Banner ad for tRump poll.
How am I doing?
Notice only 3 choices.
No “You’re Fired!” option?
Gearing-up the hate machine for the election.
This is America.
But isn’t witchiness about doing the right thing? So are these people just trying to do the right thing, or have they died trying, and if they have died, does this mean they are interceding against Kavanaugh’s political ambitions?
Well look who just woke up.
Transgender activist Caitlyn Jenner has ended her support for President Donald Trump over his record on trans rights.
The ex-Olympic athlete and reality TV star said she had “remained hopeful” that she could work with Mr Trump’s administration.
But in a column for the Washington Post on Thursday, she admitted her position had been a “mistake”.
Wow. She’s finally getting it.
She and Max Boot:
So there’s still hope for Kanye.
But if you only “get it” when your particular group gets caught in the crossfire, is that really getting it?
I think one of the things this is showing (and Kanye is an example of this too) is her group, first and foremost, is rich people. Everything else, being a woman, being trans, comes second.
Their money has always protected them. At least now she’s starting to realise it won’t be any help if certain things change.
Of course it isn’t.
“Getting it” would be “Now that I’ve seen first hand the kind of fear that Trump is inflicting on people, I’m also against his positions on things that don’t affect me.”
If she had followed “The leader of our nation has shown no regard for an already marginalized and struggling community. He has ignored our humanity. He has insulted our dignity,” with “And now I see how he has done the same for women, visible minorities, refugees, and basically every other group besides ‘rich white Republican men,’” then yes, I’d say she gets it.
Finally seeing the target painted on your own chest is not enough, if you feel free to keep ignoring the targets painted on everyone else.
This is Caitlyn Jenner’s entire op-ed.
These past two years under President Trump have given me the opportunity to reflect on a lot of topics that have come up in the LGBTQ community and in our nation. Some of these are thorny issues still worth discussing; many should have been settled long ago. As I’ve watched and pondered, my outlook has changed significantly from what it was during my highly publicized and glamorized early Caitlyn days, when my life as an out trans woman was just beginning.
Since then, I have learned and continue to learn about the obstacles our community faces, the politics that surround us and the places my voice can help. I have reflected on what my unique position of privilege means and how I can best use it to make a positive difference.
Following Trump’s election as president, I saw fertile ground for change within the Republican Party on LGBTQ issues. Trump was the first Republican presidential candidate to claim to support this valuable, vulnerable community, and I was encouraged by the applause he received when he said at the Republican National Convention in July 2016 that he would stand up for the LGBTQ community. Poll after poll showed that Americans’ views on LGBTQ issues were changing for the better — and that this groundswell extended even to the voter base of the Republican Party. I was optimistic that this was how I could leverage my privilege for change.
I believed I could work within the party and the Trump administration to shift the minds of those who most needed shifting. I made many trips to Washington to lobby and educate members of Congress, other Washington policymakers and powerful influencers. These meetings were generally positive and almost always led to encouraging conversations. Despite the criticism I received from segments of the LGBTQ community for engaging with this administration, I remained hopeful for positive change.
Reports say the Trump administration is considering defining gender solely by a person’s biological framework. Here are some of the changes in approach. (Adriana Usero/The Washington Post)
Sadly, I was wrong. The reality is that the trans community is being relentlessly attacked by this president. The leader of our nation has shown no regard for an already marginalized and struggling community. He has ignored our humanity. He has insulted our dignity. He has made trans people into political pawns as he whips up animus against us in an attempt to energize the most right-wing segment of his party, claiming his anti-transgender policies are meant to “protect the country.” This is politics at its worst. It is unacceptable, it is upsetting, and it has deeply, personally hurt me.
Believing that I could work with Trump and his administration to support our community was a mistake. The recently leaked Department of Health and Human Services memo that suggests — preposterously and unscientifically — that the government ought to link gender to one’s genitalia at birth is just one more example in a pattern of political attacks. One doesn’t need to look back far to witness the president assault our nation’s guardians with a ban on trans people serving in the military or assail our nation’s future with a rollback of Obama-era protections for trans schoolchildren.
It’s clear these policies have come directly from Trump, and they have been sanctioned, passively or actively, by the Republicans by whose continued support he governs. My hope in him — in them — was misplaced, and I cannot support anyone who is working against our community. I do not support Trump. I must learn from my mistakes and move forward.
I am more determined than ever to find the best way to bring trans issues to the fore of our social and political conversation, domestically and abroad. I need to listen more to the members of the LGBTQ community and to learn more. I need to better use my voice, my privilege and my foundation to advocate and support our community.
I must continue to educate political and corporate leaders about the issues of homelessness, job discrimination, violence, access to health care, prejudice in housing, depression, suicide and so many other issues that disproportionately affect our long-ignored community. I will still work with anyone who is committed to help our community.
The world needs to hear us. The world needs to know us. We will not be erased.
It’s certainly not a bad bit of writing. But it is fairly indicative of a lot of apologies from privileged people in not asking what else she might have gotten wrong. I understand and believe her that she felt taken in, but there were a lot of voices against Trump. She chose not to hear them.
So close, yet so far.
As a Jewish person, I have always had a target on my back. In Reform Judaism, it is taught that the reason we are considered the “Chosen People,” is that as people who have always been discriminated against, we have a special mission on this earth to fight against all discrimination.
As a non Jewish looking person, I always felt safe “passing” for a “white” woman. I have never been targeted as a person, only because I choose to identify with this group do I feel unsafe or part of a target minority. I don’t walk around in dark skin, or in clothes that show I identify against my assigned gender, or wearing a hajib or modest clothing that would identify me in public as Jewish/belonging to some other conservative sect or religion.
When you feel safe walking around and do not experience discrimination (or even, in Caitlyn’s case, you are celebrated for your transition), you do not understand what it is like to not be safe, to be told from the time you are little that the thing that makes you special makes you hunted.
Yeah. What I got most from that piece is that she’s certainly not stupid – it’s just she thought she knew where the boundaries of her bubble was, and now she’s learning she was wrong.
She said the meetings in Washington were always cordial. I think now she’s realising that’s because she’s an Olympian, a role model (remember those Wheaties boxes), a famous person in a family of famous people. And rich – that counts too.
But not because trans people were respected.
I’m sorry, but having read it a few times, all I’m getting from it is, “I would still support Trump if he hadn’t come after my marginalized and struggling community along with all the other marginalized and struggling communities that he loves attacking.”
To be fair, there is a known social mechanism: when people get to know someone from a minority group personally, they usually start to have more positive associations with the group as a whole. I can imagine that Caitlyn thought she was operating in that way, putting her foot in the door knowing that she was more likely to be invited in, and thereby starting the process of acclimatizing those in power to the humanity of the LGBTQ community.