A cruel zookeeper once pulled the tail of the tiger and ended up in early retirement. The same fate awaits the GOP if a primary election in Kansas in July 2022 is anything to go by. The puritanical society were caught with their pants down given the ballot included a referendum on abortion in which voters overwhelmingly rejected an amendment that would have stripped away the constitutional right to terminate an unwanted pregnancy. The Supreme Court’s overturning of 50 years of precedent on abortion stirred up a record turnout of angry voters, the majority women, to protect that state’s abortion rights. Given Kansas is a deep-red state, it looks ominous for the anti-abortion party in general elections across America. With the stroke of a pen, half the nation found itself back in the 1950s. Even further symbolically given an Arizona judge reinstated an 1864 Civil War era abortion ban without any exception for rape or incest. Women didn’t have the vote back then but they do now, and surveys show they are cocked and loaded to storm the polling stations waving “My Body, My Right” placards (ironically, anti-abortionists opposed to the Covid-19 lockdown laws were waving the same placards).
So, how will a post-Roe world impact the Loveless Age, especially if access to birth control is also banned? Given most anti-abortionists believe that life begins at conception, for many that means life begins at the candlelight dinner, the date flowers the metaphorical casket flowers on her career such is the traditionalist's confidence in the Platinum Amex overcoming Eros resistance (ahem, in lieu of animal magnetism). Meanwhile, Eros is trying to figure out if he is a stayer or a player. Word has it, whether real or imagined, that post-Roe has enabled the perverse kind of “player”. Given the browning of America amid vanishing whiteness, what ego-tragic “player” wouldn’t consider himself an all-American ‘white hero’ playing the field knocking up as many women as possible? Especially when MAGA types become heroes in the most perverse of ways, such as an armed white man who drives interstate to a Black Lives Matter protest - ostensibly to protect property – kills two (ostensibly in self-defence), and is proclaimed a hero! AND, furthermore, is invited to the Trump White House and on Fox as a celebrated guest! The name of a perversely comical movie springs to mind: It’s A Mad Mad World.
But it turns out a mad mad Loveless World as more young men in anti-abortion states find themselves joining the “incel” club (involuntary celibacy). And these days that would be a large number given data two years into the Trump presidency showed that 51 percent of Americans aged 18 to 34 said they did not have a steady romantic partner. Meanwhile, banning access to safe and legal abortion essentially hikes up the price of casual sex for women; hence they forgo it and wait patiently for Mr. Right to happen along. Hmm, just like the 1950s actually but with more eroticism on display to stir the loins (cosmetic enhancements, tight tank tops, internet porn) – Trumpism’s “glorious past” returneth to haunt the future. But the real haunting bit is the scarcity of women. According to a survey, more than half of women between the ages of 18 and 44 said they would not apply for jobs in a state that banned abortion (by extension, firms that employ lots of women will be reluctant to set up business in abortion states). A poll by Ms Magazine found 44 percent of women have either considered moving or are making plans to move to a state where abortion is protected while an Axios poll found two out of three 18-29 year-olds consider a state’s abortion laws when deciding where to live. A NBC poll offered this dramatic statistic: 1 in 3 students would change schools if they were in an anti-choice state. Foreign women, such as much-needed healthcare workers, were steering clear of abortion states given this Financial Times headline ‘US states’ LGBT and abortion policies prompt concern among overseas workers. Shoot, all up, not only is healthcare a concern, but also the misogynist culture perceived running rampant in an anti-abortion state.
So, what is a forlorn “Robinson Crusoe” to do? Well, he could always go to the polls and vote out anti-abortion politicians, most of whom are male, pale and - let’s face it – stale relics from the 1950s. In other words, baby-boomers (and older) from a puritanical era who pass draconian mating laws for frisky young people a third their age. But, of course, not all baby-boomers are beige relics of a Billy Graham sermon. The boomer counter-culture movement of the 1960s showed that this generation had split into two ideological halves. Ultimately, one half culminated in Donald Trump being elected US President in 2016 while the other half elected Joe Biden four years later. Given both men belonged to the baby-boomer generation (the older Biden may have missed the cut by a few years but in this post he is deemed an honorary ‘boomer’), the next post - Boomer split at the revolutionary cusp –outlines the history that produced two vastly different presidents, including their supporters.