The four poison pills Republicans are swallowing voluntarily

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Has the Republican Party finally painted itself into an electoral corner that could make it virtually impossible for them to prevail in a growing number of voting districts, not to mention national elections in 2024?

I’m seeing four issues — “poison pills” — that now define the GOP’s core positions, any one of which could spell a backlash shellacking in the upcoming election cycle. Here’s how it breaks down. 

Poison pill #1: The takedown of Roe v. Wade in the Supreme Court, the ultimate wet dream of extreme Republican fighters in the notorious cultural wars. This was always a political hot-button issue that had nonetheless reached a kind of stable equilibrium in American society. Right-wing Republicans, however, never accepted the permanence of reproductive rights and would never fail to raise the specter of a SCOTUS reversal of the law, really as a matter of righteous principle and as an always reliable crowd pleaser at political rallies. 

This was an example of short-term gain, a gleeful victory for the right. But it also has created a hugely empowered oppositional power from the left, of course, but really across the political spectrum consisting of a growing army of women who are rightly terrified and infuriated to have their reproductive rights shredded by extremists, joined by men also in disbelief that this actually happened.  

Poison Pill #2: I suppose the Republican Party has taken what they consider to be a righteous stand on the so-called right to not just “bear arms,” but to own and carry around the kind of weapons that are modeled after those designed to be in the arsenals of front-line battlefield troops. Struggling to find some kind of constitutional defense for a fundamentally irrational insistence on owning these weapons, many Republicans and their National Rifle Association supporters have leaned on a gross misinterpretation of the Second Amendment. The language of the much-misused 18th-century amendment clearly talks about a “well-regulated militia” — not the random gun activist who insists that the language gives him the right to carry assault-style rifles in shopping malls and houses of worship. 

These gun extremists have continued to promulgate the phony idea that Democrats want to eliminate all gun ownership. The fact is that hardly anyone serious is actually calling to eliminate all guns. Hunters and sportsmen who aren’t dealing with serious mental health issues, who don’t have criminal histories and who are “old enough” will continue to have the ability to possess guns in any of the common sense laws that have been proposed to date, including those banning assault-style rifles and regulating firearms sales at gun shows.  

But the Republican hard gun advocates apparently don’t read public opinion polls — or maybe they just want to “stick to their guns” — even if it costs them elections. A growing number of Republicans (now around 45 percent), a majority of independents (55 percent) and a vast percentage of Dems (84 percent) are dissatisfied with U.S. gun laws. 

The majority of Republican lawmakers seem oblivious to the fact that their failure to act has created a massive countermovement among the country’s youth, meaning voters under age 30, who want assault weapons off the streets of America and expect their representatives to take meaningful gun control steps. A recent poll conducted by Harvard University found that 63 percent of young people between the ages of 18–29 support stricter gun control laws. Dismissing these hard realities is perilous for the future success of Republicans in local, state and national elections. 

America’s youngest voters are truly furious at Republicans’ resistance to protecting them. Instead, they are hearing lame proposals like arming teachers. And just to be clear, these young activists will be powerful campaigners and committed voters. 

Poison Pill #3: The high-risk — and I would say, weirdly inexplicable — fixation on the persona of Donald J. Trump, as a leader and moral North Star among a vast majority of Republican politicians, is truly amazing. What are we actually dealing with here? The seeming cowardice of grown men and women who appear to be totally intimidated by a now-indicted ex-president (the first of his kind) with obvious autocratic leanings? Or are they actually not aware of or oblivious to Trump and his outrageous behaviors? 

How long do Republican leaders think that the overwhelming majority of the American mainstream will tolerate Trump and his followers? Forever? Don’t count it. 

Progressive Democrat Janet Protasiewicz’s resounding victory in last week’s race for a seat on the Wisconsin Supreme Court should be a dramatic wake-up call for all Republicans hoping to run for office in the foreseeable future. 

Poison pill #4: In perhaps the most egregious, anti-American trend since the 1930s, Republican-controlled state governments are seeking ways to undermine the voting rights of nonwhite citizens. Desperate to suppress Democratic votes, Republican states are reviving or creating ways to make it more difficult for minority constituencies, especially Black and especially poor Americans to cast a vote.  

According to a 2021 report by the Brennan Center for Justice, from Jan. 1, 2021-Dec. 7, 2021, more than 400 voter suppression bills were introduced, many of which were created by Republican governments after the Jan. 6 insurrection. This year, the center counted an additional “150 restrictive voting bills, 27 election interference bills, and 274 expansive voting bills.”

It could be said that these attempts to restrict voting are strongly reminiscent of Jim Crow laws and perhaps represent a greater threat to our democracy than the violent attacks on the Capitol in 2021. 

Just last week, three elected Tennessee State legislators were protesting with citizens demanding that gun protection measures be enacted in the aftermath of the shooting which claimed six lives at the Covenant School in Nashville. The Republican-controlled legislature responded by expelling their two Black colleagues while retaining, with a reprimand, their fellow protester who is white.

Yes, the decision to expel was reversed for one legislator.  But the damage has been done. Voters in the U.S. will not soon forget how this travesty played out on national television — and what it means about the persistence of overt racism in America. 

The GOP has pulled back the covers and shown itself to be a party willing to defy the public’s desire to sustain the reproductive rights of women, stay safe from unfettered ownership of assault-style weapons, rid us all of Trump and, at the same time, is showing itself to be a political party trying to drag America back to the awful days of Jim Crow.   

In light of the damage Trump’s party has already done to our society and its assault on America’s fundamental values, it’s tough to see how Republicans can recover in time to have any shot at winning back the White House or congressional majorities in November 2024. 

Irwin E. Redlener, MD, (@IrwinRedlenerMD) is a cofounder of the Children’s Health Fund and a public health analyst for NBC/MSNBC. He is the author of, “Americans at Risk: Why We’re Not Prepared for Megadisasters and What We Can Do Now,” and “The Future of Us: What the Dreams of Children Mean for 21st Century America.”