Democrats seem to have been doing this "avoid the culture wars" tactic for years now, maybe decades, and never learning from it. Do you think there's something particular to trans rights that they're dodging, or is it just a consequence of avoiding culture wars writ-large?
I think it's that they're afraid of actually taking a stand for something (even if their policies are decent). It does go beyond trans issues. For instance, all the ways they'll twist themselves in knots to avoid saying the word "abortion" just hands things over to Republicans to shape the narrative. And just like Republicans have taken the opportunity to control the messaging on abortion, which has resulted in all sorts of horrific nonsense narratives about "infanticide" and "selling baby body parts," Republicans have done the same with trans rights.
Just yesterday during the White House press briefing, Peter Doocy from Fox News asking Jen Psaki about Lia Thomas, the trans NCAA swimmer. Instead of addressing it head on, she nodded to the question by noting that the White House doesn't control the NCAA, but then veered off and started talking about other largely symbolic actions the administration had done regarding trans people. In my opinion, that would have been a great time to counter with a forceful push for the need for the Equality Act, as Republican legislators are attacking K-12 trans kids. The attempt to make everything about professional/NCAA/Olympic athletes is itself a deflection. She could have done a lot of good with her response, but instead, meh.
I think that there's a belief that talking about the culture wars keeps you from talking about your actual agenda.
The problem is that it's probably hard to tell whether you can let your opponent self-destruct (Akin, Richard Mourdock in Indiana), or whether they can natter on about culture war bullshit without any popular policies and win (Youngkin).
But I'm tired of mediocre candidates trying to run milquetoast campaigns and being shocked when they lose. Even in red races, we need good candidates fighting hard and being willing to step up for their fellow Americans, because you're not going to flip a +15 seat in a single race.
Democrats seem to have been doing this "avoid the culture wars" tactic for years now, maybe decades, and never learning from it. Do you think there's something particular to trans rights that they're dodging, or is it just a consequence of avoiding culture wars writ-large?
I think it's that they're afraid of actually taking a stand for something (even if their policies are decent). It does go beyond trans issues. For instance, all the ways they'll twist themselves in knots to avoid saying the word "abortion" just hands things over to Republicans to shape the narrative. And just like Republicans have taken the opportunity to control the messaging on abortion, which has resulted in all sorts of horrific nonsense narratives about "infanticide" and "selling baby body parts," Republicans have done the same with trans rights.
Just yesterday during the White House press briefing, Peter Doocy from Fox News asking Jen Psaki about Lia Thomas, the trans NCAA swimmer. Instead of addressing it head on, she nodded to the question by noting that the White House doesn't control the NCAA, but then veered off and started talking about other largely symbolic actions the administration had done regarding trans people. In my opinion, that would have been a great time to counter with a forceful push for the need for the Equality Act, as Republican legislators are attacking K-12 trans kids. The attempt to make everything about professional/NCAA/Olympic athletes is itself a deflection. She could have done a lot of good with her response, but instead, meh.
I think that there's a belief that talking about the culture wars keeps you from talking about your actual agenda.
The problem is that it's probably hard to tell whether you can let your opponent self-destruct (Akin, Richard Mourdock in Indiana), or whether they can natter on about culture war bullshit without any popular policies and win (Youngkin).
But I'm tired of mediocre candidates trying to run milquetoast campaigns and being shocked when they lose. Even in red races, we need good candidates fighting hard and being willing to step up for their fellow Americans, because you're not going to flip a +15 seat in a single race.
As soon as I saw Claire McCaskill's name, I had the feeling she was going to say something stupidly centrist.