(LifeSiteNews) — Just a few weeks ago, the 2024 presidential election seemed in the bag for Donald Trump. It was clear to everyone that Joe Biden was not up to the task, regardless of a carefully crafted media campaign to accuse those who pointed this out of “disinformation.” Trump survived an assassination attempt (remember that?) with incredible personal courage, and iconic images of a bloodied Trump fist-pumping to the crowd went briefly viral. A Trump victory seemed not only likely, but certain.
Then, after Biden’s disastrous debate performance made the collective coverup of his decline untenable, the media and the Democratic Party launched a coordinated attack on his candidacy. After hanging on grimly for a few weeks, Biden stepped down as the candidate, and Vice President Kamala Harris – without receiving a single primary vote – was shuffled into place. The media instantaneously stopped talking about Biden’s age and mental state, praised his statesmanship, and pivoted to pushing Kamala.
READ: Tim Walz justified China’s horrific one-child policy and repealed a ban on forced abortion
Despite the fact that Harris has yet to do a single media interview, she is receiving glowing press coverage from the cover of TIME magazine to the pages of the broadsheets. Enthusiasm amongst Democrats has spiked, and the Trump campaign is fumbling the pivot, with the entire election suddenly transformed overnight. Harris is a radical leftist by every measure, but her plan clearly is to attempt to coast to election day without subjecting herself to any intensive scrutiny.
The polls have now reversed, with most pollsters giving Harris a slight edge over Trump rather than vice versa – and suddenly, the margins in key states are extremely tight, sometimes within in the margin of error. If the polls remain close, it is likely that the presidential election will be decided by thousands of votes in several states, just as it was in 2016. Suddenly, it is far more important that every single bloc of GOP/Trump voters actually turns out on November 5 – including social conservatives.
But while most pro-lifers plan to vote the Trump-Vance ticket in November, some have announced their intention to vote third party or to leave the top of the ballot blank. At the GOP convention, social conservatives were not simply excluded from key discussions, they were ambushed, silenced, and pushed off the platform in an incredibly insulting and obviously coordinated way. As Dr. Edward Feser noted recently, many social conservatives are now deeply conflicted about the choice in front of them – and divided on the best political strategy, as well.
READ: ‘Party of death’: Democrats’ convention includes free abortions and vasectomies
“When he was riding high against the frail and failing Joe Biden, Donald Trump and his campaign decided the time was right to throw social conservatives – the base of the modern Republican Party – under the bus,” Princeton professor and pro-lifer Robert George wrote on X on August 16. “The demoralizing effect on that bloc of voters is now being felt.” He’s right. Other pro-lifers, such as evangelical podcaster Allie Beth Stuckey of The Blaze, have been reporting that many in their audience feel that with the Trump campaign’s decision to run from the pro-life movement, there is simply not much difference between the two tickets.
That’s not the case, of course. The Harris-Walz ticket is undoubtedly the most radical pro-abortion presidential ticket in the history of U.S. politics, with both candidates having actively voted for policies that constitute a de facto endorsement of infanticide.
Indeed, while Trump is proving that he was never particularly passionate about the abortion issue, Harris very much is passionate about it – and would undoubtedly use all the powers afforded to her by the presidency to help her friends in the abortion industry and to impose abortion wherever she could. Harris is an incredibly dangerous candidate, full stop.
This provides the Trump-Vance campaign with an opportunity to highlight the extremism of the Harris-Walz ticket and to go on the offensive on the issue of abortion. It is true that the GOP cannot get elected on the pro-life issue alone; but, although they seem to have forgotten this, it is also true that they cannot get elected without pro-lifers.
If this is to be a close election, disaffected social conservatives could make a key difference in states that the Trump-Vance campaign cannot afford to lose. Trump and Vance need to stop running from the issue (Exhibit A: Vanity Fair, August 12: “Vance Claims Trump ‘Couldn’t Hear the Question’ When He Suggested He Was Open to Banning Abortion Pill Mifepristone”) and own it.
For starters, Trump could announce that he supports the pro-life movement in Florida’s upcoming abortion referendum. He has yet to indicate how – or if – he will be voting in that referendum, but he has previously called Florida’s pro-life laws “harsh.” His endorsement of Governor Ron DeSantis’s campaign to preserve Florida’s pro-life laws could make a real difference – as would his support for the other side. It would also shore up the support of a lot of pro-lifers who don’t like what they see right now.
