Trump allowed Texas to become a full-on theocracy. That fact must be hammered over and over.

A woman in turmoil had to leave the state to obtain abortion care because Trump got Roe overturned. It's that simple. And he will do far worse if elected in 2024.

Back in 2016, candidate Donald Trump told MSNBC’s Chris Matthews that “some form of punishment” for women would be necessary when it comes to abortion if indeed Roe v. Wade is overturned.

He attempted to walk back the comment in the days following, and much of our pathetic corporate media allowed him to do so and soon dropped it. But we all now know Trump says what he means the first time—and we’d better believe him.

The Signorile Report is reader-supported. If you’ve valued reading The Signorile Report, consider becoming a paid subscriber and supporting independent, ad-free opinion journalism. Thanks!

This week, a 31-year-old woman in Texas, Kate Cox, faced that punishment: being psychologically tortured—and publicly flogged—as the state of Texas put her future in danger when she sought to get an abortion at 20 weeks because of a fatal genetic condition of the fetus, which would be stillborn or die shortly after birth. A district court ruled that she should be allowed to get an abortion. Her future ability to have children and her own life were on the line.

Attorney General Ken Paxton, a repugnant theocrat who’s been indicted on securities fraud and faced impeachment earlier this year, used Kate Cox’s turmoil to push his cruel, vicious agenda. He threatened hospitals and doctors not to give Cox an abortion or else they’d face punishment, then challenged the judge’s ruling, bringing it to the rabidly right-wing Texas Supreme Court, which halted the order allowing Cox to get an abortion while it made a decision.

Cox had to put her own health and well-being first and leave the state to get an abortion. That was wise because hours after her decision was made public, the Christian nationalist-dominated court ruled against her.

How horrifying is this? What if Cox didn’t have the means to travel? What about all the women who can’t afford to do so? And Republicans are now working on travel bans for abortion—and they’re working on getting abortion banned in states where it is legal.

Trump made all of this happen. He promised he would appoint judges to the Supreme Court who would overturn Roe. He did, and they did.

Yes, of course, the Christian nationalist movement and the Texas GOP are responsible. Of course Ken Paxton is responsible, as are the justices on the extremist Texas Supreme Court, all of whom are Republicans and most of whom were appointed by far-right former Governor Rick Perry or the white supremacist-coddling current governor, Greg Abbott.

But make no mistake: If not for Trump and his presidency, none of this would be happening. Roe wouldn’t be overturned. Texas Christian nationalists wouldn’t be able to institute their theocratic government.

Right now, this story is getting enormous attention—and it should. But one aspect that needs to be focused more on as we head into 2024 is the role of Trump, the one person who put this in motion as president. We keep seeing polling from the media showing Joe Biden’s approval low or Biden doing poorly against Trump—and I’ve certainly addressed, time and again, the problems with the polls and polling this far out.

And I’ve recently written about the other issues that Trump is giving Biden as ammunition, from making it clear he wants to create a dictatorship to ending Obamacare.

But this story of Kate Cox is one that gets us right back to what brought Democrats wins in elections since the overturning of Roe v. Wade by the Supreme Court: the assault on bodily autonomy and the rise of the Christian nationalists—all brought about by Trump. Democrats should be on every talk show discussing this story and using Trump’s name over and over. And President Biden’s campaign should be making the connection too.

We’ve all got to hammer home to everyone we know—and the media must focus on it too—that this real-life horror story was brought to us by Trump. And we need to stress that if we don’t beat him back in 2024, there will be many more horror stories to come.