Hey there, it’s Peter. 

It’s been a minute, as the kids say, since I’ve written a note to readers here. I’ve been focused lately on hosting Puck’s podcast, The Powers That Be, and turning it into a daily show that brings together all of Puck’s extraordinary talent to discuss the real inside conversation in Washington, Wall Street, Silicon Valley, and Hollywood. Seriously, give it a listen.

But when the news broke in Politico last week that the Supreme Court is preparing to end Roe v. Wade, I was compelled to write something. The eruption of anger and bewilderment on the left reminded me of the response to Donald Trump’s election, in the sense that no one saw it coming—even though all the signs were there, staring us in the face, telling us what was going to happen. Not because Jeffrey Toobin or Nina Totenberg were reading judicial tea leaves in Washington, but because Republicans have been telling us bluntly for over 40 years that ending Roe was their very plan. They were organized, relentless, and willing to play a very long game. In the abortion wars, the left has been outmached for generations.

I covered the Republican Party and the conservative movement for most of my career at CNN, immersing myself in the states and trying to understand the right-wing grassroots elements of the party that would ultimately eat the G.O.P. from the inside. I spent way too much time at evangelical and Baptist churches in Iowa and South Carolina, read countless books about Circuit Riders and backwoods revivals, subscribed to mailing lists from influential pastors, and talked to untold numbers of blue-haired Republican grandmas and Rick Santorum disciples who never failed to tell me that abortion was their reason for voting. Well before Trump came along, the Republican Party expertly cultivated anti-abortion sentiment for political gain—leading us to where we are today, with the left suddenly peering into a dark and uncertain future that was unthinkable just a week ago. They have no plan to fight back. Looking back on the last half century, how did they not see it coming?

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The Dark Truth Behind the SCOTUS Ruling

The conservative justices angling to overturn Roe are also the embodiment of a ruthless fifty-year political campaign. To re-enshrine abortion rights, Democrats will need to fight even harder.

After Politico broke the news last week that the Supreme Court is preparing to annihilate Roe v. Wade, I jumped on YouTube and pulled up old clips of Samuel Alito’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings back in 2006, a seemingly distant time in our culture, when abortion rights felt more settled and inalienable than they do today. Over the years, watchers of the federal judicial process have grown accustomed to Republican judicial appointees slithering around questions about Roe with practiced and non-committal legalese. Alito was no different. And he had something big to answer for. 

In his Judiciary Committee hearing, Alito was pressed by the chairman, the late Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter—a pro-choice Republican!—about a killer piece of opposition research. In 1985, while applying for a job in the Reagan administration, Alito wrote in a letter that he was “particularly proud” of his work in cases arguing that “the Constitution does not protect a right to an abortion.”

With his wife Martha barely concealing a grin behind him, Alito said that was all in the past. “Today, if the issue were to come before me, if I were fortunate enough to be confirmed and the issue were to come before me, I would approach the question with an open mind,” Alito said. “That was a statement I made at a period of time when I was performing a different role.”

What’s clear today about those answers is precisely what many pro-choice activists have been screaming for years: Alito was lying. They were all lying. Maybe no one believed them at the time, but the conservative justices successfully played the game. I’m talking about Clarence Thomas, who stated in his confirmation that he had “no agenda” on Roe; Neil Gorsuch, who said “it’s the law of the land” that a fetus is not a person; and Brett Kavanagugh, who called Roe “settled” as precedent of the Supreme Court, if not the law. At least Amy Coney Barrett had the self-respect to show her cards. “I can’t pre-commit,” she told the committee...

FOUR STORIES WE'RE TALKING ABOUT