https://bsky.app/profile/erininthemorning.com/post/3mynwzsux7k2u
Josh Turek of Iowa, Democrat, comes out with one of the worst anti-trans ads yet.
Not only is it an anti-sports ad, it proposes a ban on federal funding for gender affirming care. That would hit all medicaid and medicare patients, and any ACA federally-subsidized plans as well.
Horrific.
Don’t do that. The Republicans are worse. You are not getting a better result from withholding your vote, therefore it is a bad choice to withhold your vote. Get over the idea that your vote is an endorsement of every idea a politician has. Unless you have gone balls to the wall on election reform for the past few years all I’m hearing is “I’m a lazy and will continue to do nothing to stop my country from falling apart despite my self important bitching online”.
There is no worse than this for transgender people. If the Democrat is promising to do exactly what their Republican opponent wants to do, seriously reconsider your insane position of “vote blue no matter who,” because you’re asking people to vote for someone promising to strip their rights and remove their access to healthcare. That’s insane. It’s the level of self-own that Republicans regularly do.
Ok… So let’s play this out. What do you suppose happens if the Republicans get in and prevent a dem majority? You’re just going to pretend that is an ok situation and not demonstrably worse? Also, just want to add that your assertion that there is no worse than this is either deliberately exaggerated or unfortunately niave.
And what do you suppose happens when the Democrats see that when they adopt transphobic positions, people who support trans rights will still vote for them, and maybe they pick up a handful of transphobes? In that case, there is literally no downside in that situation (strategically speaking) to adopting transphobic positions all across the country. If on the other hand, people draw a red line on trans rights and stand by it, if every transphobic Dem eats shit, then there’s a clear strategic benefit to respecting that red line.
You are only considering the immediate effects, but the precedents that we set are far more important. If not getting a majority this time is the cost of stopping the party from shifting right on this, then the benefits outweigh the costs.
“Some of you may die, but that’s a sacrifice I’m willing to make”
Lol, imagine saying that about me while defending the guy who wants to strip healthcare from trans people. Pot, meet kettle.
The Democrats are the ones sacrificing people, and they have the power not to, but they think they can advance their careers and make a little bit more profit by sacrificing us. By contrast, I’m standing by everyone and demanding that no one be sacrificed and left behind, and using what little voice or influence I have to that end.
You seem to have everything completely backwards. You need to be convincing me that I need to be more willing to sacrifice people, specifically, trans people, if you want me to support someone like Turek. Good luck with that one!
Or perhaps I misunderstood your comment? Were you using quote marks for emphasis, perhaps, while voicing your own position?
We must hang together, or we will each hang separately. An offense against one is an offense against all. Solidarity must not be broken, “For what force on earth is weaker than the feeble strength of one? But the union makes us strong!”
I’ll be honest, I don’t know who you are or anything about you besides your username. So not sure what that was about.
Two more years of a Republican-controlled Congress doesn’t sound like “setting precedent” to me though, it sounds like sacrificing vulnerable groups in the hope that this’ll finally be the one to jump start your idea of a leftist revolution.
A freshman Senator with virtually no political capital isn’t going to determine party policy for the Democrats, but Project 2025 has made it abundantly clear what the Republican party policy is. They explicitly do want us to hang together.
“Some of you may die, but that is a sacrifice I’m willing to make.”
You ignored every point I made btw.
It’s not about his personal political influence, it’s about the precedent it would set.
Ah, yes, setting precedent for the Democrats, the party famous for learning from their defeats.
Turek winning would show that there’s no strategic downside to his politics in Iowa, or if I’m being really generous, in races to replace incumbent Republicans. The US isn’t a political or cultural monolith, campaign strategies vary from state to state, even in presidential elections. For example, Talarico’s Christian faith is a boon for his campaign in Texas, but if he wins, it doesn’t mean that every candidate across the nation is going to embrace Christianity.
There are no good Republican politicians; two more years of a Republican majority means two more years of unchecked efforts to erase trans people from existence. There are good Democratic politicians; Turek is not one of them. But if I can choose my enemies, I’d rather spend the next two years fighting against him and those like him in a Democrat-controlled Congress than fighting against whatever fresh hell the Republicans have planned for all of us.
There is no worse than this for trans individuals. If you start restricting access to care, people are going to die. It doesn’t matter if a Republican or a Democrat does it, if trans people are going to directly die as a result of policy why the fuck would they vote for that person? Fix your own shitty party that is willing to kill trans people for votes before demanding people vote for someone willing to kill them.