Maybe The GOP Isn't Dumb Or Desperate. Maybe They Just Hate Trans People.
Mandatory Maya Angelou.
For the last couple weeks, there’s been a trend developing. First the GOP started dropping a wave of anti-trans ads. Immediately thereafter came a wave of commentary about the phenomenon. them.us had the best of these.
Erin Reed of Erin in the Morning was the first out of the gate with the second wave, the trend of commenting on what this wave of advertising means. In it she made clear that these ads weren’t successful, at least not in purple states and districts:
Anti-transgender attack ads and campaigns largely failed on a national scale in 2022 and 2023. One of the most notable examples occurred during the Virginia legislature elections, where transgender participation in sports was one of the top four issues pushed by Governor Glenn Youngkin against Democratic candidates attempting to gain control of the legislature. Despite Youngkin’s focus on this issue, Democrats went on to win both the House and the Senate.
Other outlets have been following on Reed’s work with such frequency that she herself came back to the topic on the 7th and then again yesterday (Yr Wonkette helpfully TABbed it for you this morning). Yesterday’s report from Reed commented on Gallup’s latest poll that showed “transgender rights” as the least important to voters out of 22 issues mentioned. (Climate change was 21st. Sigh.)
Reed took the occasion to opine again that this is a losing issue for Republicans:
This isn’t the first time Republicans have targeted transgender people in their campaigns; it’s become a staple of their strategy when they feel desperate. The problem for Republicans is that, universally, turning to transgender issues in a general election is a gamble that rarely pays off. In Michigan's 2022 elections, Republican ad dollars flowed into anti-trans campaigns, and they lost the trifecta in the state. This led to the GOP state chair admitting that Republicans spent more money on anti-trans ads than on core economic issues, and blaming their loss on that decision.
The new part, the more important part for Reed, was that some Democrats seeing the anti-trans ad strategy are running scared:
According to an NBC report on the ads, some Democratic strategists believe that transgender issues are a loser for Harris because voters “do not want their daughters competing against transgender athletes do not want to pay for gender-affirming surgery for criminals.” […]
If these are the strategists Democrats are relying on in this election, then both the party and transgender people are in trouble. […] If Democrats follow these strategists and backpedal on transgender rights, they risk alienating a significant portion of their base who considers the issue very important, all in pursuit of a topic that Republicans and Republican-leaning independents rank among the least important
Full credit to Reed, it’s important to give any blue scaredy-cats a bracing slap. The outcomes from past elections and the data from this one keep showing that electorally speaking anti-trans advertising, no matter how lurid and frightening the clips produced by the GOP, is nothing to fear. Hating trans people simply is not going to win legions of new voters for the GOP.
But the immediate electoral perspective is not the only important perspective. Republicans invested in anti-labor rhetoric and advertising for decades before Reagan fired the air traffic controllers, and even then there was significant controversy. It took time to thoroughly bust the unions. (And though signs are again looking positive, it will take years more work to fully rebuild them.) The GOP also spent more than 40 years killing abortion rights with message after message that it is impossible to have reproductive rights without literally worshipping death.
These anti-trans ads should be feared. We need not panic, but we should be reasonably afraid — not for what effects these spots will have in the next three weeks, but for the effects they will have in the next three decades if we do not act.
Personally, your friendly, neighborhood Crip Dyke does not believe that the right-wingers are even thinking that far ahead. Rather, while the anti-trans messaging doesn’t work in general elections, it has shown time and time again that it works wonders in Republican primaries. Over the last four years in which the anti-trans trend has been prominent, the candidate willing to say the worst, most outrageous things about trans people is very often the candidate GOP primary voters promote to represent them. While some of this is based on advertising, primary elections more than general ones can turn on retail politics, face to face meetings. The seething hatred of a Mark Robinson isn’t easily faked. Less-hostile candidates might produce an anti-trans radio spot, but the genuine hatred seems to win out.
The Semafor article in yesterday’s TABS would have you believe that a key factor in the rise of anti-trans advertising, since it can’t be general effectiveness, may lie with Elon Musk, his hatred of his trans daughter, the dark money he spends, and his purchase of X. Others blame Trump and the desire to please a deranged man who has made wildly unreal statements demonizing trans people, athletes, and health care. Reed describes these ads as a reflex when Republicans become desperate.
But there is another, simpler explanation: The candidates that the GOP keeps putting forward honestly, deeply believe that hating trans people is a core part of who they are and who they want to be. This isn’t a complete explanation as some incumbents have been in office longer than primary voters have been obsessed with trans people, but it’s worth considering that the party never gave up on hating gay men and lesbians, they just lost that war. If GOP nominees really do hate trans people, and for sure Mark Robinson does as do many others, then these ads don’t have to be strategic. The Republicans running for office will want to put forward these ads because they are a statement of who they are and what they believe is important.
Just as running against unions was a losing tactic until it wasn’t, running against trans rights will only be a losing tactic until the day that it isn’t. And while anti-trans candidates may only represent the Republican Party’s primary voters, after a time the right-leaning general election voters did come along on unions and abortion. Eventually they can be persuaded to follow where their candidates lead.
For Yr Wonkette the worry isn’t that these ads will change this year’s election. It’s that these ads will change the party and the country. Rather than compromising, moderating to win current contests, the GOP reactionaries are training us to be a more hateful nation. That's not a project of a single election cycle, but history shows that it is a project that is terrifyingly possible.
PREVIOUSLY!
Mark Robinson Said WHAT On The Porn Forums About Loving Transgender Porn And Being A 'Black Nazi'?
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Anti-trans activists have been going nuts in Europe for the past week. A couple ridiculous and hateful conferences, one in Portugal, one in London. The TV ads targeting trans folks have been slamming Americans in state after state and the Supreme Court of the United States is on the verge of outlawing trans health care.
Yeah, it feels like shit, but we can fight back.
Proof? Some kid/s -- probably associated with Trans Kids Deserve Better, the fantastic activists who have been kicking ass in England for the past 8 months but the exact person/s isn't identified so we can't be sure -- 💜released💜thousands💜of💜live💜crickets💜 at the anti-trans London meeting just as medical record thief, privacy pirate and anti-trans melon fucker Jamie Reed was about to speak.
We are truly blessed with an excellent up-and-coming generation. Crickets! Everyone sing Despacito!
https://www.them.us/story/youth-activists-live-crickets-disrupt-anti-trans-conference-london-j-k-rowling-lgb-alliance-trans-kids-deserve-better
There is also some judo going on here. Most people are like, whatever, trans people are just people, let them live their lives. By attacking trans people all the time, the GOP puts Dems in the position of defending them, and then they can say, “look, the Dems are obsessed with trans rights!”