So it wasn’t enough for the Illinois Republican party to nominate the Democrats hand-picked candidate. Of course, as soon as Bailey won the primary, the same PAC that promoted him let loose the attack ads – mostly regarding abortion. And by mostly, I mean only.
And had Bailey just been on camera (looks like an editorial board) saying he wouldn’t support abortion for a raped relative, no, we then have Bailey saying that the Holocaust dead are a fraction of the aborted.
Well, shit. Bailey is a putz, we knew that. But seriously dude, even if you are correct, there are lines you just don’t cross. Not if you want to win an election. But there he is…and it doesn’t look decades old – it looks like he’s in a campaign shirt. So, well done Republicans, you nominated a candidate who is on camera downplaying the Holocaust of all things.
Or is he?
Correct Doesn’t Mean Right
Ok, so first and always, the Holocaust not only happened (not sure how that got questioned), but the Nazi party murdered upwards of 19 million people, including an estimated 6 million Jews1. The scope is mind-numbing. And there is no way to lessen the evil that was the Nazi extermination programs.
But we are addressing Bailey’s comment – “The attempted extermination of the Jews of World War II doesn’t even compare on a shadow of the life that has been lost with abortion.” Removing the moral distaste, what do the numbers say, since that is what he is referring to.
Well, the numbers bear him out. First, let’s explain where these numbers come from. Both the Guttmacher Institute and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC)regularly report abortion statistics in the United States. They use different methodologies, so they report somewhat different abortion rates, but they show similar trends. The Guttmacher Institute attempts to contact every abortion provider. The CDC relies on voluntary reporting of abortion data from the states and the District of Columbia. As of July 2022, the Guttmacher Institute had reported abortion data for the years 1973 through 2020 and the CDC had reported abortion data for the years 1970 through 2019. Got that? Good, let’s get those numbers.
I am only using the numbers from 1973. This keeps it in the realm of legal actions, and it a way to compare like to like, as the Holocaust was legal too. Yes, that is a much longer period, but really, do you think the Nazis would have stopped had they not lost the war?
Ok, according to Guttmacher, there have been 59,936,193 abortions since 1973. The CDC shows 47,135,973. Or, 2.5 to 3 times more abortions in the US than total Nazi victims. But Bailey was specifically speaking about the 6 million Jewish victims. In that case, it is between 8 and 10 times more abortions.
Just to hammer that home – the World Health Organization estimates 73,000,000 abortions per year globally2.
Republican Abandonment
Of course, Pritzker has mobilized people to decry it, and insist that this alone disqualifies Bailey. Troublingly, there has been absolutely no response from Bailey or the Republican Party as a whole. On one hand, I get that, after all, no Republican wants to tie themselves to someone who seems to downplay the Holocaust. On the other hand, your dumbass voters nominated this chump, so show some loyalty and back your boy.
Not holding my breath on that – the Illinois Republican Party is notorious for only backing expected winners – if you are not a lock to win, I am told, you get nothing from the Republican Party.
I was convinced that literally anyone would be better than Pritzker. I may have been wrong.