Trans journalist Erin Reed has published a list of Democratic midterm candidates with anti-trans records, and the question she is forcing is one the party would rather not answer: if trans voters keep rewarding Democrats who harm them, what signal does that send? The calculation is real, the stakes are high, and there is no clean answer.
Short Answer: Baby/Bath water idiom
Long Answer: Dems lose elections because sub groups hate someone they have 98% in common with than someone who likes to bomb children.
If you aren’t voting for AOC, shut up with the bombing of children, most top dems support israel too
Was referring to the topic at hand… Trans rights.
Ranked choice voting so we stop having to pick terrible Democrats. Gaining prevalence in local elections!
We had that in Washington State but both parties worked to abolish it, saying that we were somehow too stupid to understand it.
I hate them both sooooo much.
Democrats can only maintain their position as controlled opposition if they control the party and can override primaries. If the people actually get a choice, then they become the people’s party and stand in opposition to the billionaire class.
We would have class war and eventually develop a strong state, similar to China, where billionaires get life sentences for bribery and can be fined and jailed for trying to undermine the state. China is so strict that it treats corrupt billionaires and government officials like we treat terrorists. There’s no legal maneuvering. They freeze your legal rights to conduct the investigation and trial, so that you cannot continue your corruption. China is a true state where leaders run the government, not businesses, whereas the United States is an oligarchy devolving into a system where private business owners run the government (fascism).
Hell. China has executed sixteen billionaires.
Private business owners have always run the government. From the founding to today
So make them fucking stop. “We’ve always done it this way” is the worst possible excuse for maintaining status quo. Just because things have always been shit doesn’t mean they are cursed to always remain shit. They are, but only unless and until people do something about it.
Voting for them doesn’t make them stop.
They do not want ranked choice voting because that would make them lose power
Best evidence here to support how important it’s established nationally
Pro corpo Dems run WA state and likely will for a very long time. The latest evidence of corruption and ethics violations that are just swept under the rug and ignored are a really bad sign.
Seems to be getting worse as many Democrats from red states migrate here as they are just happy to vote for anyone with a DNC endorsement. They’ll completely ignore the other dem candidates who want change in this state.
MLK supported getting less bad segregationists elected during the early stages of the civil rights movement because they were easier to work with, do we still have segregation today? If trans people in sports is the only contention and they agree on everything else, then that’s progress. We can fight on the trans people in sports point next primary. Let’s also not forget that Donald Trump is trying to end Democracy entirely and will oppress more than just trans people.
Enforced by explicit law? No, we don’t have segregation anymore. In schooling, the work force, housing, literally all forms of resource distribution? Pretty much yes.
Or it backfires if enough semi-transphobes get seats in Congress and join forces with the GOP on the issue, and this trans rights will be further set back.
Don’t tolerate the intolerant. If the GOP wins, the anger of the people builds. It should’ve happened years ago, but here we are. Americans have become too distracted and complacent.
Trump and the GOP are merely symptoms of problems within the average American consumeristic voter. And now with the attraction of social media outrage clickbait, Trump and the GOP are leveraging this for even more attention and notoriety.
Fuck off with the “it’s better to elect the GOP so they make people more angry” bullshit logic. That’s just stupid accelerationist thinking.
You probably have the privilege of being cis, so telling someone to fuck off because they’re defending someone who’s vulnerable isn’t very on-brand for a liberal.
Actually, yeah it is. You only care about money and property, like every other American. That supersedes human rights.
Your opportunistic lib candidates will absolutely sell out the queer community to maintain their seat. After all, capitalism is their thing too. They just like to mask it behind platitudes and promises.
You’re not defending anyone. You’re making it easier for the GOP to erase all of our rights, including the rights of trans people.
Maybe cis people should keep their mouths shut and not lecture trans people on how to advance for our own rights. Maybe have the humility to realize people understand their needs better than you do.
You may understand your needs better, but you apparently don’t understand our electoral system. That’s why I’m here to educate you. You are welcome!
And then liberals wonder why people refuse to vote for them, out of no other reason than a rejection of liberal arrogance.
I disagree strongly with the Democratic party. I despise a good deal of their platform, and am disgusted with about 90% of those that are elected. To me, they are an insult and an embarrassment.
… and I still voted for them in the last national election. Nobody likes them.
Choosing between the party where every elected official wants to unalive you, vs the party where only a handful want to do the same…
Yeah, that is a tough one. Really difficult decision, there.
In the places where the blue candidate is a transphobe, it’s transphobe vs transphobe
Yes, but if Dems remain in the minority, it’ll still be a Republican majority, giving them more time to dismantle democracy even further.
It’s the bigger picture which is most important. You cannot create lasting local change without removing the autocratic boot from above.
I mean, yes, let’s make these transphobe Dems as uncomfortable as possible. But America needs to roll back the fascism and authoritarianism, first. Without that first step, every other positive action is a house built on sand - it can be blown away from the top with infinite ease. And then it’s 1939 Germany all over again with pink triangles and pogroms aplenty.
And honestly, I see that outcome as the much, much worse one.
Yes, but if Dems remain in the minority, it’ll still be a Republican majority, giving them more time to dismantle democracy even further.
And if the transphobic Dems vote with the Republicans, trans people lose anyway. Democrats don’t do party discipline, so the anti-trans laws get passed anyway under the guise of “concessions”, so heads you’re dead, tails you’re still dead but someone somewhere feels bad about it.
The real problem is that no transphobic dem is capable of saving democracy.
Transphobic democrats are, at their very core, spineless cowards. They hold no real beliefs. There is no core to them. They simply follow the polls and hope to obtain power. They seek power for its own sake, not for what good they hope to do with it.
What the “blue no matter who” crowd forget is that saving democracy is unpopular. To truly save democracy, we’re going to have to pass unpopular laws. We’re going to have to rein in the power of the presidency. We’re going to have to dismantle the post-9/11 security state. We’re going to have to abolish ICE. But each of those things will result in headlines that Republicans will make great political hay out of. Abolish ICE? Some illegal immigrant is going to kill a white girl, and Republicans will be talking about it for years. Dismantling the surveillance state will actually mean we get hit with a few more terrorist attacks than we otherwise would.
Transphobe democracts are not going to save democracy. Saving democracy requires politicians who will look voters in the eye and say, “this is going to kill some Americans. I’m willing to let some Americans die if it means we save American democracy. Democracy is worth dying for.” Can you imagine any of these spineless TERF democrats having that kind of moral conviction?
Democrats who vote against trans rights will also vote against any bill that’s meant to seriously reinforce democracy. You can’t save democracy by voting in transphobes. They lack the moral courage to save it.
Many people will fail to make it, unfortunately. Many of them in this comment section.
The problem is voting strategically does feel good. People would rather have a clear conscience and evil government than an OK government and the feeling of having voted for a schmuck because the other schmuck was also a fascist.
I’ll get downvoted to hell for it, but you failed to include a valid third choice: not voting for either if they don’t represent your values.
Behold, the results of the “valid 3rd choice.”
Ah yes.
Choosing nothing over the least bad option when the final decision effects everyone.
What a hero.
choosing not to vote for the dnc is a valid long play, at the cost of risking republican victory in the short term, the length of the time is decided by the democrats.
vote for people who potray your values. people who claim that not voting for someone because they are only 2% off from acceptable vastly misrepresents the sheer % i disagree with the democratic platform based on their actions, and not their lies they tell near voting time
Sure, that’s an option. But all you’re doing is leaving the choice up to everyone else. No amount of abstention is going to shift this system into having more than 2 meaningful political parties.
If you really wanna say that neither candidate will produce a result you would prefer over the other, even if both are distasteful to you - then great, don’t vote. When my only two useful options are between a warm hell and a hot hell, I will be casting my vote for the warm hell - and then using my time before the next election to try to get people to push for a less shitty Dem next time.
I’ve started getting involved with my local Democratic Party. I no longer consider myself a Democrat, but they don’t need to know that, and I figure if I’m able to get more up close and personal, influence people in real time that would be a much better option than just not voting for these anti trans democrats or doing nothing.
This is the best tactic for those who can do it
I just don’t get the obsession with transgender people. What did they ever do other than just wanting to be left alone? Did a bunch of them bomb a bunch orphanages with burning puppies running out of the flaming building?
It’s a greatly exaggerated/manufactured culture war topic for the purpose of distracting from the very real class war.
It’s not a coincidence that anti-trans rhetoric started around the same time the war on terror started losing its effectiveness as an excuse and the 1% narrative was starting to take root.
There is a large contingent of voters that are deeply religious and hate them. They are trying to appeal to those voters. America is still one of the most religious countries in the world.
There is a large contingent of voters that are deeply religious and hate them.
This is what I am asking about. Why? What is the bug up religious people’s asses about transgender people.
Their argument usually is that God doesn’t make mistakes and trying to change the gender you’re born with is just flaunting him or something. It’s not a rational argument, their book or their pastor says it’s unnatural and they follow like the little sheep their are.
Because they’re devil worshipers. A large portion of so-called Christians actually worship Satan. You worship hate, you’re following the Devil, not God. Some people are just evil.
The claim is that transgender people are rejecting the body God gave them. It’s hypocritical though because most of them don’t have an issue with physically disabled people getting medical care to treat their disabilities. My aunt is transphobic, though too incoherent to admit it, and she is also against blood transfusions and IVF on the grounds that they’re against God’s will. She’s a hypocrite and would be dead from cancer without medical treatment.
They’re a pawn that bigots like to use to rile their base and distract from other issues. With enough enthusiasm, a concerted effort can make about anything the enemy to rally against. It’s mostly fear mongering, but also has a serious detrimental effect to those being targeted.
Lyndon B. Johnson: “If you can convince the lowest white man he’s better than the best colored man, he won’t notice you’re picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he’ll empty his pockets for you.”
Nonwhite, trans, gay, feminist, non-Christian, furry, etc – substitute at will for the latest boogeyman.
Exactly. They’ll take any group and demonize the “other” just to have someone they can point fingers at. It’s all distraction. Sadly, trans people are the “other” of the moment. Historically, this shit doesn’t end well, and when they’re done with trans people they’ll “other” another group.
Authoritarian personalities agress toward outgroups who violate traditional norms, including socially traditional gender roles. They become a scapegoat during times of capitalistic economic uncertainty.
We’re in part of the cycle where liberal democracy decays and fascism flourishes. A core tenet of fascist ideology is the championing of the in-group with religious fervor and nationalistic pride. This is seen as a populist way to “save the country,” when the real problem is capitalism and the exploitation of workers. This is why fascists demonize socialists, communists and even liberals.
Both the GOP (conservatives) and the far left (tankies) can reflect this personality type.
They’re an easy target because they’re a small minority and it’s easy to convince people who aren’t educated in the subject that they’re doing harm by letting men into women’s spaces and making children change gender
Divide and conquer
It’s the classic fascist tactic of scapegoating a minority, as part of fascist strategy. Look up how fascism works, that is a big part of it.
Hey those puppies were Hamas /s
The ignorati believe that transfolk are grooming their little tax breaks. Which of course is wholly untrue. In fact, Christians are the only ones to have the god given right to groom not only their own larvae, but ALL parasites - foreign and domestic for the sole purpose to turn them into mindless and obedient hatemongers, just like their worshipped lord and savior.
You vote for them because they are more likely to change their tune than a republican.
Plus you do everything to make their life miserable until he changes his mind.
One of the best responses I’ve heard was from the Professional Left:
(Starting around the 26:30 mark)
Boils down to: Democrats can be educated, Republicans will destroy you. Quite possibly in the literal sense.
Vote for the pro-trans Republican instead, obviously! /S
The time to oppose anti-trans Democrats is the primary. In the general election, it’s too late: at that point your choice is an anti-trans Democrat or an anti-trans and otherwise fascist Republican.
Many of these Democrats such as Talarico waited until after the primary to start their anti-trans rhetoric. We would have already voted them out if they didn’t deceive us.
The only question that’s valid to have about Talerico on this topic is “is Ken Paxton better, or is he even worse?” The answer is, “no, Ken Paxton is even worse.” If Talerico doesn’t win, Paxton WILL. End of.
For trans Texans, not voting for Talerico in order to keep Paxton out of office is objectively idiotic – it’s basically suicide by spite. That’s just reality, and reality doesn’t give a fuck if you like it or not.
Found the cis person.
You can replace any number of subjects for trans and the argument always holds. It’s a shitty situation but it’s an unavoidable consequence of first-past-the-post voting.
Talarico isn’t going to push for anti-trans legislation the way Rupublicans will.
And what on Earth makes you conclude that? He’s already slid to the right on trans issues, what’s to stop him from decaying further? Every other politician that starts on transphobia ends up sliding into the deep end of it. Why should he be any different?
And furthermore, politics is about building coalitions. No two candidates will ever agree on everything, and no candidate will ever represent every single one of your interests. You have to pick the best choice for you out of what you’ve got. If you think a Republican will represent your interests as a trans person more than a Democrat, then go for it.
You really misunderstand coalitions. The whole point of a coalition is that a bunch of minority groups will get together and say, “I’ll support your issues if you support my issues.” The minute the rest turn against one member group of that coalition, they’re no longer part of that coalition.
You’re asking trans people to support a party that is actively seeking to throw trans people out of the party. According to transphobe democratics, trans people simply are not part of the Democratic coalition.
I agree with you! To quote myself from another, now deleted thread:
You gotta get the pro-trans candidate in the primary. If you wait to look up if your candidates are anti-trans until right before the general then you waited too fucking long.
Waiting until after the primary to realize that both candidates are anti-trans is like waiting until your house is already on fire to consider if you should buy fire extinguishers. Voting for the shitty Democrat is painful but letting the even shittier Republican who also hates immigrants too win is like adding gas so that your neighbor’s house will burn too.
Talarico changed his position after the primary.
Talarico wasn’t properly vetted before the primary.
How convenient. There’s always an excuse. Anything to avoid the conclusion that sometimes you need to be willing to vote against traitors in the general.
Last time you posted for that you got clowned on so hard that you deleted your whole post.
“Mod deletes article.”
Mouth-breathing liberal: “you ran away like a coward!”
Credit where credit is due, I went through your moderation history and you are correct and I apologize. Furthermore I think a bunch of the other stuff that got deleted is actually pretty cool too. I really wish you would stop effectively suppressing trans and progressive votes. I know your heart is in the right place (and same for TRAHR, the OP) but at the end of the day when fascists disenfranchise trans people (gerrymandering, ID troubles, mail in suppression, etc.) and when you tell trans people not to vote the result is still the same: trans people have less of a voice and worse fascists getting more power with less pushback.
Voting shouldn’t be a sacrifice of that magnitude.
For a lot of single-issue voters, this kind of calculation is theoretical. For trans people right now, it is not. An anti-trans Democrat in office is a harm. A Republican who is openly, aggressively, legislatively hostile to trans existence is a different order of harm. Both things are true, and genuinely hard to reconcile.
Yeah, that’s an awful choice. I can’t think of a better option than the article presents — name the candidates and their shortcomings/wrongs.
If you’re going to sacrifice your own safety and security, at least let it be for revolutionary direct action, not laying down for the slaughter.
I like how its always a minorities job to vote against their own self interest “for the greater good” and not the job of a Democratic politician to not throw them under the bus. Especially with how seemingly extremely important this one demographic is if a significant portion of said demographic not voting will cause the candidate to lose.
Doing nothing while bloodthirsty bigots march into power unopposed is still ‘voting against self interest’. The consequences are simply far more immediate and far harder to counter.
Not for the greater good - for their own good. Even if you only care about one issue (and justifiably so), and both candidates are on the wrong side of that issue, it is likely that one of them is far worse on that issue than the other. It doesn’t have to feel good to vote for the someone who stands in opposition to your interests, but it is better than letting the person who stands in opposition to your existence win.
My issue isn’t whether voting for a democratic candidate or not is better overall as a trans person, I think basically every trans person in the US knows that policy wise a democrat will, at worst, be the same as the republican they’re running against on trans rights specifically, and at least a bit better on some others. (There is a consistent belief on every one of these posts that somehow trans people don’t understand that as well, which is a different issue lol)
The point is that if a politician doesn’t lose support/votes for taking an anti-trans position, then there’s nothing punishing them for taking that position. That’s the argument being made about how voting for an anti-trans democrat is voting against your own good, not because of their policy specifically, but because by voting for them in spite of it you send a signal that their position on trans issues can be the same as a republicans as long as they’re marginally better than one in other ways.
For what its worth, I’m trans and am planning on voting for all Democrats in the midterms, even though I’m disappointed in a few of them. However, there are a couple candidates mentioned in this article specifically (namely cuellar + kaptur and a few others) where I think not voting for them has a very strong argument I’d consider if I lived in those states.
If a an anti-trans Democrat loses to a more anti-trans Republican, the lesson they learn is they should have been more anti-trans to win.
Not voting assists the rightward ratchet. Nobody can hear your silence.
If a an anti-trans Democrat loses to a more anti-trans Republican, the lesson they learn is they should have been more anti-trans to win.
That’s an insane statement. A Democrat takes a fringe position not generally supported by the party and loses. Therefore, that must mean they should become even more fringe.
That dog don’t hunt.
The ones making bad statements about trans people in sports are running in states/districts with relatively conservative voter bases. These sentiments are not fringe for these areas; in fact, they are tamer than those of the average local voter. If Democrats continue to lose to Republicans there, it’s not “insane” for them to conclude that their constituents prefer the Republicans’ policy positions.
You’re just fucking yourself by letting the greater evil (the one that actually wants you dead) win.
If an anti trans Dem loses to a more anti trans Rep, the lesson they will learn from this is that they should be more anti trans to sway even just a single republican voter. Democrats don’t care about you or your interests they just want money from their overlords, and those overlords love it when the proletariat is mauling itself
That’s piss-poor logic. Democrats have already moved far to the left on Gaza/Palestine, precisely because Kamala lost. They didn’t move further towards Zionism.
If someone said “I want to kill you humanely” and their opponent just said “I want to kill you”, I think the rest of us wouldn’t be chastising you for refusing to vote for either. This is an issue easy for cis people to counsel a cost-benefit analysis on, but it’s deeply personal for the victims.
If these politicians think throwing them under the bus will net them votes that’s on the politician to prove, not for their victims to support.
I’m cis myself, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a very personal stake in this fight. I have yet to hear of a Democrat politician that thinks trans people should die - I wish I could say the same about republican politicians.
They have though. Once you support one policy against trans people based on nothing more than unscientific fear and bigotry, there’s no logical reason you can’t support all of them. Trans women have no advantage in sports; it’s based on nothing but stereotypes. And every place that’s started with sports restrictions have moved on to far more restrictions.
Here’s what I would like to see these transphobe dems suggest. Put your money where your mouth is. Propose compromise legislation that actually does what you say your policies are. Are sports really what you care about? Fine. Pass a national law that says:
- Sports are based on assigned gender at birth.
- No state or federal law can restrict access to trans medical care, for trans people of any age.
- All states and the federal government must protect access to correct IDs.
- Enshrine trans anti-discrimination into federal law.
Is this really about sports? Fine. Fucking act like it. If this really were about sports, I think most trans people would happily trade a ban on sports participation in turn for all of our other rights being firmly protected and enshrined in federal law.
I don’t believe that most politicians of either party actually give a fuck about women’s sports in general - they certainly never have before this issue came up. For cowardly democrats on the anti-trans side of the sports issue, they simply see this as a way to avoid appearing too “woke” to independents and conservative democrats, while only directly affecting the handful of mtf athletes among their constituents.
I fully agree that most trans folk and their loved ones would gladly cede the sports issue in exchange for some real protections - I certainly would.
I’m not saying that these anti-trans democrats are trustworthy; I’m saying they are motivated by poll numbers, not personal animosity. Losing won’t motivate them to do better unless they lose to someone with better values - that’s why we can teach them lessons in the primaries but not in the general election. If they lose in the general, the lesson they will take is that they weren’t conservative enough, so withholding your vote at that point is counter-productive.
The republicans want to pass bills that will make life overtly harder for trans folk, beyond sports and even bathroom use. The priority right now is to take away their majorities in the House and Senate, so that those bills can’t even be brought to the floor for a vote. Beyond that we have to hold them accountable during their term, and we can primary them next time around. There is no situation in which withholding votes from Democrats in the general results in better outcomes for trans people.
Another cis person telling trans people they know better. Mansplaining at its finest.
Because it’s of course totally impossible for me to have a personal stake in the well being of trans people without being one myself, right. There’s no way there could be other people in my life already feeling the damage done by this administration…
I’m also a lifelong atheist, and very much opposed to religion playing any part in government affairs. If I refused to vote for any politician that invoked god on the campaign trail, I’d have never voted in 25+ years of adulthood. Regardless of what the issue is, refusing to vote for the better/less harmful candidate means prioritizing your own emotional self-satisfaction over the well being of those most directly affected (whether that includes you or not). It might feel good and righteous to take such a stand, but it’s a trap.
It would be mansplaining for me to try to tell you how to feel about these candidates, or about the experience of being betrayed by the “better” party - I’m not here to do that, nor would I have any right to. I’m saying that however you feel, you shouldn’t let your feelings determine your vote. That shitty candidate that cares more about getting elected than about your rights will never know why you didn’t vote for them (in fact they are likely to guess the opposite), and you’ll be stuck with the one who revels in causing you pain. Please don’t let the perfect be the enemy of the bad if the only other option is the downright monstrous.
Exactly. I’m frankly sick and fucking tired of cis people telling trans people how they know our needs so much better than we do. The hubris is astounding.
Yeah the constant through line on every one of these kinds of posts from people that minorities of any type are too stupid to understand that Republicans are bad for them or something is kinda gross. Like basically every left-leaning minority person discussing Democrat politicians falling short gets that republican policies are typically worse, the issue is not having a good alternative that’s not still bad, and choosing not to vote for them is based on that, not some notion that they’ll be better off under a republican. The whole point of voting is supposed to be that your vote gives you leverage to influence politicians to take your stance (or more accurately to convince you of that to keep people from doing actions that actually meaningfully affect change).
Saying “vote blue no matter who” or whatever equivalent of you should vote for a democrat no matter what just allows democrats to ignore that supposed leverage and hold voters hostage by using MAGA as a point of leverage to try and force people to vote for them. There’s a reason that Trump never got arrested under Biden, or barred from office, and Democrats kept preaching unity rather than consequences. They directly benefit from MAGA existing.
Trump isn’t even the problem at the end of the day, he’s a symptom of a much deeper problem that won’t be fixed by just electing a Democrat majority for 8 years straight, much less for one election. The entire US was founded on racism, sexism, and classism, and those were written into the foundation of the electoral college, the senate, the house, and everythting else. The democrats have no incentive to fix that though as long as they keep winning roughly 50% of the time and can get their money and help their corporate backers.
Anyway sorry for the rant lol, I’m just also frustrated by the number of cis people in this post saying dismissive or kinda transphobic things and being upvoted for it lol.
Yeah. It’s pure arrogance. What they refuse to admit is that sometimes the only power minorities have, the only way we can actually influence anything, is to be willing to act as a spoiler if we’re betrayed by our leaders.
Of course, the cis mansplainers in this thread don’t want minorities actually exercising independent power. They want our votes, but not our voices.
Vote for them and then get them to have pro-trans rights views. Like we did with Obama and gay marriage.
That’s one way to do it. Sounds like throwing in the towel at first, but if their strategy was to shift the Overton Window, it might not be a bad plan to shift it right back.
I’m so tired of these people touching kids and then fucking with trans folks.
I mean it’s pretty shit, but what are we gonna do, vote in the Republicans? I’m sure that will help trans people even more /s
Sadly, I don’t have a bettet suggestion. This pro-Israel shit with dems is also a problem though. There’s got to be a better way.
believe it or not, also guillotine.
Vote for lesser evil + organize, get loud and make being trans normal in red states. The American system is so screwed up with no ability to dissolve your legislatures before the 4 year cycle. If you live in a state of those races, it would be better to be ignored than your rights taken away. If you need anything go seek the support of a Democrat that is pro-trans from out of your state, with control of Congress they would be able to help you more if your state’s legislators are useless but of the same caucus rather than of a caucus that is actively blocking efforts. Sorry if I sound flippant about it, but I would tell moderate voters the same about a progressive candidate.
If you’re worried about the ratchet affect, the solution I don’t think is to turn the screws further in the direction of the ratchet. The UK example is weird, the Labour Party’s somewhat to blame but I don’t fully lay it at their feet, because their justice system is biased in very old ways, negatively affecting people’s rights to gender expresssion.
The USA has already tried in 2016 the “haha, let Republicans vote for Donald Trump, they’ll see how bad it is when they vote for racism rather than a milquetoast candidate and they will disavow it forever after” method, that didn’t work, only made things a lot worse, he got elected again. Even if you have the long game in mind, not voting appears to send, even if a Republican wins 49% to 47%, a signal that the people mandate that trans people should be hurt, rather than a more neutral signal. States that had been trending red turning blue signals nationally a change in the direction of trans acceptance, regardless of the willingness of the candidate to associate during the campaign with pro-trans advocates or not.
Voting for the Lesser of Two Evils, is still voting for evil.
And more importantly, exactly how we got here.
I beg to differ, it is my opinion that not doing so is what got the USA Trump (if that’s what you mean by ‘us here’) twice.
Fifty years of voting for the lesser is what got us to Trump. It’s all anyone has been doing since before I’ve been alive.
You vote for evil, you get evil. It’s well past time to start demanding not-evil.
I mean no offense but you are sounding ignorant on these topics and assuming it’s a choice of nothing happening or things getting worse, when the reality is it is both sides making things worse in these few instances.
These Democrats are not simply ignoring us, they are taking away our rights. They are working with Republicans to pass laws to limit our freedoms, they are copying their talking points to demonize us, for all intents and purposes they are no different on trans issues as Republicans.
Likewise the UK justice previously had greater support for trans people but was changed under Labor to redefine what it meant so that it could exclude trans people. This was not some archaic law, but a political choice by Labor to actively harm trans people.
You’re still not going to get more rights by voting red or abstaining. You have allies. Let us help instead of forcing us to dig everyone out of a hole made by right wing fundie Christians
Nah. I think trans people and our allies should vote against transphobic democrats. If the rest of you democrats are going to throw us under the bus, y’all can come to Hell with us.
Guess what happens in an election with FPTP where a candidate from one of two parties will win, and people vote their conscience or don’t vote at all.
The worse of the two candidates wins.
If we’re talking about US senators or representatives, there’s a lot of value in having a majority in either or both houses, and the margins are pretty slim. Yes, you’ll risk getting another Fetterman, but the House majority party gets to pick the Speaker, which allows for a huge amount of control over what comes to the floor at all.
Ok, then that seems like a simple game theory case where the lesser worse should change to mollify those voters of conscience since the alternative is them always losing.
Can I have a source on the claim that the Equality Act was changed to redefine what it meant so that it could exclude trans people?
context
Not arguing that it was changed, but in the court decision, the judges relied on the 1976 Sex Discrimintation Act for and even the ruling judge said himself, that trans people “had been led to believe… for the last 15 years that they had rights, which they didn’t have”. It was a judicial interpretation of the law that evaluated the 2004 gender equivalency provisions against the 1976 law moreso than the 2010 law to narrow the protected class from the 2010 law.
If a Musky PAC were to run ads saying how terrible Brown or another candidate would be for trans rights, in the same way Jewish and Arab voters were shown contradictory messages in 2024, would that influence how or whether you vote?
they are copying their talking points to demonize us
To be clear, I think that trans people should compete in sports according to their gender and be conferred the same rights as anyone else. But people that want to limit trans people’s participation in sports for flawed, scientifically refuted reasons while treating them as humans, I don’t think is the same, as wanting to ban them from bathrooms changing driver’s licenses and treating them as subhuman demon freaks. We should not equate the two.
To give a similar example, the fight for gay sex and marriage in Canada was fought over decades, and the stigma remains in small pockets. A progressive Prime Minister decriminalized it in the 1969 while not his entire Liberal Party was openly for it, and it was still in the decades after that a ban on workplace discrimination and in the 2000s when marriage was recognized. So we have to pull in the same direction, allow trans people the same basic rights as anyone else, then talk about competitive and recreational activites like sports later rather than just labelling it all as anti-trans sub-humanization talking points.
No issue is a strict binary - there are many degrees of transphobia, just as there are many degrees of any bigotry, as well as many degrees of non-human-rights issues, like support for public schools or privatization of health care. I would imagine that in almost every case where there is an anti-trans democrat running against an anti-trans republican, there is a significant difference both in terms of how rabidly transphobic the candidate is and which specific anti-trans policies they will support. There is also likely to be a big difference whether or not there is any potential for them to see the error of their ways. While most anti-trans democrats are likely on the wrong side of trans participation in sports, they are not likely to support criminalizing trans existence or encouraging violence against trans people, while many republicans are. They also will face pressure from pro-trans members of their own party, and from significant pro-trans constituencies, which republicans will not.
In FPTP voting systems, we rarely have the luxury of voting for candidates who have our full-throated support in the general election. Even if one issue is massively more important to you than the rest (and when that issue is a matter of survival, that is 100% valid), there is almost always a greater and lesser evil on that issue alone. Voting shouldn’t be viewed as a matter of identity or even as an endorsement, but rather as a practicality. It is a method of weighing in as to which of the limited options available is more tolerable (or less intolerable). Does that suck? Absolutely. Does it make sense to vote any other way within such a system? Not at all - because if the more tolerable side loses, the only lesson they are likely to take from that loss is to become more like the winning, intolerable side.
You getting downvoted for such a nuanced comment is insane. No wonder the republicans have so much power when people consistently vote against their own interests (or refuse to vote at all), even when one candidate is clearly much, much worse/better than the other.
“Vote Hindenburg! He is not as antisemitic as Hitler. Surely nothing bad will ever happen then.”
Yes, and not voting would make it all better!
You do realize that Talarico is running for US Senate, right? Whether or not he gets elected has almost nothing to do with how Texas treats its trans residents. He has no say in TX politics as he is leaving the TX legislature in attempt to make it to the Senate.
And OP is saying that he will face consequences for choosing to change his position on the trans question after the primaries. Maybe he’ll lose, and that will tell the DNC and other candidates not to use trans people as a scapegoat (which is a fascist tactic). But whether he wins or loses has no bearing on how Texas treats trans people.
I’ll be frank: I don’t think Paxton winning over Talarico will tell the DNC a single thing with respect to trans rights.
Whereas if Talarico wins, what is preventing him from changing his views in any way, at any point within the next 6 years? A Dem President in 2028, with the support of Congress including Talarico, can codify better protections for all humans, in all states despite any state like Texas’ objections. Paxton as Senator would be an active obstacle to that type of effort.
Yeah. We know how the Senate works. The problem is that the party is choosing strategies to win elections and those strategies include things like supporting genocide, scapegoating vulnerable people, condemning communism, expanding the military and the police, honoring ICE agents, destroying RCV campaigns, and punching left. For every win they get with these strategies, they will use the victories to claim that this is the way the party must go. For every loss using these strategies, they will attack the voters and say it’s the voters’ fault for not voting properly. They will then pay social media influencers to claim that the party never actually cared about people who didn’t vote for them, despite the hundreds of millions of dollars spent over the last several decades on “get out the vote campaigns”.
What expect is that if Paxton is willing to sacrifice his principles on the campaign trail, then he’s likely to sacrifice his principles once in the Senate and will vote with his Republican colleagues, because that’s the evidence he’s providing us. We don’t want another Manchin.
Why would you imagine Talarico moving to the left on trans issues, instead of further to the right? He’s already proven he’s willing to move to the right.
I could imagine both scenarios where he moves left or right after the election my comment didn’t necessarily rule one out. Why are you only imagining Talarico moving to the right? And even if he does move rightward, the makeup of the Senate will still be more pro-trans than without him.
If you think a dem losing to a republican is going to send them a message about trans rights… you are totally wrong.
Republicans are going out of their way to hurt Trans people, do not let them win by voting 3rd party in close races!
We have the modern Republican party because people refused to support the not-insane and politicians changed their tune to avoid that. One of the arguments for el-Sayed in his primary victory was that Stevens would risk a replay of the Undecided issue. The idea that politicians (and other voters) just don’t look at demographic voting trends at all and pretend anyone who didn’t vote last election is a non-entity is silly.
So what you’re telling me is that my votes don’t matter and won’t send anyone a message and that Talarico showing he’s willing to lie in the primaries about his position on trans people and then change his position after we vote for him is the best chance I have simply because his party is blue? So we’ll get another Joe Manchin?
Uhhhh yes? Have you not paid any attention to how the two party system works?
I’m not saying it’s good, but I’m saying if you want to have a chance at making it better we need massive amounts of dems so the ones who are progressive can pass changes to make it better.
Voting for a more progressive person who has zero chance of winning is throwing your vote away. That’s how the system works. For years those voting green party for more liberal ideas have lost and split the vote so more republicans win who push platforms farther and farther right.
So yes, vote for the lesser of two evils until you have the opportunity to vote progressive and make your votes actually matter.
Primaries are the time to get the more progressive person for the election, don’t vote on the election day “to send a message”. That’s how we get Trump and MAGA
Yeah, so you’re not talking about reality. The Democrats have been sliding to the right themselves. That’s not the fault of the voters.
Yes it is. When they lose over and over to right wing opponents which way do you think they’ll slide? For those that refuse to vote unless they have a perfect candidate or one who does show up to vote who they then try to cater to?
You are the one missing reality when you think not voting or voting 3rd party for under 5% total vote matters at all. Because that’s what people have been doing and it clearly doesn’t work
You’re contradicting yourself. You’re saying people have been voting for third party but they never get even 3% of the vote, let alone 5%, so clearly that’s not the problem. And they’re not not voting because voter participation in 2020 was the highest since 1908 and 2024 was tied for second highest with 1960.
So again, you’re not dealing with reality. People aren’t choosing to not vote nor to vote third party. The Ds are continually sliding right because of something other than the voters.
send them a message
I’ve been hearing that kind of thing for decades - I remember single issuer voters voting Libertarian or Republican or whatever because the Democrats were “just as bad” on things like marijuana legalization, prison reform, etc.
There is effectively no message sent and nothing received when people sit out, throw their vote away on an absurd third party, or vote Republican.
Why are you running defence for them? Their job is to manage your expectations into extinction, they are your rulers not your friends.
