| > If anything, the right has largely shifted to the center over the course of my life The Republican party is vastly more anti-abortion and anti-gun control now than in the past. It is mainstream in the GOP to talk about punishing women who get abortions. And in New York, a Republican congressman who said he'd vote for gun control in the wake of a mass shooting in Buffalo, New York, in addition to the one in Texas faced so much backlash from his party he had to quit politics. I think what you've fallen for is a rhetorical trick Republican politicians use. They say, "Of course Roe vs Wade is settled law." And then they tirelessly work to undermine it, which is exactly what's happening right now. > From what I see, Republicans largely want things to stay the same or be rolled back by a decade or so. If what you said is true, the GOP would support the right to abortion and an assault weapons ban. Instead they are rolling back abortion rights by 50 years (Roe was decided in 1973) and expanding the "right" to purchase high powered firearms without background checks and carry them, concealed, without any training, to a degree literally never seen in US history. https://www.reuters.com/world/us/facing-backlash-republican-... https://www.npr.org/2022/05/03/1096108319/roe-v-wade-alito-c... |
The converse of that statement is true too. The Democratic Party is vastly more pro-abortion and pro-gun control than in the past.
The two parties mirror their rhetoric on those two issues intentionally. Its literally impossible for one party to criticize the other on them, as they are both chosen as firebrands issues for their base. So if the GOP moves to the extreme on one, they are the cause for the democrats to move to the opposite extreme on the same issue and vice versa.