Big Change is Never Easy: An Unapologetically Optimistic View

 Big Change is Never Easy:  An Unapologetically Optimistic View

MG Kaplan

June 26, 2022

At a moment that seems dark and scary, our country thrown back to a pre-1973 era where women’s reproductive freedom was heavily restricted and their life and health sometimes at risk, it is possible to see an optimistic outcome.  The overturning of Roe v. Wade is an event that has been feared for 50 years; it has been a focal point of our political dialogue for almost that entire time.  It has caused a great cultural polarization, and was at various times the main policy issue that defined political affiliation and voting in this country.  The feared, or wished for, day has arrived, and the question is “What is next?”.  I won’t try to answer that from a public policy or political strategy perspective, but I suggest that this scary and abrupt shift probably reflects that deep change is occurring, and the result may help to clarify and depolarize the issue of reproductive freedom, as well as a number of other flashpoint issues.  We are in a moment when the threat of regression is high, but the opportunity for progress is likely higher.

Big change never comes easy.  It is much more common for the momentum of the status quo to continue to provide incremental shifts in one direction or another.  That is why big change is relatively rare.  People change slowly, institutions as well, and usually we just muddle along.  In the background though, progress and resistance to that progress battle on in a quiet war that sometimes heats up.  The “heat” is the resistance to change which gets activated when change is actually happening.  If there was no real change or shift, then there would be nothing to resist.  As change deepens, and this often happens below the surface, it generates first discomfort and fear, and then resistance gets hotter.  When it comes to socio-cultural change, in a historical political context, conservative forces tap the discomfort and fear and often have some success, but it is usually temporary.  For example, conservatives won the 2004 Presidential election by barely winning Ohio, a victory that has been attributed to getting anti same-sex marriage ordinances on the Ohio ballot to generate high turnout among conservatives.  It worked in 2004, but 10 years later same-sex marriage was the law of the entire country, not just individual states.  This demonstrates how social change often occurs:  one step forward and then one step back, but then 2 steps forward.  Abortion rights have been manipulated politically by conservatives for 50 years.  But conservatives have been joined by progressives for much of these 50 years, as each side demonized the other for political advantage, and a reasonable compromise seemed impossible.   That time, and dynamic, is at the beginning of its end, as we are well into the “heating up,” meaning a big shift is near.  That shift is highly likely to be one that continues the progression of human rights and freedom. 

You might be thinking that the shift is in the other direction, but I don’t think so.  Even though times of big change are always risky, and it is possible we could take 2 steps backwards, the underlying dynamics show a continuing arc towards more freedom, as evidenced by what has actually been happening socially and culturally, reflected by behavior and attitudinal shifts that continue to show progress.  We are no longer in the theoretical world of “if Roe v. Wade was overturned…”  Though it would’ve been nice to avoid the risk and the real pain and suffering that some are going to be experiencing, this does force the issue and will cause a clarification of what we really think should be our public policy as it relates to reproductive freedom.  Polarization, by definition, involves 2 sides, and so does change.  The end of Roe v. Wade forces all of us to engage practically, to shift our energy from the constant demonizing of each other, to the solving of real problems.  The recent success in passing a bi-partisan gun safety bill, though very modest in scope, shows that we are not as stuck as we think we are.

Public opinion is strongly in favor of protecting a right to abortion for the 1st and most of the 2^nd trimester.  If states continue to push overly restrictive laws, they will get backlash from voters because the Roe protections no longer exist.  This will, over time, push many states to be more reasonable in their restrictions.  It will eventually force a policy at the Federal level, that is likely to be consistent with public opinion. This never needed to be an all or nothing battle.  Most of the Western world has strong abortion and health-of-the-mother protections, and some restrictions, including some countries with strong religious cultures.  Justice Ginsburg warned about the weakness of Roe and suggested that reproductive freedom needed a stronger constitutional basis.  As many people come together in the short-term to help women, especially those with the most challenges in getting healthcare services, a broader consensus will form around fair and effective public policy.  Eventually reproductive freedom will stand on solid ground and become a less politically motivating force in what is now a polarized socio-political zeitgeist.  The same will be true more broadly as our 50-year culture war simmers down.

Justice Thomas suggested directly that the precedent that underlies Roe, now rejected by the court, should mean that other protections covered by or related to that precedent should be removed, specifically citing cases related to same-sex marriage, contraception, and private sexual behavior.  This blatant overreach and threat to the rights and freedoms of every single person will eventually lead to a solidifying of much of the social progress that has been made on privacy, and individual freedom over the basic and essential parts of our lives.  So, I say “thank you” to Justice Thomas for saying the quiet part out loud; the agenda of a theocratic, reactionary group is now clear and will be rejected.  The right-wing backlash to all kinds of progress on gender, race, sexuality, and other issues is just about played out.  This is the most powerful way for resistance to change to be transformed into progress.  For many strong conservatives, they have now gotten what they’ve been striving for on their biggest defining issue:  Roe v. Wade is overturned.  What will happen next is that their extremism will be rejected in most of the country and progress will now solidify on many issues such that policy begins to reflect the reality of where we really are, because “where we really are” reflects tremendous shifts in attitudes over several decades.  For example, public support of same-sex marriage is now 70% and increasing.  Interracial relationships are much more common as public attitudes about race have improved.  Pew’s decades of social research show that in 1990 63% of non-black people would be somewhat or very opposed to a close relative marrying a black person.  In 2017, that figure was 14%.  Consistent with this data, rates of interracial marriage have more than tripled since 1980.  In striking irony, and deep hypocrisy, Justice Thomas’s interracial marriage was a result of these changing attitudes and made legal by the Supreme Court decision in Loving v. Virginia!

This sort of attitudinal progress has been building, but our polarized political dynamic has made it hard for these gains to be solidified and embedded.  George Friedman in his 2020 book, The Storm Before the Calm, makes the case that we are in a once-a-century or so time of transformational change.  His title captures the key dynamic at play today:  It is the moments that feel the most risky and chaotic that often foreshadow big change, and once that change is solidified, a quasi-consensus, and calm, emerges.  I believe this is where we are headed, and though we probably have several stormy years ahead, we should begin to allow ourselves to envision the outcome in an optimistic way.  We should step back from our polarized responses to current events, avoid getting sucked into hopelessness, join efforts to help fellow citizens who will need help navigating these stormy seas, and begin to take stock in the progress that has been made.  After all, change never really stops.  While the time is coming when we can consider real challenges that have been largely unaddressed, such as economic inequality, lets enjoy the vision of a calm sea in our socio-political zeitgeist, that while not quite here yet, is coming soon.