A backlash to the backlash?

Abortion

I certainly see Kathleen Parker’s logic. She thinks that in so blatantly taking on abortion rights, conservatives have overstepped and will provoke a furious backlash.[1] I can’t tell you she’s wrong.

But if she’s right, it would be a reversal of the trajectory of my entire adult life—I came of age just as Ronald Reagan was about to be elected president—in which conservatism has been ascendant, partly as a backlash to the social movements of the 1960s and 1970s,[2] and increasingly extreme. I’ll believe it when I see it.

Robert Barnes et al., “Supreme Court refuses to block Texas law banning abortions at six weeks,” Washington Post, September 2, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/texas-six-week-abortion-ban/2021/09/01/e53cf372-0a6b-11ec-a6dd-296ba7fb2dce_story.html

Daniela Santamariña, “What abortion policy would look like in the U.S. if Roe v. Wade fell,” Washington Post, September 2, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2021/06/11/abortion-rights-roe-v-wade/

Felicia Sonmez, “Sen. Collins repeatedly asserted that Kavanaugh considered abortion rights settled law. The justice’s decision on Texas’s restrictive law suggests otherwise,” Washington Post, September 2, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/abortion-collins-supreme-court-kavanaugh/2021/09/02/b6de0b98-0bfa-11ec-a6dd-296ba7fb2dce_story.html

Kathleen Parker, “The Supreme Court rides to Biden’s rescue,” Washington Post, September 3, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/09/03/supreme-court-rides-bidens-rescue/

Associated Press, “Lyft, Uber lash out at legal threat from strict Texas abortion law,” Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, September 4, 2021, https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/texas-abortion-ban-lyft-uber-fight-back-1.6165045

Chantal Da Silva, “Texas judge grants restraining order against anti-abortion group, temporarily preventing lawsuits,” NBC News, September 4, 2021, https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/texas-judge-grants-restraining-order-against-anti-abortion-group-temporarily-n1278509


Pandemic

National

Uché Blackstock, “Two words no parent of a sick child should have to hear: ‘At capacity,’” Washington Post, September 2, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/09/02/picu-hospital-beds-children-covid/

Hannah Knowles and Timothy Bella, “A hospital refused to give ivermectin to a covid patient. Then a judge ordered doctors to administer it,” Washington Post, September 2, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/08/31/ohio-ivermectin-lawsuit-hospital-covid/

Emma Goldberg and Emily Anthes, “Hospitalizations for children sharply increase as Delta surges, C.D.C. studies find,” New York Times, September 3, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/03/health/delta-children-hospitalization-rates.html

Luke Money, “ICU beds filling up in San Joaquin Valley, triggering hospital surge order,” Los Angeles Times, September 3, 2021, https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2021-09-03/icu-bed-filling-up-in-san-joaquin-valley-triggering-hospital-surge-order

Tyler Pager and Laurie McGinley, “Top federal health officials warn that booster shots initially may be limited to Pfizer recipients,” Washington Post, September 3, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2021/09/03/booster-shot-delay-pfizer-first/

Mary Papenfuss, “15 Miami-Dade Public School Staff Members Die Of COVID In Just 10 Days,” Yahoo! News, September 4, 2021, https://news.yahoo.com/15-miami-dade-public-school-021517732.html

Yoree Koh, “Child Covid-19 Cases Rise in States Where Schools Opened Earliest,” Washington Post, September 5, 2021, https://www.wsj.com/articles/child-covid-19-cases-rise-in-states-where-schools-opened-earliest-11630834201

Pennsylvania

Maddie Hanna, “Now that Pa. has a school mask mandate, has the rancor subsided? It has not,” Philadelphia Inquirer, September 3, 2021, https://www.inquirer.com/news/pa-school-mask-mandate-wolf-philadelphia-20210903.html

Economy

Ben Casselman, “Federal Jobless Aid, a Lifeline to Millions, Reaches an End,” New York Times, September 2, 2021, https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/02/business/economy/federal-unemployment-benefit-cutoff.html

John Cassidy, “It’s Still the Coronavirus Economy,” New Yorker, September 4, 2021, https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/its-still-the-coronavirus-economy


  1. [1]Kathleen Parker, “The Supreme Court rides to Biden’s rescue,” Washington Post, September 3, 2021, https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2021/09/03/supreme-court-rides-bidens-rescue/
  2. [2]George H. Nash, The Conservative Intellectual Movement in America Since 1945, 30th anniversary ed. (Wilmington, DE: Intercollegiate Studies Institute, 2006).

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.