Pendulum swing provides solace

By JILL PORTER
KNIGHT RIDDER NEWSPAPERS
Whenever I need solace, I seek out water: the kind that rolls onto a sandy shore, or the kind that's frozen in cubes in a glass of strong spirits.
Last week, though, I sought refuge in a place with neither beaches nor booze: at the Foucault Pendulum at the Franklin Institute. I watched for a long while as it swayed to and fro in the museum's marble stairwell, reassured by its rhythmic rebound. Because, with the confirmation of Sam Alito to the U.S. Supreme Court, that's the only consolation there is. Alito's appointment is the ultimate swing of the pendulum for supporters of women's rights, the moment advocates tried to forestall for decades with marches on Washington, with petitions and phone banks and every available political maneuver.
All for naught.
It doesn't matter whether Alito's destabilizing tilt provokes the court to toss out Roe v. Wade in one fell swoop. Or whether he and new Chief Justice John Roberts just continue to eviscerate it in the deadly, piecemeal way that's brought us to this precipice.
The likelihood is that Roe will soon be gone, along with who knows how many other constitutional protections.
"It's depressing, there's no question," said Carol Tracy of the Women's Law Project.
"I'm feeling like our rights are evaporating."
At least we in Pennsylvania can make our voices heard in the next election, when we can vote for ... Robert Casey?
That would be the anti-choice Democratic nominee for Senate who last week said he'd vote to confirm Alito -- and whose support of Alito was quickly affirmed by Gov. Rendell.
I've railed at Casey's selection and the state party's abandonment of its pro-choice principle to the scorn of friends who see him as the only way to beat Sen. Rick Santorum. So I found it sadly satisfying last week when those friends were shocked and outraged at Casey's public stance on Alito.
What did they think they were getting, if not Santorum lite?
And I wonder: What poverty of vision has brought us to this point? When Democrats run a copycat candidate as their strategy to win?
Real life
A national party leader even suggested at a private forum I attended that Democrats adopt the label "pro-life" because the party is more supportive of real life -- as in that of the mother -- than in potential life. Yikes!
The only thing Democrats ought to be copying from conservative Republicans is their strategy, not their rhetoric or agenda.
As recounted in "The Right Nation," a book by John Micklethwait and Adrian Wooldridge, political conservatives came to power in the aftermath of the "calamitous" 1964 presidential candidacy of Republican Barry Goldwater. Goldwater's campaign ended in a defeat so humiliating that his chief speechwriter couldn't even get a job operating the Senate's elevator, they wrote. But Goldwater supporters didn't abandon their principles and dress up as Democrats to win the next election.
They methodically began the takeover of the nation's civic life in towns and cities and states until they were strong enough to hijack Washington. And Tuesday, they attained the ultimate victory: The Supreme Court.
"This is a monumental shift that even the next two or three elections won't alter," said Temple University history professor David Farber.
"The conservatives have captured something fundamental with this position and we're all going to live with it for a long time."
However, Farber thinks that if the court repeals "everyday freedoms that people take for granted," young people may be mobilized to fight back. If the court overturns environmental laws and women's rights and consolidates power in an imperial presidency, then "it's very possible that young people will see that politics really matter to them, and we'll likely see a resurgence of liberalism among the young."
"It's almost predictable," he added. So there's that, anyway.
At this grim moment, when the country changes ideological hands, there's at least the reliable swing of the pendulum.
Jill Porter is a columnist for the Philadelphia Daily News. Distributed by Knight Ridder/Tribune Information Services.