The Josh Hammer Report

Josh Hammer

Newsweek Senior Editor-at-Large And Host,
"The Josh Hammer Show"

Welcome back! Here are some highlights from the last week.

My most recent column argued that, especially in the aftermath of last week's disappointing (and crushing) defeat of abortion-proxy Issue 1 at the Ohio ballot box, the pro-life movement (of which I am very much a part) needs to pause to reassess its tactics and to focus—above all—on channeling the great virtue of prudence. There is one particularly compelling source of inspiration here, too: the Great Emancipator himself, President Abraham Lincoln. As I noted in the column: In his quest to eradicate the nation of its "original sin" of chattel slavery and salvage the Union from Confederate secessionism, "Lincoln's scruples were unshakeable, but he appreciated the practical need for incrementalism and above all prudence, which Aristotle considered to be the queen of the virtues and the stateman's defining trait. Lincoln's prudence ultimately helped lead to substantive justice: the abolition of slavery." I read a version of this column as part of my remarks this past weekend at the Live Action Lawmakers Summit in Park City, Utah.

My most recent podcast episode featured as a guest my friend Sohrab Ahmari, founder and editor of Compact Magazine and author of the brand-new book, Tyranny, Inc. In the podcast, Sohrab and I discussed the continued efforts of many of us on the Right to help effectuate a more nationalist/populist-minded political economy "realignment" wherein the Republican Party becomes, not only merely in word but also in deed, a true middle/working-class party. In the podcast, we went deep into the origins of neoliberalism and how the Right came to be an all-too-frequent shill for Big Business and oppressive corporate interests. In conjunction, Sohrab also published a Newsweek essay based around the book launch, wherein he expressed a much greater degree of dourness on the prospects for a "realigned" Right than what I had gleaned from him during our podcast conversation. I guess we shall see what happens! (You can listen to that episode on Apple, Spotify or here.)

In terms of other media hits and appearances since our last newsletter: I recorded a number of CenterClip audio op-eds on the Abraham Accords model of foreign policy, gerontocracy in America (also the subject of a recent column of mine), and Iowa's first-in-the-nation presidential primary status; joined "The Seth Leibsohn Show" on 960 "The Patriot" (Phoenix) to discuss the case for prudence in advancing the pro-life cause, as well as my take on the Christopher Nolan biopic Oppenheimer and the enduring debate over President Harry Truman's use of the atomic bomb; joined "Centerpoint" on Trinity Broadcasting Network to discuss Attorney General Merrick Garland's questionable appointment of active U.S. Attorney David Weiss as special counsel "investigating" presidential prodigal son Hunter Biden; joined "Stu Does America" on BlazeTV to discuss the latest criminal indictment of former President Donald Trump, this time in Georgia; and (as always) co-hosted the Edmund Burke Foundation's weekly "NatCon Squad" podcast.

Our additional highlighted right-leaning Newsweek op-eds from the past week include selections from Paul du Quenoy, Arsen Ostrovsky and Matthijs Schüssler, Larry Elder, Jonathan Tobin, and Wendy Stone Long.

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Spotlight

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The Pro-Life Dilemma and the Politics of Prudence

Pro-lifers waited 49 grueling years to see the judicial barbarism of Roe v. Wade finally overturned in last year's blockbuster Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health Organization. That ruling, delivered by Justice Samuel Alito, merely re-politicized a hotly contested issue that had been erroneously accorded the status of "constitutional right" in Roe. Unfortunately, it seems perhaps likely, based on rapidly accumulating data points, that pro-lifers' patience could be similarly tested as we push onward toward the only logical endpoint in this defining struggle for substantive justice and human dignity: abortion abolition in America.

This week's resounding defeat of Issue 1 in increasingly bright-red Ohio is another tough pill to swallow for pro-lifers, who have now endured a number of painful ballot box defeats in the year-plus since Dobbs. True, that ballot measure, which would have (soundly) raised the threshold for amending the Ohio state constitution to 60% of voters from the bare-majority status quo, said nothing explicitly about abortion. But in advance of this November's separate ballot box referendum on codifying an abortion "right" in Ohio's state constitution, Issue 1 was treated as an abortion proxy by Buckeye State activists on both sides—not to mention those across the country who flooded the state with money to help mobilize voters on both sides. Issue 1 was rejected 57%-43%.

If that were the end of the story, it wouldn't be all that terrible. But the defeat of Issue 1 must be interpreted in a broader context. Since Dobbs, the following has all transpired: Michigan's abortion "right" constitutional amendment passed 57%-43%; Kansans retained an abortion "right" in their state constitution—via an unusually poorly worded referendum, albeit—by a 59%-41% margin; Kentuckians voted to reject a declaration that their state constitution not be construed to contain an abortion "right," by a 52%-48% margin; and a crucial state supreme court election in Wisconsin was decidedly won by a pro-abortion jurist, flipping that court from a conservative to a progressive majority in what has become one of the nation's closest swing states.

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