Why is the Biden administration still afraid to talk about abortion? | Moira Donegan

Abortion is a crucial issue in this election - and a powerful motivator for voters. Yet the president is still tiptoeing around it

For years, the beltway set had a standard line of advice for Democratic candidates: stick to the economy. The idea was that white, male, blue-collar voters - those magical creatures, somewhere out there in the windswept lands of the upper midwest, who always qualify in the pundit imagination as real Americans" - would be turned off by so-called culture-war issues.

These guys, we were told, didn't want to hear about civil rights or social equality: they wanted to hear about economic growth. According to this advice, Democrats could be pro-choice, pro-racial justice, or pro-LGBTQ rights, but not openly, avowedly so. They had to play their progressive social positions in a minor key.

Moira Donegan is a Guardian US columnist