The growing trend by Republicans attacking LGBTQ people should concern everyone

[abundance]

Admittedly I've never had too strong of a position on LGBTQ issues. I grew up in a very Christian household with pretty stringent beliefs on gender roles. In some aspects I still have pretty rigid views on gender but I never felt compelled to impose it upon other people. In my worldview, LGBTQ people have a right to exist and live their lives just like anyone else. It seems the far right is getting more and more explicit in their rhetoric when it comes to denigrating the LGBTQ community and this concerns me. I feel like the far right has found their new boogeyman and will use LGBTQ to rouse up their base. And as we've seen throughout history fascists never stop at one group. In my opinion after they've exhausted the means to dehumanize LGBTQ people, they'll start explicitly targeting larger groups of people (i.e. racial minorities).

Thom Hartmann, whose a progressive radio hosts summarizes things very well in this clip

 

Edited March 13, 2023 by abundance

[Leo Gura]

They've been demonizing and attacking gays and minorities since forever. Nothing new here. That is their bread and butter.

Edited March 13, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Emerald]

12 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

They've been demonizing and attacking gays and minorities since forever. Nothing new here. That is their bread and butter.

They’re going much further than they have before.

The popular anti-LGBTQ messaging before was that being gay/trans was a sin and that they didn’t want to support it. The homophobia and transphobia was typically couched in more moderate talking points.

Right now the messaging is that the LGBTQ community is pedophilic and grooming your children.

And it’s getting lots of otherwise accepting or indifferent people to vehemently hate gays and trans people.

Once you convince a populace that a certain group is full of child molesters, society will want them dead with their heads on a pike.

And Fascists know that. It’s a very effective tactic to drum up moderate support for their agendas.

Nazis we’re very successful in getting everyday citizens to hate Jewish people (and to amplify pre-existing prejudice) by spreading rumors that Jewish men are sex pests that want to kidnap and molest their children.

They even wrote it into children’s books to “warn” non-Jewish children that Jewish men were dangerous and to stay away from them.

And unfortunately these tactics are very effective.

And there are right wing militia groups with guns and full military gear going to drag shows to intimidate people.

And there are bills that are being pushed in state legislatures to classify parents seeking gender affirming care for their trans kids as child abusers and to get their kids taken away.

There was a bill floated yesterday in Texas where average citizens can act as bounty hunters for drag queens.

So, it’s in the legalistic phase. There have been HUNDREDS of anti-gay/trans bill floated since January.

And what the OP says is right.

It’s always “last hired, first fired” with Fascists. Trans folks and drag queens are just the easiest targets right now because transphobia is still pretty normal in the eyes of many Americans.

This is how those in Fascist movements establish their foothold in the veneer of being moderate. And then they keep working their way backwards from there once they get their foothold.

“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
     Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
     Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
     Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

[Hardkill]

51 minutes ago, Emerald said:

They’re going much further than they have before.

The popular anti-LGBTQ messaging before was that being gay/trans was a sin and that they didn’t want to support it. The homophobia and transphobia was typically couched in more moderate talking points.

Right now the messaging is that the LGBTQ community is pedophilic and grooming your children.

And it’s getting lots of otherwise accepting or indifferent people to vehemently hate gays and trans people.

Once you convince a populace that a certain group is full of child molesters, society will want them dead with their heads on a pike.

And Fascists know that. It’s a very effective tactic to drum up moderate support for their agendas.

Nazis we’re very successful in getting everyday citizens to hate Jewish people (and to amplify pre-existing prejudice) by spreading rumors that Jewish men are sex pests that want to kidnap and molest their children.

They even wrote it into children’s books to “warn” non-Jewish children that Jewish men were dangerous and to stay away from them.

And unfortunately these tactics are very effective.

And there are right wing militia groups with guns and full military gear going to drag shows to intimidate people.

And there are bills that are being pushed in state legislatures to classify parents seeking gender affirming care for their trans kids as child abusers and to get their kids taken away.

There was a bill floated yesterday in Texas where average citizens can act as bounty hunters for drag queens.

So, it’s in the legalistic phase. There have been HUNDREDS of anti-gay/trans bill floated since January.

And what the OP says is right.

It’s always “last hired, first fired” with Fascists. Trans folks and drag queens are just the easiest targets right now because transphobia is still pretty normal in the eyes of many Americans.

This is how those in Fascist movements establish their foothold in the veneer of being moderate. And then they keep working their way backwards from there once they get their foothold.

“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
     Because I was not a socialist.

Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
     Because I was not a trade unionist.

Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
     Because I was not a Jew.

Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”

To me, it’s sounding like the GOP is reeking of desperation. Many conservatives and Republicans who didn’t want the Respect for Marriage law to be passed by Congress we’re upset that they lost and some of them even cried about it.

They are showing great weakness in many ways by the way they are begging and screaming like petulant children who are so mad about not being able to stop all of these changes from happening in the long run. “Our country is dying!!!! Wahhhh!!! Please, don’t take away our right to impose our authoritarian Christian views on everyone! please, please, please, please!! Wahhh!!!” 

Now, they’ve gotten so incredibly desperate that the have resorted to threatening or codifying violence if they can’t get want they legally. That makes them even more cowardly. 

Edited March 14, 2023 by Hardkill

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Emerald said:

They’re going much further than they have before.

The popular anti-LGBTQ messaging before was that being gay/trans was a sin and that they didn’t want to support it. The homophobia and transphobia was typically couched in more moderate talking points.

Right now the messaging is that the LGBTQ community is pedophilic and grooming your children.

Yes, right-wingers are desperate these days, but the fact is that LGBTQ rights are better than they've ever been in human history. Progressives love to whine about everything.

There is some validity to right-wing claims about brainwashing children with gender fluid ideology and trans confusion. That does happen. And drag queen shows for kids is nothing to be proud of.

Of course the "grooming" claims go way too far, and generally speaking the right-wing has lost their fucking mind in America.

Edited March 14, 2023 by Leo Gura

[Emerald]

45 minutes ago, Hardkill said:

To me, it’s sounding like the GOP is reeking of desperation. Many conservatives and Republicans who didn’t want the Respect for Marriage law to be passed by Congress we’re upset that they lost and some of them even cried about it.

They are showing great weakness in many ways by the way they are begging and screaming like petulant children who are so mad about not being able to stop all of these changes from happening in the long run. “Our country is dying!!!! Wahhhh!!! Please, don’t take away our right to impose our authoritarian Christian views on everyone! please, please, please, please!! Wahhh!!!” 

Now, they’ve gotten so incredibly desperate that the have resorted to threatening or codifying violence if they can’t get want they legally. That makes them even more cowardly. 

I agree that it’s not a winning message in the eyes of the average American.

But I fear that it could potentially become one with enough trickery and propaganda. There are many apolitical moderate people who could be convinced to support things that they’d never be in favor of without the propaganda.

It’ll be a bit of a stress test to America’s system and level of development. 

[Emerald]

1 minute ago, Leo Gura said:

Yes, right-wingers are desperate these days, but the fact is that LGBTQ rights are better than they've ever been in human history. Progressives love to whine about everything.

That’s not entirely true.

It’s a brand new thing that children are being taken away from their parents for seeking medical support for their trans kids. And we never had people trying to pass laws that enable bounty hunters to go after drag queens or any of the other of the hundreds of bills that they’re trying to ram through.

There are newly popularized hate campaigns that LGBTQ people are facing now that they didn’t have to face with a few years ago. And these hate campaigns are directly influencing state policies.

And this should not be ignored as business as usual… comments about progressive whining be damned.

But what you say is true in that there has been a lot of progress over the past couple decades as well.

But despite this progress… it’s also true the Fascistic movements historically have targeted LGBTQ people first.

Then they begin to target religious and ethnic minorities if they’re relatively successful at regressing public opinion on gay/trans people.

So, the fact that all the anti-LGBTQ rhetoric has gotten a lot more aggressive in the past year or so… and that fact the state legal systems are being bombarded by anti-trans bills should be seen as a canary in the coal mine.

And if Fascistic movements are successful at pushing back gay rights or trans rights, it may be a sign of worse things to come.

[aurum]

What we are seeing is likely a backlash from the progress that happened for LGBTQ people. Conservatives were never all that happy with the changes that were made. Now they are punching back.

Edited March 14, 2023 by aurum

[Emerald]

9 minutes ago, aurum said:

What we are seeing is likely a backlash from the progress that happened for LGBTQ people. Conservatives were never all that happy with the changes that were made. Now they are punching back.

It’s definitely a backlash.

Many Fascist movements gain their momentum in a backlash against progress because they can harness the support of average people that feel uncomfortable with the changes.

The Weimar Republic was actually a very progressive place. They even had an institution specifically for LGBTQ studies and research back in the 30s in the Weimar Republic.

And the Nazis targeted that institution first before progressing to other targets.

So, even though this is a backlash, it’s important to recognize that it could also be used as a segue into darker territory.

[Leo Gura]

Gay people used to be fired, blacklisted, beaten, and even murdered. That's hardly the case any more.

Nowadays the backlash is mostly to LGBTQ folk proudly flaunting their queerness around and fusing it into mainstream culture. It's one thing to allow queerness to exist, it's another thing to celebrate it in mainstream culture. That's what the right-wingers are fighting now. You are corrupting their cherished traditions.

Edited March 14, 2023 by Leo Gura

[aurum]

40 minutes ago, Emerald said:

So, even though this is a backlash, it’s important to recognize that it could also be used as a segue into darker territory.

Yes that’s important. There are fascists trying to do what you describing at this very moment. And we already got a far-right scare with the Jan 6 debacle. So certainly a real backslide is possible. Who knows what happens if Trump gets in again.

At the same time, I don’t see this wave of GOP legislation as likely leading to that. I think this is conservatives acting in a way that is easily predictable given their agenda. So I think we should keep an eye out and counterpunch, but I’m not ready to sound the fascist alarm at this point.

[Hardkill]

I believe what the GOP have been doing ever since around the Obergefell v. Hodges ruling in 2015, is that they have shifted their targeting of homosexuals and bisexuals to those who are transgenders or queers. 

The Republican party has been like "Alright fine, gay rights is now considered acceptable by most Americans and the matter has now settled throughout all of America. That means that we can no longer offend gay people or speak out against marriage, otherwise it will really hurt our chances of winning future elections. Therefore, we concede that there's nothing we can do about this issue anymore......But, you know what we can still do? We can still constantly persecute anyone who is a trans or some woke queer. It's the only possible thing we have left for being able to preserve some semblance of sexual/gender norms in our country. Otherwise, our entire society might very well fall apart and God will send us all to hell. Plus, that should be enough to help us win over our fellow conservative voters and hopefully convince enough moderates and independents to side with us."

Edited March 14, 2023 by Hardkill

[ryandesreu]

"Too often, we judge other groups by their worst examples - while judging ourselves by our best intentions. And this has strained our bonds of understanding and common purpose." Not a big fan of G.W. Bush but I see his quote.

[Roy]

The Westboro Bapist Church equivalent of progressives have all the power and influence in culture right now, of course there is going to be backlash.

Regular people don't want bullshit ideologies put in their face to be force-fed.

Of course violence isn't acceptable or to be lauded, but it's par for the course when going through such fundamental change.

[Emerald]

20 hours ago, Leo Gura said:

Gay people used to be fired, blacklisted, beaten, and even murdered. That's hardly the case any more.

Nowadays the backlash is mostly to LGBTQ folk proudly flaunting their queerness around and fusing it into mainstream culture. It's one thing to allow queerness to exist, it's another thing to celebrate it in mainstream culture. That's what the right-wingers are fighting now. You are corrupting their cherished traditions.

Be that as it may, it doesn’t stop this backlash from leading to Fascist ends and right wing authoritarianism more generally.

And you would be wise to see this uptick in aggressiveness and legal attacks toward the LGBTQ community as a potential sign of worse things to come.

There are plenty of traditionalist right wingers who would be willing to vote a Fascist into power if that Fascist promised to bring back the good old days when men were men and women were women by any means necessary.

History doesn’t move in a straight line. It’s always 10 steps forward and 9 steps back.

[Emerald]

20 hours ago, aurum said:

Yes that’s important. There are fascists trying to do what you describing at this very moment. And we already got a far-right scare with the Jan 6 debacle. So certainly a real backslide is possible. Who knows what happens if Trump gets in again.

At the same time, I don’t see this wave of GOP legislation as likely leading to that. I think this is conservatives acting in a way that is easily predictable given their agenda. So I think we should keep an eye out and counterpunch, but I’m not ready to sound the fascist alarm at this point.

I agree with that. 

My suspicion and hope is that Republican politicians will realize it’s a losing strategy to lean into authoritarianism and anti-LGBTQ stuff.

They were expecting to clean house in the midterms, because the opposing party to the president tends to do very well in midterm elections.

But they did quite poorly in the house (only getting a slight majority), and even lost a seat in the senate.

And one of the number one issues they were leaning into was culture war anti-trans stuff.

Yet again, Roe v. Wade had also been recently overturned. So, that certainly lost them support as well.

[Emerald]

1 hour ago, Roy said:

The Westboro Bapist Church equivalent of progressives have all the power and influence in culture right now, of course there is going to be backlash.

Regular people don't want bullshit ideologies put in their face to be force-fed.

Of course violence isn't acceptable or to be lauded, but it's par for the course when going through such fundamental change.

How can you think that progressives have all the cultural influence?

It’s really obvious that progressives have little to no institutional power.

And the culture (from an American perspective) is very Capitalistic and Stage Orange. Mainstream American culture is more Libertarian-minded than anything else.

Aside from some really basic things, like more diverse representations in movies compared to 10 years ago and occasional lip service to vague values like equality, very little within mainstream culture is oriented toward anything particularly progressive.

It’s all about maintaining the status quo and milking that status quo for everything it’s worth.

All elements of mainstream culture are just watered down so that it has consumer appeal to the widest target audience possible. And that’s pretty anti-progressive by its nature.

[Leo Gura]

1 hour ago, Emerald said:

Be that as it may, it doesn’t stop this backlash from leading to Fascist ends and right wing authoritarianism more generally.

And you would be wise to see this uptick in aggressiveness and legal attacks toward the LGBTQ community as a potential sign of worse things to come.

There are plenty of traditionalist right wingers who would be willing to vote a Fascist into power if that Fascist promised to bring back the good old days when men were men and women were women by any means necessary.

History doesn’t move in a straight line. It’s always 10 steps forward and 9 steps back.

I think you're overusing that Fascist concept.

The right-wing does a similar thing when they keep refering to every Democrat as a socialist. These kind of slippery slop arguments are not very good. Not everything you dislike is a slippery slope to Hell.

Edited March 15, 2023 by Leo Gura

[aurum]

1 hour ago, Emerald said:

I agree with that. 

My suspicion and hope is that Republican politicians will realize it’s a losing strategy to lean into authoritarianism and anti-LGBTQ stuff.

They were expecting to clean house in the midterms, because the opposing party to the president tends to do very well in midterm elections.

But they did quite poorly in the house (only getting a slight majority), and even lost a seat in the senate.

And one of the number one issues they were leaning into was culture war anti-trans stuff.

Yet again, Roe v. Wade had also been recently overturned. So, that certainly lost them support as well.

Hate to say it, but I don’t think that’s the lesson Republicans are going to be taking from the midterms.

DeSantis had the biggest night of any Republican and leaned into the culture war like no one else. He won essentially because of that, not inspite of it.

What seemed to hurt republicans in the midterms was claims of 2020 election fraud. Election deniers almost universally did poorly.

So I expect the Right to continue leaning into the culture war as hard as ever. I think it’s a bit of a false dichotomy when people say there are the “real issues” and then there is the culture war. In reality, the culture war is the “real issue” for the average person. Because culture is about identity. 

Edited March 15, 2023 by aurum

[Leo Gura]

Anti-wokeness has become the mind virus dejour on the right. That won't stop any time soon. They will try to win elections with that for years to come. They're even calling banks woke now.

Edited March 15, 2023 by Leo Gura