Episode description

Are the Democrats going soft on choice? Reproductive justice advocate and NARAL Missouri board member Pamela Merritt joins host Lindsay Beyerstein to discuss the rhetoric of Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee Chair Ben Ray Luján who decided to remind everyone that the DCCC has no “litmus test” on abortion. Merritt explains why it's impossible to achieve economic justice without addressing reproductive justice and that Democrats who try to tackle the former while ignoring the latter risk alienating their most loyal supporters, notably women of color. 

If they want to win a majority in the House of Representatives in 2018, the Democratic Party can't afford to throw the base under the bus one more time. As Merritt argues, they can go even further by actually listening to that base and elevating its concerns as part of a "fifty plus one" strategy for victory. 

Recommended Reading: 

"Why the Scariest Nuclear Threat May Be Coming From Inside the White House," by Michael Lewis for Vanity Fair, 2017