Yes to the Populist Compromise on Abortion

The New Center: A Wednesday Newsletter From Sohrab Ahmari

Michael Brendan Dougherty has called me out. Or at least, I feel called out by the National Review writer, whom I consider a friend. On Tuesday, Dougherty posted the following on X, the app formerly known as Twitter: “If you’re a social [conservative] who was all for populism and Trump, the watering down of Republican commitments to the life issue should not cause you to swagger about your realism, but at the very least repent for criticizing the very same trimming done by previous Republican coalition leaders.”

This was read by some as a response to a polarizing X post I’d made on Sunday in the wake of Sens. J.D. Vance and Marco Rubio (both top contenders in the 2024 Republican veepstakes) defending the Trump campaign’s retrenchment on pro-life issues. “Politics is the art of the possible,” I wrote. “J.D. Vance has to work within the parameters of American political reality in a way that activists and intellectuals can’t fathom.”