Should Democrats React To Anti-Trans Smear Campaigns Bravely, Or Like A Bunch Of Chickensh*ts?

Boy that’s a puzzler.

Democratic nominee Annie Andrews ad; screenshot via Erin in the Morning

As polling in tight Senate races shows Democrats doing well even in states that don’t tend to vote blue, Republican campaigns and their allies are again throwing metric fucktons of money into fearmongering attack ads. As in 2024, the flavor of the fall is Pumpkin Spice hatred of transgender people, which plenty of Republican consultants believe — based on very little evidence — were key in defeating Kamala Harris.

In South Carolina, Dr. Annie Andrews is running such a strong race against Lindsey Graham’s sister that Republicans are pouring an additional $5 million into campaign ads, including this wretched hatefest from a rightwing PAC featuring a sweet little girl being followed through a grocery store by a scary pink-bearded man in a skirt, past a fake newspaper with the headline “Annie Andrews: Trans The Kids,” and the recycled tagline “Annie Andrews is for they/them. NOT for our values. NOT for South Carolina.”

On Monday, Donald Trump took the attacks on Andrews to his favorite place, the gutter, repeatedly calling her “Annie Tr*nnie” and saying Andrews “is in favor of Transgender for Everyone,” one of his favorite lines that doesn’t make a bit of sense, but which resonates with MAGA voters who genuinely believe that Democrats want to abort every baby and force children to become transgender, while using COVID vaccines to kill everyone else.

When a candidate is as weak as Darline Graham and Trump is unpopular with all but the most deluded MAGA cultists, irrational fear looks like a smart campaign strategy.

Andrews would have been smart to stand up to the fearmongering, and to point out that most Americans say their top issues this year are Trump’s shitty economy and his attacks on freedom. Only about eight percent of voters in a June poll said they consider transgender issues a “top concern,” while 65 percent said they think politicians use transgender issues as a distraction from more important matters.

That appeared to be the direction Andrews would take, at least immediately after Trump’s assholish taunts. At a rally on Tuesday, Andrews said, “If name calling would help lower gas prices and grocery prices, he can call me all the names he wants. But I don’t think that’s going to get the job done.”

Why she didn’t stop right there and move on to issues that voters say they really care about, we don’t know. Andrews didn’t go with the smart strategy, and it’s a goddamn shame. Fear can make candidates do stupid things too.

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At the same rally, Andrews tried to have it both ways, telling reporters that she opposes letting transgender girls and women compete in sports, but adding that it’s “not an issue that I’m hearing about when I’m actually campaigning, talking to voters who are struggling to fill up their gas tanks, to pay for their groceries, to keep their lights on at the end of the month.”

Her campaign also said in an email that she’s not planning to try to change South Carolina’s ban on puberty blockers and hormone treatments for patients under 18.

Not long after that, Andrews released a campaign ad that gave up on even calling the issue a distraction. Here’s the ad, in which Andrews, dressed in a lab coat, tries to blunt the anti-trans attacks by echoing their hateful framing of trans women as “men,” and not even pushing back against the rightwing lie that children are undergoing “surgery” for gender reassignment. (Feel free to skip watching it; we have a transcript right after the vid.)

ANDREWS: Politics can get pretty ugly, and when it does, you deserve to hear the truth. My career as a pediatrician has always been about taking care of kids, and I’ve got three of my own. So I want you to hear me loud and clear: I don’t support biological men playing women’s sports, and I don’t support and haven’t ever performed gender surgery for minors. I’m Dr. Annie Andrews, and I approve this message because Darline Graham lying about me won’t do a thing to help you.

This is a huge departure from Andrews on trans young people, like this 2022 tweet where she condemned South Carolina’s law banning trans kids from sports

Maybe Andrews thinks she’s doing damage control against the attacks, but this strategy just plain never works. It’s already pissing off voters who previously supported her. Worse, her capitulation won’t quiet the attacks, and isn’t likely to reassure “moderate” voters who are already susceptible to fearmongering about trans people. If that’s enough of an issue to sway them, they weren’t very gettable in the first place.

Lots of progressives will still support Andrews and vote for her because they don’t want another Graham in the Senate, but that support will now be less enthusiastic. Noses will be held, votes will be cast, and Andrews, who’s still very much a long-shot candidate, may yet win because Graham is an awful candidate.

If Andrews pulls out a win, she’ll need some steel and reinforced concrete to mend fences.

Sherrod Brown Does It Right

Andrews really should have taken the approach that seems to be working for Sherrod Brown in Ohio. He, too, has been hit with Republican ads trying to spread fear of trans people, but instead of giving an inch, Brown’s ads mock the paranoid ads as a weird distraction. The first of the ads, launched in September, points out that Ohio already passed its trans ban, and shows a woman on a park bench asking, “With everything going on, that’s what they’re talking about?” Then it quickly transitions to going after Republican incumbent Jon Husted and his support of Trump’s terrible policies. It’s pretty darn good!

The second ad makes short work of two bizarre ads with more “transing kids” rhetoric, featuring Sorenn Aldaco, a professional “detransitioner” who claims that Brown “supports sex changes for minors, irreversible surgery on kids like me,” although Aldaco actually had her surgery when she was an adult, and no, Sherrod Brown doesn’t support surgery on children.

The response ad takes just eight seconds to dismiss the lies, with a professional attack ad narrator saying, “Seen these ads? They’re a complete lie. Records show not only is this woman actually from Texas, she didn’t have any surgery as a minor.”

The remainder of the ad hammers Husted on his votes to block the release of the Epstein Files.

“But Jon Husted? He protected men who abused young girls by voting in the Senate to block the release of the Epstein Files. Maybe that’s because Husted took over $116,000 from from associates of Jeffrey Epstein — 10 times more than any other senator. Jon Husted should be ashamed.”

Americans are just tired of all the culture war bullshit, and they’re tired of Trump and his crowd of assholes. Brown is setting the bar for how to deal with the stupid anti-trans nonsense, which only a tiny portion of the country (but seemingly every GOP consultant) even cares about. Annie Andrews, and other Democrats heading into the last weeks of the midterm campaign, could you please pay attention?

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[Erin in the Morning / SC Daily Gazette / Them / LGBTQ Nation / GLAAD poll / NYT (gift link) / Ohio Capital Journal /

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