“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.”
See that’s the thing: they never did.
The GOP and their propagandists (paid and otherwise) were always the ones obsessing about trans people.
Apart from some performative slogans and comparatively meek mutterings that basically amounts to “I can see what you mean, but there’s no need to be cruel about it”, the DNC have all but abandoned trans people in favor of trying to find a logical and fair middle ground with bigots who don’t care about logic or fairness.
THAT’S why it’s a losing issue for them: the bigots lie about them being “gender extremists” (🙄) for not vilifying trans people, and their answer is just “this but a little less? Please?”
If they DID wholeheartedly support trans people at every turn and refused to play into the objectively false narratives ar all, it would be a winning issue, but that would require the ideological and moral backbone they sold to their owner donors long ago.
I’m also not sure it would be a winning issue. There are a lot of liberal voters who simultaneously can be relied upon for negative partisanship against anti-trans rhetoric and violence because they don’t like obvious bigotry but would, if asked, not really understand/support trans people. Most people can get behind live and let live, even many of the people who support Red team/are anti-blue team, but actual pressure to support trans people, not just accept them but look for ways to support them beyond a freedom from violence, is much rarer and more lacklustre.