Excellent point about how triangulation here isn't even strategic, it's just abandonment disguised as pragmatism. The Yglesias school misses that voters can smell inauthenticity from miles away. Worked on a local campaign once where the candidate flip-flopped on an issue to match polling and it absolutly tanked, people would rather disagree with someone consistant than support a weathervane. Also the data showing Trump's approval diving while he persecutes trans people kinda settles the whole "winning issue" question doesnt it.
Gotta say Kamala’s handling of the issue was absolutely weak. Trump’s saying “look how your life is screwed under Biden and Kamal won’t fix it, she’s just changing kids’ genders” and rather than saying “look you child rapist freak, you fucked up the economy WE have been fixing, and now you want to check kids’ genitals as if this country is your own Miss USA peageant, how about leaving people alone, but I guess you can’t do that you sad failure of a man who left no woman pleased”, what did Harris say about transgender prison inmates? “We followed the law”—pleasing no one, especially as she said the exact thing in repeated interviews and debates, making it look like she was afraid to say what she felt.
I know some will say “she couldn’t let loose on Trump like that” but I call BS. Voters want someone who actually expresses righteous anger and they hate anyone who seems phony.
No matter how many times it is demonstrated that the electorate appreciates a person who has convictions. Too many Democrats running for office try to appeal to everyone and displease no one.
So disappointing she was, our Kamala. No doubt her resolve was undermined by political consultants whose sole form conviction was that they should be paid for their bullshit, whether it works or not.
Exactly! Her campaign staff apparently couldn't find a response to the anti-trans ads that didn't make it worse, so they just ignored them rather than, you know, firing the campaign staff and hiring people who could effectively communicate. And trans kids have taken a direct hit from this cowardly retreat.
Yep—it reverberated beyond the campaign because it told trans enemies “you can hit them and Dems won’t hit back.” And it told everyone else “Dems are weak, they favor the trans people but won’t stand up for them when the chips are down.” It wasn’t the only reason Harris lost but it certainly hurt her, just not in the way Yglesias seems to conclude.
The kid in middle school who says "I'll be your friend as long as you're popular and cool but if a bully so much as looks at you wrong, I'm gone" is not much of a friend.
Yglesias seems to think the key is to just not talk about trans issues or triangulate if you must, and that this is justified because if you win you’d still be better on trans issues than a Republican. If his theory was right, it’d be persuasive—sometimes “less bad” is better than “horrifying”.
The problem is I don’t think his theory is correct, because voters care more about whether you show strength and stick up for your side, even if they don’t really agree with your politics—because they think “if they go to bat for their team, effectively, they can bat for me on the things I agree with them on.” And most voters—even the ones Yglesias refers to—simply don’t care about trans issues because they think they don’t affect them. That’s why many were turned off by Harris—not because they thought she was wrong about trans issues but because Trump successfully said “she cares about trans issues more than fixing your economic problems.”
Find a way to fight on trans issues—don’t appeal to compassion (anyone compassionate already agrees with you) but ostracize the Right (“these weirdos want to check your kid’s genitals, I want them left alone”). And, “they want to beat up on trans kids while I’m fixing the economy” (worked for Spanberger). “I’m trying to improve all our lives and I won’t stand by while these freaks pick on trans kids just because they’re different. And don’t think they’ll stop at trans kids, they’ll go after your kid too if they think she’s weird.”
Ruy Teixeira loves the "throw trans people under the bus" strategy, too. With a bill advancing in the House that would make providing any trans related care to a person under 18 a damn felony (except conversion abuse, I'm sure), Democrats had better close ranks. Otherwise I don't know why I'd bother to vote for them in 2028. At least my own Congresswoman isn't an idiot about this, unlike a nominally Democratic Senator from my state.
"I personally think it’s a winning political issue to side with trans people over those whose lives are so small they spend their time cruising a trans women’s social media so they can post dehumanizing messages. And even if it weren’t, that’s the only moral position."
Bingo! It's refreshing and encouraging to see a political commentator support a controversial stand because it's the right thing to do. The Dems may never be able to convince bigoted voters to change their minds, but nearly every advance in public morals has had to overcome deep-seated prejudices. The campaign for trans rights most likely will have the same trajectory as the campaigns for votes for women or the abolition of slavery. Someday people will consider anti-trans prejudice to be just as inexplicable as selling human beings, but that will only happen if we keep standing up for "the only moral position."
Maybe this doesn't respond to the article but most elected Republicans and many of their voters are horrible people. They use "Christian" values to campaign against people who don't fit their narrow world view. This includes minorities who don't fit their hierarchical view. They talk about freedom and other's cancel culture while dismissing the former and embracing the latter. It's only freedom if they are the ones preaching. So tired of it.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights, among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness..."
If I don't believe in liberty when folks pursue happiness in ways I don't understand or wouldn't follow myself (so long as that pursuit does not directly hurt another or infringe on their liberties), I don't really believe in liberty at all.
If I can't love the neighbor who is different in every way from me, then am I really following the command to love my neighbor? No.
It's really that simple.
If the state can say to someone "You can't be who you are" then it can say that to me and then the state is no longer my servant, but I am the servant of the State and liberty is absent.
The question has never been: should transpeople compete in sports, but rather do Americans want to live in a country where the government can define them and who they are based on the whims of the majority? Or do they want the right to pursue their own path?
That is how Democrats should frame the discussion.
"Transgender for everyone" is the the Mad King's interpretation of America before he took power. Everything was terrible until His Majesty arrived, trailing clouds of glory, to save us all from Satan's power, q.e.d.
The back of my hand to Yglesiass, the epitome of the cringing liberal, a gutless wonder if ever there was one. A mere Cilizza in sheep's clothing. He has been wavering around the outskirts of the political commentariat roughly since Hector was a pup, a firmly rooted weathervane.
The fundamental issue is “you won’t conform to what I think you should be, even though it’s none of my business”—it starts with trans because they’re a small minority and most people don’t understand them. But it obviously will be used on any man or woman who is “different”—the girl with a “male” haircut, the boy who wears makeup, and if your kid is a bit outside the norm they’re fair game. And these busybody bullies think it’s their business to get in YOUR business.
Frame it that way and it’s clear who the oddballs are and how refreshing it is to tell them to fuck off.
It astonishes me that we're still *talking* about trans kids playing team sports when Republicans are cruelly misgendering trans adults and using transphobic slurs on the House floor. It's the equivalent of trying to seek "common ground" over busing in the early '70s with a political party that is pro-burning crosses.
Yep—the old saw is “have the argument you want to have, not the one your opponent wants to have.” That doesn’t mean “ignore the trans fight” (ignoring it is in a way having the argument, only here you’d be saying “I’m scared to respond”). It means “turn the issue around on your enemy, get THEM in the hot seat.” And if Democratic pols can’t figure out how to do this they should step aside and let someone who knows how take their place.
My answer to busybodies who insist that I act or speak or be in a way more comfortable for them is, "Do you really have so little business of your own that you mustimf mine? Who the FUCK asked you?
Nate Silver has been banging this "popular positions" drum again recently. I think your point about the popularity of gun control and Republican priorities is a great counter-example of this (see also abortion bans). It strikes me that any conversation of US political strategy that focuses solely on polls and doesn't directly address mass communication dynamics (e.g. media ownership, Overton window forcing, and foreign influence operations) is willfully blind to history.
I had this discussion with my otherwise-very-much-on-the-side-of-the-angels brother; he had been listening to some podcast bros that were postulating that maybe the Dems needed to be "more accepting" of other positions. AKA, just a little bit racist/misogynistic/homo- and transphobic. I think he came around, by the end, to recognizing that this isn't an issue of politics; it's an issue of human rights and there is no room for negotiation on human rights, but man, they really present it as so incredibly reasonable that even smart guys like my brother get taken in about the need to win elections, no matter the cost. My brother is also quite religious (in the good way), and while I am not, it did bring to mind Matthew 16:26- "For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?"
(And, of course, all that sacrificing of one's moral character won't even win elections. Bigots aren't looking to vote "bigot-lite," they want the full Monty.)
100% this. See also, Republicans are never asked if they will reach across the aisle to work with Democrats, or put a Democrat in their Cabinet, or how they plan to appeal to Democratic voters...
Murc's Law in all it's majestic splendor. Fascists are assumed to be the norm, the kind and the decent deviate from the norm through vanity, a wish to show off.
I'm assuming Yglesias is trying to manufacture consent for Gavin Newsom's lane.
I don't think these folks understand that Democrats can't harness sadopopulism, because that's not for Democrats to do. People vote for monsters because they want to HURT other people that they've been propagandized against. It takes more than mealymouthed Dems doing a "nudge nudge wink wink" on one or two issues. And I think I like to use Ohio for an example of this.
It's not enough to be anti-trans; that's just an accessory bigotry under the Rowling Principle. You need to be Anti-Black and that's tough to do openly as a Democrat. Not even likely racist Joe Manchin could pull that off openly.
Nevertheless people need to show Yglesias that he's wrong by their actions and head off people like Newsom at the pass.
Thank you! It was the economy, and people stupid enough to believe trump's lies about how he would fix it. All voters in 2024 lived through his first term, and his horrendous response to Covid, yet enough of them voted for him to fix the economy. I read somewhere (wish that I could remember where, so to give them credit), that too many people believe trump's lies and don't believe his truths.
"yet enough of them voted for him to fix the economy."
BARELY...this is the key insight that EVERYBODY seems to miss in the red haze ot the Electoral College distortion filter. He won by < 2% of the vote and took it as an overwhelming mandate to remake this country into a fascist state.
We need to pound on that, HARD. "Is this what you voted for?" "Is this making your life better"
The ones who will answer "yes" are lost, but there's a vast number of voters who will say no.
Yglesias stupid 'popularism' bullshit is not a winning strategy, it's inevitably a strategy fur coming solidly into second place.
"Skate to where the puck will be, not where it is"
They lose elections due to lack of Dem leadership, GOP corruption of the electoral process, decades of GOP voter suppression and gerrymandering, the GOP ownership of America's "public" media, and failure to nominate candidates that represent the voter's interests.
And the cherry on top is that 28 Democratic Senators voted to advance the gop's anti-trans bill last week, including Schumer, Klobachar, Blumenthal and Baldwin. With friends like these....
Excellent point about how triangulation here isn't even strategic, it's just abandonment disguised as pragmatism. The Yglesias school misses that voters can smell inauthenticity from miles away. Worked on a local campaign once where the candidate flip-flopped on an issue to match polling and it absolutly tanked, people would rather disagree with someone consistant than support a weathervane. Also the data showing Trump's approval diving while he persecutes trans people kinda settles the whole "winning issue" question doesnt it.
Gotta say Kamala’s handling of the issue was absolutely weak. Trump’s saying “look how your life is screwed under Biden and Kamal won’t fix it, she’s just changing kids’ genders” and rather than saying “look you child rapist freak, you fucked up the economy WE have been fixing, and now you want to check kids’ genitals as if this country is your own Miss USA peageant, how about leaving people alone, but I guess you can’t do that you sad failure of a man who left no woman pleased”, what did Harris say about transgender prison inmates? “We followed the law”—pleasing no one, especially as she said the exact thing in repeated interviews and debates, making it look like she was afraid to say what she felt.
I know some will say “she couldn’t let loose on Trump like that” but I call BS. Voters want someone who actually expresses righteous anger and they hate anyone who seems phony.
No matter how many times it is demonstrated that the electorate appreciates a person who has convictions. Too many Democrats running for office try to appeal to everyone and displease no one.
So disappointing she was, our Kamala. No doubt her resolve was undermined by political consultants whose sole form conviction was that they should be paid for their bullshit, whether it works or not.
Exactly! Her campaign staff apparently couldn't find a response to the anti-trans ads that didn't make it worse, so they just ignored them rather than, you know, firing the campaign staff and hiring people who could effectively communicate. And trans kids have taken a direct hit from this cowardly retreat.
Yep—it reverberated beyond the campaign because it told trans enemies “you can hit them and Dems won’t hit back.” And it told everyone else “Dems are weak, they favor the trans people but won’t stand up for them when the chips are down.” It wasn’t the only reason Harris lost but it certainly hurt her, just not in the way Yglesias seems to conclude.
The kid in middle school who says "I'll be your friend as long as you're popular and cool but if a bully so much as looks at you wrong, I'm gone" is not much of a friend.
Yglesias seems to think the key is to just not talk about trans issues or triangulate if you must, and that this is justified because if you win you’d still be better on trans issues than a Republican. If his theory was right, it’d be persuasive—sometimes “less bad” is better than “horrifying”.
The problem is I don’t think his theory is correct, because voters care more about whether you show strength and stick up for your side, even if they don’t really agree with your politics—because they think “if they go to bat for their team, effectively, they can bat for me on the things I agree with them on.” And most voters—even the ones Yglesias refers to—simply don’t care about trans issues because they think they don’t affect them. That’s why many were turned off by Harris—not because they thought she was wrong about trans issues but because Trump successfully said “she cares about trans issues more than fixing your economic problems.”
Find a way to fight on trans issues—don’t appeal to compassion (anyone compassionate already agrees with you) but ostracize the Right (“these weirdos want to check your kid’s genitals, I want them left alone”). And, “they want to beat up on trans kids while I’m fixing the economy” (worked for Spanberger). “I’m trying to improve all our lives and I won’t stand by while these freaks pick on trans kids just because they’re different. And don’t think they’ll stop at trans kids, they’ll go after your kid too if they think she’s weird.”
Ruy Teixeira loves the "throw trans people under the bus" strategy, too. With a bill advancing in the House that would make providing any trans related care to a person under 18 a damn felony (except conversion abuse, I'm sure), Democrats had better close ranks. Otherwise I don't know why I'd bother to vote for them in 2028. At least my own Congresswoman isn't an idiot about this, unlike a nominally Democratic Senator from my state.
"I personally think it’s a winning political issue to side with trans people over those whose lives are so small they spend their time cruising a trans women’s social media so they can post dehumanizing messages. And even if it weren’t, that’s the only moral position."
Bingo! It's refreshing and encouraging to see a political commentator support a controversial stand because it's the right thing to do. The Dems may never be able to convince bigoted voters to change their minds, but nearly every advance in public morals has had to overcome deep-seated prejudices. The campaign for trans rights most likely will have the same trajectory as the campaigns for votes for women or the abolition of slavery. Someday people will consider anti-trans prejudice to be just as inexplicable as selling human beings, but that will only happen if we keep standing up for "the only moral position."
Maybe this doesn't respond to the article but most elected Republicans and many of their voters are horrible people. They use "Christian" values to campaign against people who don't fit their narrow world view. This includes minorities who don't fit their hierarchical view. They talk about freedom and other's cancel culture while dismissing the former and embracing the latter. It's only freedom if they are the ones preaching. So tired of it.
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights, among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness..."
If I don't believe in liberty when folks pursue happiness in ways I don't understand or wouldn't follow myself (so long as that pursuit does not directly hurt another or infringe on their liberties), I don't really believe in liberty at all.
If I can't love the neighbor who is different in every way from me, then am I really following the command to love my neighbor? No.
It's really that simple.
If the state can say to someone "You can't be who you are" then it can say that to me and then the state is no longer my servant, but I am the servant of the State and liberty is absent.
The question has never been: should transpeople compete in sports, but rather do Americans want to live in a country where the government can define them and who they are based on the whims of the majority? Or do they want the right to pursue their own path?
That is how Democrats should frame the discussion.
"Transgender for everyone" is the the Mad King's interpretation of America before he took power. Everything was terrible until His Majesty arrived, trailing clouds of glory, to save us all from Satan's power, q.e.d.
The back of my hand to Yglesiass, the epitome of the cringing liberal, a gutless wonder if ever there was one. A mere Cilizza in sheep's clothing. He has been wavering around the outskirts of the political commentariat roughly since Hector was a pup, a firmly rooted weathervane.
The fundamental issue is “you won’t conform to what I think you should be, even though it’s none of my business”—it starts with trans because they’re a small minority and most people don’t understand them. But it obviously will be used on any man or woman who is “different”—the girl with a “male” haircut, the boy who wears makeup, and if your kid is a bit outside the norm they’re fair game. And these busybody bullies think it’s their business to get in YOUR business.
Frame it that way and it’s clear who the oddballs are and how refreshing it is to tell them to fuck off.
It astonishes me that we're still *talking* about trans kids playing team sports when Republicans are cruelly misgendering trans adults and using transphobic slurs on the House floor. It's the equivalent of trying to seek "common ground" over busing in the early '70s with a political party that is pro-burning crosses.
Yep—the old saw is “have the argument you want to have, not the one your opponent wants to have.” That doesn’t mean “ignore the trans fight” (ignoring it is in a way having the argument, only here you’d be saying “I’m scared to respond”). It means “turn the issue around on your enemy, get THEM in the hot seat.” And if Democratic pols can’t figure out how to do this they should step aside and let someone who knows how take their place.
My answer to busybodies who insist that I act or speak or be in a way more comfortable for them is, "Do you really have so little business of your own that you mustimf mine? Who the FUCK asked you?
Nate Silver has been banging this "popular positions" drum again recently. I think your point about the popularity of gun control and Republican priorities is a great counter-example of this (see also abortion bans). It strikes me that any conversation of US political strategy that focuses solely on polls and doesn't directly address mass communication dynamics (e.g. media ownership, Overton window forcing, and foreign influence operations) is willfully blind to history.
I had this discussion with my otherwise-very-much-on-the-side-of-the-angels brother; he had been listening to some podcast bros that were postulating that maybe the Dems needed to be "more accepting" of other positions. AKA, just a little bit racist/misogynistic/homo- and transphobic. I think he came around, by the end, to recognizing that this isn't an issue of politics; it's an issue of human rights and there is no room for negotiation on human rights, but man, they really present it as so incredibly reasonable that even smart guys like my brother get taken in about the need to win elections, no matter the cost. My brother is also quite religious (in the good way), and while I am not, it did bring to mind Matthew 16:26- "For what is a man profited, if he shall gain the whole world and lose his own soul? Or what shall a man give in exchange for his soul?"
(And, of course, all that sacrificing of one's moral character won't even win elections. Bigots aren't looking to vote "bigot-lite," they want the full Monty.)
Funny how people never ask repubs to be more accepting of other positions.
100% this. See also, Republicans are never asked if they will reach across the aisle to work with Democrats, or put a Democrat in their Cabinet, or how they plan to appeal to Democratic voters...
Murc's Law in all it's majestic splendor. Fascists are assumed to be the norm, the kind and the decent deviate from the norm through vanity, a wish to show off.
I'm assuming Yglesias is trying to manufacture consent for Gavin Newsom's lane.
I don't think these folks understand that Democrats can't harness sadopopulism, because that's not for Democrats to do. People vote for monsters because they want to HURT other people that they've been propagandized against. It takes more than mealymouthed Dems doing a "nudge nudge wink wink" on one or two issues. And I think I like to use Ohio for an example of this.
It's not enough to be anti-trans; that's just an accessory bigotry under the Rowling Principle. You need to be Anti-Black and that's tough to do openly as a Democrat. Not even likely racist Joe Manchin could pull that off openly.
Nevertheless people need to show Yglesias that he's wrong by their actions and head off people like Newsom at the pass.
Thank you! It was the economy, and people stupid enough to believe trump's lies about how he would fix it. All voters in 2024 lived through his first term, and his horrendous response to Covid, yet enough of them voted for him to fix the economy. I read somewhere (wish that I could remember where, so to give them credit), that too many people believe trump's lies and don't believe his truths.
"yet enough of them voted for him to fix the economy."
BARELY...this is the key insight that EVERYBODY seems to miss in the red haze ot the Electoral College distortion filter. He won by < 2% of the vote and took it as an overwhelming mandate to remake this country into a fascist state.
We need to pound on that, HARD. "Is this what you voted for?" "Is this making your life better"
The ones who will answer "yes" are lost, but there's a vast number of voters who will say no.
Yglesias stupid 'popularism' bullshit is not a winning strategy, it's inevitably a strategy fur coming solidly into second place.
"Skate to where the puck will be, not where it is"
They lose elections due to lack of Dem leadership, GOP corruption of the electoral process, decades of GOP voter suppression and gerrymandering, the GOP ownership of America's "public" media, and failure to nominate candidates that represent the voter's interests.
Chasing polls demonstrates weakness, and weaklings never win. If you have morals then stand up for them or forfeit the respect of everyone.
And the cherry on top is that 28 Democratic Senators voted to advance the gop's anti-trans bill last week, including Schumer, Klobachar, Blumenthal and Baldwin. With friends like these....
"Every time someone writes about transwomen in women's sports a fairy dies"-Tinkerbell