Another election night, another resounding victory for abortion rights in a red state. It is yet another confirmation that the Supreme Court’s Dobbs decision has created a revolution in American politics, the scope of which is even today only dimly perceived in most national political debates. On its face Ohio’s Issue 1 was an amendment to the state constitution to require a 60% threshold for ballot referendums to change the state constitution. But it was understood from the start as a tool to short-circuit a November ballot initiative to codify abortion rights in the state constitution. On both sides of the question it was fought out on that basis. As I write, “No” (the de facto abortion rights side) is winning by 57% and that may go higher when all ballots are counted.

Abortion rights advocates still need to win the abortion constitutional amendment in November. But it seems highly likely they will succeed. Ohio thus joins Kansas and Kentucky in rejecting restrictions on abortion rights in their respective state constitutions. Last year voters in Michigan enshrined abortion rights in their state constitution and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer leveraged the issue to win unified control of the state in Democratic hands for the first time in decades.

In all but the very most conservative states the only path forward for abortion restrictionists is simply to keep the issue off the ballot.

The far-right Christian legal group whose work you’re almost certainly familiar with is in the news today for an incredibly befuddling reason: a Trump-appointed judge in Texas ordered lawyers with Southwest Airlines to attend eight hours of “religious-liberty training” courses with the group, Alliance Defending Freedom.

Jack Goldsmith has an op-ed in today’s Times in which he argues that the prosecutions of Donald Trump are likely to have terrible consequences for the country, regardless of the bad acts he may have committed. The gist of his argument is straightforward: Prosecution will only further delegitimize the Department of Justice for a large segment of the population, further criminalize the political process and open the Pandora’s Box of Presidents prosecuting their predecessors. I struggled with this piece a bit because I think Goldsmith is a good faith interlocutor. But while the sentiment is genuine the reasoning is sloppy and derives most of its strength from simply ignoring the most obvious counterarguments. 

This core weakness begins right in the first sentence. 

Like many who write this kind of op-ed, Goldsmith starts by saying that while it might be emotionally “satisfying” to see Trump held to account for his misdeeds, the damage greatly outweighs whatever benefit it brings. This is a dodge that turns out to be more consequential than one vaguely condescending throwaway line. In a highly polarized political culture of course there will be people celebrating. But the reason such indictments are important, really critical, is that a republican government cannot exist if electoral losers routinely use fraud, state power and violence to reject the outcome of free and fair elections. Accepting electoral defeat and orderly transfers of power is the glue that allows a republican government to function.