Let’s all enjoy this newly released ad from Progress Action Fund, a Democratic super PAC, which perfectly suits the mood of most Democratic voters this year. When Donald Trump and his MAGA weirdos go low, we want Democrats who’ll kick ‘em in the giggleberries.
Progress Action’s ad offers a good strong shove back against Republicans’ incessant fearmongering against transgender people this year, snarkily dramatizing the fundamental creepiness of that anti-trans panic. It’s titled “Republicans In Your Bathroom,” because it’s about Republicans in your bathroom.
In the ad, a girl steps into a restroom stall, presumably at school but possibly anywhere, and screams when she sees a blandly generic old Republican dude with white hair, a red tie, and the mean, pinched face of Orrin Hatch Ross Perot a creepy busybody.
When the girl asks who he is, the icky man replies, “I’m your Republican congressman. Now that we’re in charge, I’m checking to make sure there’s no trans people in the wrong bathroom.”
The girl points out “bathrooms are private,” and — standing in for millions of voters — asks the old creeper, “Don’t you have anything better to do?”
Scowling back at her, he explains, “I won the last election, and this is my priority.” The girl — again standing in for millions of voters — recoils in disgust, and the old guy leers, “Now, let’s make sure you’re really a girl.”
Hell yes. Our only criticism is that this ad is only coming out two weeks before Election Day.
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The ad will be running on internet-connected TV services and streaming networks in Ohio and Texas, which are just two of the markets where Republicans have been pounding transphobic panic. We hope it reaches far wider audiences too; our own brief unscientific scan of social media found comments saying “about damn time,” “this ad goes so hard” and “nice change from just saying ‘affordability’ again.”
And given the fairly frequent incidents where trans-panicked wingnuts have loudly harassed complete strangers and demanded they “prove” they actually belong in the women’s room, the ad isn’t even much of an exaggeration. Americans have a lot more to fear from Culture Warriors who can’t stop thinking about children’s genitals than from trans folks.
Also too, we like the attitude of Progress Action Fund executive director Joe Jacobson, who wasn’t afraid to get all cussy in a statement announcing the ad. “Americans want their elected officials to lower gas prices and end the war in Iran, not follow them into the fucking restroom,” he wrote, although The Hill made it not a cuss by replacing the u and the c with a dash. He added, “Republicans are creepy as hell. Democrats need to grow a spine and call Republicans out for their creepy fetish of monitoring children’s bathrooms.”
This is the kind of ad we need to see more of, instead of Democrats trying to shield against culture-war attacks by joining Republicans in shitting on trans people. Whatever slight utility trans panic may have had in 2024, the attacks simply aren’t getting any traction outside the MAGA bubble, which has been going increasingly flat along with Donald Trump’s brain scans.
In fact, as Erin Reed notes, three separate big national polls indicate that Republicans’ constant howling about the scary transgenders isn’t simply failing to connect with voters, it may actually backfire. Echoing exit polls in 2024, all three polls found that only a tiny percentage of voters consider transgender issues important (and more of those are Democrats than Republicans, implying they likely care about protecting trans people, not kicking them); 51 percent of respondents told the AP-NORC poll they think it’s “not important” to their vote. In fact, as this graph based on the data shows, voters may disagree about whether immigration or AI matters, but they’re amazingly united in not giving a shit about other Americans’ gender identities.
If Republicans are hoping to boost turnout with a lot of 30-second hatefests, the data suggests it’s just not working, and no other issues are going Republicans’ way either.
This comes despite massive GOP spending on trans-panic ads. Since August 1, more than $100 million has been spent on ads — over 200 of ‘em! — that include the scare words “sex change.” Just one group, weird MAGA oligarch Elon Musk’s Fucking Dipshit Asshole Nazi PAC (its formal name is “America PAC,” but we insist on transparency), has pledged another $100 million to support Republicans, much of it also going to attack trans people, because Elon Musk is mad that he has a lovely and cool trans daughter.
We hope the final weeks of the campaign will see a lot more Democrats taking the fight to the Culture Warriors, like maybe even pointing out, loudly, that if MAGAs want to protect children, they should have a word with Musk, who is facing multiple lawsuits over his Grok deepfake robot being used to create child sexual abuse materials from kids’ school photos.
Finally, we would also like to point out that you should follow Yr Wonkette for betting advice, since we just might be able to see through time. Just this weekend, we ran a Saturday story about some of the midterm elections’ best political ads. Then Sunday, we had a piece on how smart Democratic candidates are punching back against Republicans’ attempts to stir up voter panic over transgender people. And now here’s this terrific ad punching back at the bigots.
Just to test out our possible clairvoyance, we’re working on a pair of stories about corporate attempts to get mommybloggers to mention their products, as well as a preview of the best new electric vehicles coming onto the market.
[ The Hill / Erin in the Morning / Assigned Media / WaPo (gift link)]
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Very, very good ad. More of this please. Because I'm tired of this shitty unreconstructed party. This is all they bring to the table; vile sadopopulism. They have nothing to make life better; just Miasma, Pestilence, Calamity, and Destitution as their plan for us.
Once again, IF they actually cared about protecting children from predators, they'd release the Epstein files. And teach boys very differently. And not excuse rape. And not excuse predatory behavior. And not excuse red flags like controlling behavior. And not sentence rapists (when they get sentenced at all) to time served or parole because they have their whole lives ahead of them...