Liberals will lie to you and tell you to “just vote in the primary,” but in reality they simply don’t care about trans rights and do not believe there is ever a right time to challenge transphobic Democrats.
First primary: the transphobes hide their colors so you can’t vote against them.
First general election: the snakes reveal their colors, but you can’t vote against the traitors because “blue no matter who.” They tell you to just vote in the next primary.
Second primary: the same people who tell you now “save it for the primary” shift their tune to “we can’t give up an incumbent seat in a purple district!”
Trans people can see through these bad-faith lies. Yet of course, mansplaining trolls will be sure to breathlessly explain “lesser of two evil” math, as if that’s not an argument we haven’t heard a thousand times and already rejected due to its obvious flaws. There’s never a shortage of arrogant cis people who think they know more about trans issues than actual trans people.
Liberals want your votes, not your voices. Be a good little minority and sit down. Shut up. Support the party. You owe the party your support. The party owes you nothing.
Can always count on there being a cis person that thinks they know trans issues better than actual trans people.
Remember, trans people are apparently numerous enough to owe our votes to Democrats, but we’re not numerous enough to have our issues be included as basic litmus tests of party candidate eligibility.
Maybe you should have some humility and stop acting like minorities owe you anything after you betray them.
You don’t represent all of us, slow your role. Jesus Christ can we at least keep the actual real fascists out of office while working on making things better at the same time?
Why didn’t the “working on making things better” start in 2020? We could’ve kept actual fascists out of power, if we’d started then, instead of breathing a sigh of relief and acting like everything was fixed forever.
I don’t know about you but I don’t have a time machine. I’m stuck in the present timeline. If you’ve got a way back to try and fix this mess, believe me when I say try it and don’t worry of it destroys the current timeline.
Even though I recognized the trajectory toward authoritarianism back in 1996 with Pres. Clinton’s Third Way triangulation, and have been saying, guys, we need to start making things better sooner rather than later since then, the past is indeed the past. So, what’s the plan? What are we doing beyond “vote blue” right now to ensure that we don’t have to vote for anti-trans Democrats next time, too?
I love this question, because the answer can be so many things depending on your set, setting, and availability. Engage in local politics and community support.
Show up for meetings and listen. Share your thoughts and opinions as you become informed or find you have questions. Talk to your friends and neighbors. Join a local committee. Run for a local office or go further if that’s your path.
Get acquainted with your local town office, rec center, senior center, etc. Start volunteering. Serve meals, maybe deliver some. Support a food bank - donations, pickup from local business donors. Promote Progressive voices that are supporting workers’ and people’s rights. Support people doing everything described in the previous paragraph.
Gogol Bordello said it first: Think global, act local. Installing a president with true progressive values isn’t a path to success unless there is wider congressional support, so start developing grass roots support or support those that are developing such.
Conservatives have spent 50+ years slowly and steadily doing this and fucking over progressive voices all along the way with exuberant neoliberal support on embracing corporate money and influence. It’s a long road back. We need to stop accelerating towards stupidity and it’s the right wing authoritarian cultists that have their foot stuck on the gas pedal so keeping them out of power would be super neato as far as I’m concerned.
Connect the dots, please. Those are all wonderful things, but how do they add up to avert the authoritarian takeover of national power that the conservative movement has been working on for so long?
Local power matters. Both in local politics, like city and county, and in community connectedness. Make your town a better place, create non-political systems for neighbors to help each other, gain control of the narrative. You’re right that conservatives have been working for so long, and nothing we can do will magically flip a switch. The solution is going to take time too. And that starts with building connections with your neighbors.
Hol’up…
Where did you get the idea that “trans people are numerous enough”? Numerous in what, exactly? To swing an election?
I’m so confused by all the stuff you’re posting around here. It seems you are VERY misinformed about your position in society as a member of a group, and how that affects US elections at large.
I’m not saying to hold back on your swings or anything, but the crazy vitriol you’re spouting off just seems to say you’re making some wild assumptions that will not play out…
If trans people are so minor that we can’t affect elections, why are you complaining about trans people withholding our votes?
First: I’m not “complaining about trans people” in any way. I’m pointing out the flaw in your logic, and attempting to understand what mechanism you believe you are attempting to enact here because it’s no making sense.
Second: trying to contort other people’s comments to turn yourself into a victim over falsehoods is the weakest of weak discourse, and makes you seem like an unserious person. I hope you don’t engage with people in person like that, because it’s a fast track to being ignored.
This is part of a larger conversation.
I am not assuming that trans people are numerous enough to affect elections. I’m simply taking that as a given based on all the responses I’ve received in this and similar threads. People clearly believe that trans people are numerous enough for our votes to matter, but also somehow so small in number that our issues can be ignored.
You’re doing the Democrat version of the old Nazi trope that Jews were both incredibly weak and subhuman, while also a secret conspiracy that controlled the world. The Nazis simultaneously believed that Jews were inferior subhumans, literally less-evolved and less-intelligent than ordinary Germans AND that Jews were powerful and smart enough to secretly run the whole world.
You believe a similar thing about trans people. Our numbers are small enough that our issues can’t be litmus tests for the party. (No one would tell black democrats that they have to support a democrat that is a member of the KKK. Anti-black racism is treated as a red line by the whole party. No one says we have to support klan members because “blue no matter who.” Trans issues aren’t treated with the same seriousness by folks like you.) Our numbers are small enough that our issues can be dismissed as trivial and unimportant. You’ll dismiss the needs of trans people, and then with the very next breath say that we owe our votes to the Democratic party. Us not voting for Democrats risk them losing the election.
You believe in Schrodinger’s trans person: small enough in number to ignore, but not so small that we can’t be blamed for an election loss.
Again…twisting someone’s words into something completely different than what was said to make whatever point you feel you need to make. Unserious.
All I asked was for clarification about HOW you imagine this mechanism of withholding votes in the numbers you’re talking about. It’s math, not attacking your social standing or worth.
Go and read about people who made serious inroads for their social causes like Harvey Milk or Barbara Gittings. That’s how you get to real social change. Hell, look at Sarah McBride. She sees the social systems for what they are, and is working inside them to affect the changes she wants to happen. Doing this argumentative bluster thing that you’re doing and just attacking people, or threatening to abstain from the existing voting system is going to do shit. That’s just the reality of it.
It comes from every time a trans person says they will never support a Democrat that stands against them, BlueMAGA comes out yelling at them saying they’re the reason Harris lost and will be blamed when any other Dem loses.
I’m not claiming the trans folk owe the dems shit. I am say the least I can do for marginalized groups is hold my nose and vote for the people who currently aren’t executing policy to harm those groups.
Voting for a third party?! Tsk-tsk!