“Democrats should be focusing on Trump’s tanked economy and our diminished standing on the world stage,” said Jeremy Comeau, president of the National Federation of Stonewall Democrats. “People are being hammered by the cost of living, and we have a president who’d rather rename a gulf like some deranged cartographer than deal with the realities of the world. Democrats should be running on that every single day.
“Instead, some candidates think the way to look moderate is to take a swing at trans people first. That’s not moderate; that’s just careless, and it’s not what’s going to win this election.”
They have been standing against it, and it is quite clear that the Dems support it. End of story. Stop talking about it.
The ONLY response to any attempt to draw someone into a trans debate is this:
“That is a medical issue, and I am not a doctor, and I would NEVER presume to come between a doctor and their patient.l on any subject. As a politician, I believe that it is immoral and unethical to interfere with medical matters, so I have no opinion, and further, I am not interested in yours either. Let’s talk about something relevant to American Citizens, like Healthcare, or Taxing Billionaires, or the Epstein Files, or the AmerIsraeli War®. Which would like to discuss?”
That works for any medical discussion, including Abortion. The only time to discuss medical issues is when we are discussing RFK, Jr’s crimes.
As long as we allow MAGA to keep us defending ourselves on their chosen wedge issues, we are LOSING. Whenever they bring up Hasan Piker, or Trans, or Biden, or whatever their wedge issue Boogeyman of the day is, we need to ignore it, dismiss it, bat it away without a single comment about it, and steer the conversation to one of these topics:
Affordability: The big one, it got Trump elected, and it will get Dems elected even more
Epstein Files: Full disclosure. Trump and his friends are in them
Data Centers: They will destroy everything, and we’ll pay for it.
AI: The future is either a permanent 50%+ unemployment rate, or they murder all of humanity.
Flock Cameras: You will now get daily fines in your mailbox whenever you go 3 mph over the speed limit, and they will track you down and arrest you if you have overdue library books.
ICE: They will kill us, they are already doing it.
Taxing Sociopathic Oligarchs and their Corporations: They will pay their fair share of taxes, or we’ll just take it all.
Health Care: What health care?
Student Loan Reform: Sure, just saddle your most productive young citizens with a lifetime of debt as soon as the graduate from college. That won’t ever affect the entire economy in a few years, when they can’t afford ANYTHING.
MAGA Corruption: Were just going to let this continue like it’s somehow legal?
The AmerIsraeliWar®: The Draft is coming. The front line of a war is a great place to siphon your dissidents.
Mass Surveillance: If you aren’t doing anything illegal, then what are you worried about? What’s illegal? EVERYTHING!
Investigations, Impeachments, Prosecutions of MAGA crime: A president, a Secretary of Defense, a White House Advisor, a bunch of Homeland security turds, a few SCOTUS justices, some congressmen and senators, etc.
These are the real issues, and we need to take control of every discussion, steer them to these issues, and make them defend their record, and their plans for America’s future.
"They have been standing against it, and it is quite clear that the Dems support it. End of story. "
Debatable at best. Ask the recently defeated Seth Moulton, or Acton in Ohio. Ask those twats over at Third Way. I wish you were right, I really do. Hard to forget those centrist fucks blaming us for them losing the election in 2024.
And I get your point about not allowing the right to dictate the discourse and I say the same all the time. I don’t have a choice about talking about this issue. It’s my life dude, I’m gonna talk about it.
YOU should talk about it, it’s your thing, but the party shouldn’t, because it isn’t even close to being the highest priority for most Americans. Not because it isn’t important, but based on the number of people it directly affects, it’s fairly low on the priority scale, and therefore not likely to attract many votes on its own. Therefore, it shouldn’t be at the front of the party’s campaign messaging.
OTOH, it WILL attract MAGA votes, so why should we indulge their bigotry, and help them get their votes, and hurt us, when we can spend the time on subjects that attract votes to our side, and demoralize them and repress their votes?
The first rule of politics is Get Elected, so we have to pursue that objective, over making sure every single person’s pet issue gets attention. Those people will have to hope that they are voting for the side that is most likely to serve their interests.
Democrats have been trying exactly your message for a decade, and it’s failed. They’ve tried again and again. And it’s failed again and again. Here’s what a voter actually watching a debate experiences:
Republican goes on transphobic rant.
Democrat responds with anything but a full-throated support of trans rights. They say, “we should leave it up to doctors and parents, I’m here to talk about other things.” They call it a distraction. They don’t support the bigotry, but they also do anything they can to avoid the topic.
Voters read this as a deflection. They think the Democrat is trying to avoid the issue (because they are). And since the Democrat won’t vehemently and openly support trans rights. The Republican is demonizing trans people, and the Democrat is avoiding the subject. They conclude that the Republican is probably right and that the Democrat is just afraid to offend their radical base. The Democrat is clearly ashamed of the issue, and people can smell that a mile away.
Want to know how to respond to “concerns” about trans people in bathrooms? Point out that Jim Crow was built on the “valid concerns” of white women not feeling safe sharing space with black women. Want to know how to talk about trans kids? Point out that any hand wringing about this can only come from a viewpoint that fundamentally does not view the lives of cis people and trans people as equally valuable. (The only way you can justify withholding treatment from 50 trans kids just in case one cis kid makes a mistake is if you don’t hold the lives of both in equal value.) Publicly state that of course trans people change their sex, and that it’s absurd to argue that trans women should have to use women’s restrooms. Argue that trans women belong in women sports because they’re biologically female, not because of vague platitudes about identity and validity. In other words, fully embrace trans rights and know how to actually talk about and defend them in a coherent way.
You can’t third way your out of this. Democrats have been trying for a decade. Kamala responded to transphobia not with a full-throated support for trans rights, but with a mealy-mouthed “I’ll enforce the law.”
Democrats have been arguing for a decade that this is a distraction, but that’s not how voters think. If one party constantly brings an issue up, low-information voters will assume it’s an issue worth considering. And if the other side just keeps calling it a distraction, the voters will conclude the Democrats are trying to hide something and side with the Republican. You can’t just ignore these issues. It doesn’t work. It’s been tried, and it’s failed.
What you’re missing is that Democrats HAVE NOT been talking about this. Sure, they largely haven’t been voting for transphobic bills, but their approach has been, “don’t talk about trans people publicly, but support trans people privately.” And it just hasn’t worked. Your approach isn’t novel. It’s just more of the same. In an era when authenticity matters to voters more than anything else, calling an issue a distraction is a suicidal election strategy.