The dogs that didn't bark in 2016

[Geee]

Washington Examiner:

Let's look back on the primary campaign — completed for Republicans, still ongoing for Democrats — and see if we can identify what Sherlock Holmes called the dogs that didn't bark.

 

For what's unusual about this campaign is not only that unexpected things happened — improbable candidates Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders getting more than 40 percent of their parties' popular votes — but that things everyone has come to expect did not.

 

One clear example is the declining salience of the abortion issue. For a quarter-century, this has been a litmus test for both parties' presidential nominations: Republicans wouldn't seriously consider pro-choice candidates, Democrats wouldn't seriously consider pro-lifers.

 

Much less has been heard about it this year. Donald Trump's conversion to pro-life got perfunctory mention, but clearly didn't sway many voters. Neither did Hillary Clinton's pro-choice fealty. Why? The issue seems to be settled, in a way most voters find tolerable.

 

Stay abreast of the latest developments from nation's capital and beyond with curated News Alerts from the Washington Examiner news desk and delivered to your inbox.

 

Abortion is not going to be criminalized, but it is increasingly stigmatized. The abortion rate peaked in 1980, and the absolute number of abortions has been declining since 1990.

 

Abortions, like divorces and extramarital births, are rare among upscale Americans; they've become a mostly downscale phenomenon. Abortion clinics are closing for lack of demand as well as restrictive state laws. The procedure is disfavored in medical schools, where about half their students are women.

 

"Choice" — the brilliant euphemism for abortion — is not rallying voters to Hillary Clinton as her strategists have hoped. For women of a certain age, the abortion issue is a proxy for other choices they have made which run contrary to how they were brought up.