Most voters oppose abortion- and LGBTQ-related measures in House defense bill
Most voters oppose abortion- and LGBTQ-related measures in House defense bill
According to Tuesday’s Data for Progress survey, which gathered responses from more than 1,200 U.S. adults between July 19-20, 60 percent of voters agree that bills focused on military spending should not contain measures that in some way target the LGBTQ community, including a majority of Democrats (67 percent), independents (61 percent) and Republicans (51 percent).
Another 63 percent of voters, including an overwhelming majority of Democrats and independents and a plurality of Republicans, believe U.S. service members who are transgender should have access to medically necessary health care, including gender-affirming health care.
So then this begs the question of why our elected representatives are going against our wishes. The only immediate forthcoming answer that I can think of is that the wealthy and powerful feel that by not outlawing abortion and LGBTQ equality, they risk giving up social control that they see necessary to preserve the status quo.
Actually, it goes back to the old saying, "all politics is local". A lot of these reps need to cater to their base. Take Manchin, for example, a democrat in a red state, West Virginia. WV is coal country. If he votes against coal, he's out.
The best you can hope for in the short term, is to use them for what you can and make a deal with the devil until a better situation can be developed.
This "common wisdom" is bullshit. Manchin benefits directly from coal, and that is why he supports coal. A hypothetical different senator in WV doesn't have to support coal at all. There are only around 10,000 people employed by coal mining in WV. The reason that Abortion etc are in unrelated bills is because unlike democrats, when Republicans say that they want to do something, they find ways to do it, whereas Dems find excuses for why they can't.