Trumpism becomes fresh issue after leak of abortion decision: ANALYSIS

The adage deserves an addendum. Elections indeed have consequences -- and they don’t come with an expiration date.

You can draw a straight line from Donald Trump’s election as president to the shocking leak late Monday of a Supreme Court draft opinion that would end the constitutional right to an abortion.

You could start that line a decade and a half earlier, with George W. Bush’s disputed and narrow win, also with a popular-vote minority. It could even trace way back to 1973, when Roe v. Wade short-circuited state-level abortion politics and wound up energizing generations of conservative activists.

The upshot is that a court with six appointees made by Republican presidents and only three by Democrats appears ready to uproot a half century of precedent on the personal and visceral issue of a woman’s right to choose.