On this week’s episode of The Van Maren Show, Jonathon discusses how President Donald Trump’s first week of his second term offers hope that there’s still room for pro-life conservatives in the MAGA movement.
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(LifeSiteNews) -- On this week’s episode of The Van Maren Show, Jonathon discusses how President Donald Trump’s first week of his second term offers hope that there’s still room for pro-life conservatives in the MAGA movement.
Jonathon begins the episode by emphasizing how he and other pro-life activists had been concerned about how pro-life Trump’s policies would be in his second term, given how he has led the Republican Party in a more pro-abortion direction in the past year.
He highlighted how the 2024 GOP platform under Trump, for the first time since 1984, didn’t include language on the “invaluable right to life” of the unborn child and endorsed IVF. He also pointed out that Trump repeatedly called various states’ pro-life legislation “harsh” and “extreme” and flip-flopped on his stance on the ultimately defeated radically pro-abortion Amendment 4 in Florida, among other things.
“For months, it seemed very clear that Trump’s transactional deal that he had struck with the pro-life movement in his first term was over, and that raised questions. Where do pro-lifers fit in the new Republican coalition?” Jonathon pondered.
Later in the episode, after diving into the history of coalitions between factions within the GOP and how pro-life conservatives have fit into these coalitions, Jonathon noted that Trump’s new “MAGA coalition” of support includes social conservatives but also pro-abortion factions.
“It includes the so-called 'Barstool conservatives' ... who are very libertarian in their social views and thus don’t share a lot in common with social conservatives besides their hatred of restrictions on free speech and things like that. It also includes anti-woke liberals, people who do not share our views on almost anything but just hate all the compelled speech, the ‘transgender’ nonsense,” the host said.
Then Jonathon turned to Trump’s first week back in office, in which the president pardoned pro-life activists imprisoned by the Biden administration and addressed last week’s March for Life in Washington, D.C.
"[Trump] made the video, he made the words, it was really significant," he said. "Also significant is the fact that even though he’s already won his election, even though he doesn’t need pro-lifers to turn out and vote for him again because he’s got his second term in the bag, he still decided to make a video and have it played at the March for Life." "The symbolism of the executive branch doing this is a big deal. Symbolism matters, especially when it comes to recognizing coalition partners in this new political landscape we’re facing."For Jonathon’s full analysis of why there may still be hope for pro-lifers in Trump’s Republican Party, tune in to this week’s episode of The Van Maren Show.
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