When it comes to the Alito draft, we’re not sure exactly who leaked it and we’re not sure yet what its effect will be on the case and the election. But one thing we can absolutely be sure of in the wake of the dissemination of the Roe/Casey opinion draft is this: Ka-Ching!!!
Within minutes of the leak’s publication, various Democratic/progressive/leftist organizations began raising money off the matter. That’s not an exaggeration. The first funding emails were sent out almost instantly. Both CNBC and Business Insider have reported staggering cash hauls based on the leak.
Conspiracy? It doesn’t have to be. Maybe Person A heard the story was going to come out and mentioned it to Fundraiser B. Fundraiser B wrote the email and Bingo!—the ask was done.
Since its passage almost 50 years ago, Roe v. Wade has been a cornerstone of Democratic fundraising—at a guess, billions of dollars have poured into the coffers of groups saying they are determined to defend the decision. (It’s also been good for fundraising for those trying to overturn the decision.)
Whether or not one needs more money to attack or defend a public policy matter is a bit of a question. When, for example, the Supreme Court blessed gay marriage, literally thousands of professional fundraisers, consultants, PR flacks, and marketers celebrated the success of the years’ long—and very lucrative—pressure effort, only to realize the next day that they need a new job; hence, the massive “gender identity” debate.
Like South Park’s Cartman trying to create a profitable Christian band by changing the words of standard pop songs from “Oh, baby” to “Oh, Jesus,” the embedded permanent “justice” movement learned that it can simply pivot from one topic to the other. In this case, it’s the same topic, just moving from defense to offense.
Montage: Stack of dollars (user1736441 at freepik); Supreme Court (edited) by Marielam1 (CC BY-SA 4.0).
As mentioned in a previous post, this is not a new phenomenon. From the March of Dimes to today’s more trendy charities, the creation of an activist infrastructure is meant to be permanent. That way, the social and economic capital earned under one rubric can be simply transferred to another without any of the employees having to worry about how to pay the mortgage next month.
As to who leaked what when, the two major theories I’ve seen floating about now are that a “Republican” did it to soften the electoral blow from the news becoming official too close to the election (“oh, yeah, heard that, old news…”) to the far more likely concept that a “Democrat” did it to pressure Chief Justice Roberts and/or cause such an outrage the Court may “edit down” the draft.
Either way, a terrible transgression and we can only hope the FBI gets to the bottom of it.
Oh, wait… damn.