion nor "racial tolerance" really challenges capitalism directly, so it's useful for the whole ruling class that we have a national debate on these things instead of others. Especially because it seems like neither of these debates will ever be won.
The entire modern conservative movement was astroturfed from the getgo. But once right wing Capitalists put enough airtime on these ideas, you end up with a lot of inconvenient true believers...So you have to throw red meat to them every once in a while. But the more you feed them, the stronger they get..