Just to state the obvious and provide some framing and context: The anti-gay/anti-trans/anti-LGBTQ+ is all part of the reactionary movement now taking place in order to turn the nation into a Republican Jesus theocracy where white men control all women, non-straights and non-whites in the name of their lord. Of course, Dobbs and that coach's prayer ruling from last summer are the tell of what's going on.
And yes, I know there are liberal Xian denominations but such influence as they have is local (and good for those people!) and not terribly influential on what can be called the macro level. (Hence narrowing it to Republican Jesus.)
I saw a Twitter thread the other day asserting that part of the reactionary temperament is a visceral aversion to any ambiguity, which they find intolerable. I think that's insightful and along with their love of hierarchies, it plays a huge role in conservative ideology: men lead/women follow, whites in charge/Blacks governed, cis-straights normal/gays and trans abnormal.
Then to give it all legitimacy and to hide the fact it's just the age-old story of those in power fighting tooth and nail to retain that power, they slap a coating of Jesus on top of it and label it God's Will.
Preservation of hierarchy (atop which they sit) is their only true principle. I think that's the meaning of Wilhoit's dictum.
It took me a long time to realize this, but after, oh, a few decades, beginning in my high school days as a "conservative" (thanks, Dad!) and become, via drugs and hippie ethos, a leftie/commie type in my 20s and early 30s, to more sober assessments of politics and ideology since the 80s through the present day. I can't remember when I realized that conservative ideology was essentially empty of any real principles except that of the will to power; I had an inkling in 2001, when the GOP seemed to embrace things they hated about the USSR, especially the suppression of dissent and the encouragement of ratting on suspected dissidents who would oppose our violent response to the Trade Tower attacks. The regressive anti-science stances of the last few years also have a Soviet-style look. Their idiotic complaints about Hollywood are right in that groove, because art should express their ideology, dammit!
I think the turning point for me was economics -- I realized that conservative economic principles were transparently unempirical and unproven, merely articles of faith. They are window dressing for their one true principle, aka, preserving the hierarchy.
I'm glad you're not alone in seeing this, Pere. It would be hard to be the only one; it would be what they call crazy making!
Along with the Republican attack on anyone not a white male, there is the pathetic phenomenon of those victims choosing to jump on the Republican hate train, probably because joining the winning team is thought to endure future success. I recall a 2016 post-election argument with an otherwise smart surgeon, who insisted that women and Blacks voting for Trump proved the Republican Party wasn’t misogynist or racist. The idea that Log Cabin Republicans prove the Party is pro-LGBTQ+ is laughable but the consequences are tragic. It’s amazing that each of these groups (women, Blacks, LGBTQ+) embraces a political movement that wants to strip away their rights. Self-hatred may play a role but I think it’s mostly wanting to be with the powerful despite the likelihood of immense personal harm.
And in the moment at least some sense of "what have the other guys ever done for us besides troll votes?", which I cannot argue, if what one does is ignore the frantic attempts by the diligent sensibles to prop up civil society in the face of the mob...
My guess is Republicans can be pretty friendly, when they want to be. Any Black person who shows up at the local Republican meeting for the first time is likely to get a warm welcome, as a heaven-sent opportunity to prove "we're not racist!" And as long as they nod along agreeably and don't take offense at "You're one of the good ones!" they're welcome to stay and may eventually find themselves running for the United States Senate. Because, as one Black Republican said, "The line's shorter over here."
Mind you, if they start getting all uppity, having OPINIONS and asking QUESTIONS, then we'll have to regrettably mark them off as "one of the difficult ones" and ice them out. One can only hope they'll take the hint and leave quietly.
What surprises me about the power-hungry, rabid right-wing is that they overreach. As SundayStyle notes, they hate ambiguity, so nuance is not their forte. You may be able to get lots of people on board with trans hate (and even a little violence just to keep them in line), but going after the OGs just isn't going to fly: too many ordinary people know and care about friends and relations who are gay. Although my handsome, strapping 6' son can probably take care of himself, anybody who comes for him is going to have to go through me first. And his father and brothers. And even his cousins.
Or, more realistically, hides tremulously, deep in a cave, well behind his (usually his) fellow cowards, pushing on their backs, yelling "You go first!"
I just think this was a huge mistake from by conservatives.
I think a vast majority of people are just happy that this isn't any kind of thing anymore. Everybody knew Uncle Stanley was gay and that his roommate Chuck was really a whole lot more than just a roommate but they could never say , And now, instead of Stanley coming to Thanksgiving dinner by himself and giving people that somebody just farted look when all the old folks ask him when he was going to find a nice girl and settle down, everybody goes to Stanley and Chuck's on Thanksgiving for the best brunch ever! People used to have a whole lot of moments with Stanley that they would always dread. That shits over with.
I work in a production facility with 100 or so factory workers. The package plant material for catalog and online nurseries. It's hourly production work. They could either work here or the ball bearing factory, the cardboard box factory or the dog food factory. We pay less than the other places but we don't drug test. Out of these hundred people at least 20 I would say it might be difficult to figure out which pronoun you should be using. But you know, nobody really gives a shit. The anti-gay/ trans stuff really get 30% of the people worked up, but it's going to be the same 30% who are going to get worked up about some stupid shit or the other anyway. It means diddly the vast majority of the blue collar people I bump elbows with all day.
Hearted for the factory. The number of non-sensible people who worked at our shop in the 20 years I worked there was approximately 1. The rest were all, to the last, groovy in their various ways.
It's a paradox: The fact that fluid gender is so widespread is what really riles rightwingers, so they're trying to get their fingers into every crack of shame and self-disgust among their parents, colleagues, classmates etc. Since their prejudices became unfashionable they've just gotten more intensely vicious about them.
They go into shrieking fits over pronouns. It's some kind of horrible tyranny dictatorship to them to HAVE to use someone's chosen pronouns, much like face masks are some kind of Nazi training for mindless mass obedience. Gender roles and pronoun usage are apparently natural law, like gravity, and can never be messed with.
One I heard recently was, "OK, someone can tell me their pronoun in a meeting, ONCE, but I better not hear that shit in meeting #2." Awfully generous of him, I thought.
"Oh, you IDENTIFY as Bob, do you? And I suppose you're going to FORCE me to go along with your sick fantasy, instead of accepting - like any NORMAL person would - the name your parents gave you! And now I suppose I'll be CANCELLED just for speaking the TRUTH, ROBERT!"
But it's a real, immediate, and personal example of someone telling them what they can and can't say! A dream come true! In-your-face tyranny! Hunter S. Thompson really was a prophet ("Is America really a nation of 200 million used car salesmen who will kill anyone who makes them uncomfortable?").
I think most people, no matter what their deep-down prejudice might be, prefer to mind their own business, and consider that position to be common courtesy.
Thing is, it's really hard to get people to care about stuff, especially en masse, whether it's climate change or pronouns. Most people are going to say, "Sorry, too busy, don't really have time for that." And I can't really get too angry about that, because life in America is hard for a lot of people, they've got their hands full just taking care of their own needs. But to those people, Drag Queen Story Hour must seem as distant as the melting polar ice caps.
Hear, hear. The hatemongers toiling in the groomer mills have been turning out pre-fab bigots for decades, so this is nothing new. The voters who suckered for Rove's anti-gay marriage amendments in 2004 (all passed overwhelmingly in 11 states) and Prop 8 in California didn't go away, and I doubt if more than a handful ever changed their minds. If anything, they've been energized by Trump et al blowing off the manhole covers to release the shit from the sewers to stink up the atmosphere. Remember, Trump got 11 million more votes in 2020 than 4 years earlier. So the fields the Raichiks and Carlsons of the world are plowing have lots of manure to help them grow. Here's hoping normal people ultimately defeat them.
One thing that has changed since the USA of 2004 is a good number of the bigots voting in favor have died, and the new crop of bigots are desperately hoping those dead bigots makes good fertilizer...
It's kinda fun to see someone who's as desperately normie as McConnell stand at a mic now & look chagrinned that there's really no way the GOP will ever be a party that will feel home to normies again. Strictly a freak caucus from here on out.
I think this is why I still can't get over my joy at the midterms, as close as they were. For my entire life, the Republicans had a good thing going as the Daddy Party, the party of "normalcy", the people to run to when the Libs let things get out of control. Crime and inflation were perfect issues for them, rooted as they are in concerns about safety and security. And boy, if there was ever a year in which these two issues should have guaranteed massive Republican wins, this was it. A pandemic-caused bump in crime (even if not the "massive crime wave" they screamed about) and levels of inflation we haven't seen in decades should have locked the whole thing up for them. But then it didn't.
If the core of your appeal is based on running boring businessmen who "know how to create jobs and meet a payroll and balance a budget" then turning your party into a freak show is exactly the wrong way to go, and yet what choice did they have? Boring businessmen are, well, boring. Deficit hysteria no longer has the following it once had, even if they wanted to go back to being the green-eyeshade-accountant guys, there's just not enough of a constituency for that to win much. Nope, they're stuck with the freakitude and the losing that goes with it.
The thing about it that gives me hope is that a lot of MAGAs crawled out of sewer for him and him alone. Certainly his son doesn’t have his toxic charisma. I’m guessing many of them never bothered to vote before, and will probably go back to bitching from the couch. Of course, the race is on to mimic his essential shittiness, but for whatever reason the Ted Cruzes of the world don’t have his putrid allure.
He sorta reminds me of Scott Walker [shudder]. Builds a political career on government-hatin' when he's never done anything in his life except be in government or run for the chance to be in government. Most Republican politicians are like that, and their voters don't seem to mind the inherent contradiction, but that type also doesn't win the fierce love that Trump did. Just a guy you're hiring to do a job (like break the public-sector unions) but he's not the marrying kind.
I've come to think it's because at root Trump is a salesman. After he shot his wad as a developer and casino mogul, he turned to selling himself as a brand, the steaks and vodka we all love to point and laugh at were a test run, and he hit his stride as a "consultant" for resort and hotel development, along with a little light money laundering. He sold himself to the base as the avatar of all their resentment and fear, and they bonded like a baby duckling following a dog. If DeSantis ever figures that out, then he'll be dangerous.
I totally agree with this, and although I can't say to what extent Trump's personality-cult members will transfer their adulation to DeSantis or Cruz, it seems likely that a substantial portion of them won't be moved by a substitute, Trump-lite figure. None of them has the charisma, as you say, or the history of being in the public eye as long and notoriously as the Donald.
I think many analysts who go the "Trumpism existed before Trump! We're fucked!" route don't recognize even this possibility (I'm thinking of Thom Hartmann). While it's true that the racist, misogynist, homophobic, xenophobic element has been with the US population from the beginning, it still needs unique circumstances to bring it to the fore.
But then again, I thought nobody serious would vote for Reagan, Bush I or II, or Trump. If one of the hopefuls lets his or her (but not "their"!) freak flag fly and that banner is out there enough, who knows?
Totally possible another cult leader will come along, but it will have to be another sine qua non jerk. The base has clearly sniffed out the Trump-manqués, and doesn't care for the smell. Besides, they're financially in deep on flags and hats and NFTs.
Yeah, it's like if the Democrats needed another Obama every four to eight years or they had no chance of winning. Once in a generation, maybe not even as often as that, life gives you a superstar that millions fall in love with, but it's not something to be relied on. Fortunately for the Democrats, having actual ideas for how to improve peoples lives can carry you through even if your candidate isn't Mr. Excitement.
Trump has been counted out before. This time, he has serious legal jeopardy that he can't just buy his way out of, but he still has all the levers a wealthy white man can command to fight with, and if/when he's indicted by DOJ (and may that day be soon), he will deliver the biggest victim act of his life to the base, and the hints won't be as subtle as they were on Jan 6, because his ass will be on the line, not just his Presidency. We're nowhere near done with him yet.
I have to wonder how much of the anti-gay/anti-trans is really part of misplaced anger from failing to cope with their own homosexual urges. To be sure, every accusation is a confession for these people, and we need look no further than, say, Dennis Hastert to see a high-placed groomer helping to lead the charge against supposed homosexual groomers. For adolescent boys, "you're gay!" is a taunt tossed about to try to spackle over their own innate feelings. Most normal and healthy men and women come to terms with it by becoming confident in their own sexuality, whatever it might be.
But for many people, the thought that they might have had feelings or even urges toward someone of the same sex is terrifying. For them, the only way to cope is through violent denial and lashing out against anyone who might trigger those feelings again.
Then, too, there's also the deep and abiding envy over what conservatives think those other lives are like. Their own sexuality profoundly repressed, conservatives imagine queer folk as living in a non-stop orgy, a constant fuck-fest. Gazing down at their own withered and disused genitalia, they KNOW it's just so unfair! Someone has to stop all that fun!
I think it's the sex. For people who claim to hate & be disgusted by gay sex, conservatives spend a HELL of a lot of time discussing what goes where and how, and posting pictures from Pride of kink folks.
Similarly, the reaction to -- horrors -- children! at Drag Brunch and Drag Queens at the Library is about their own fears. Kids think drag is funny and colorful and playful and silly, they're not wondering "How in the world do these people fuck?"
I really appreciate your columns, Roy. My anger at these assholes renders me subverbal when I think about this shit too long. I just sputter and grunt. So thanks for maintaining the rage and the ability to communicate.
I second your appreciation. (Also, I can hear an Ed Sullivan type announcing "and now, all the way from London, England, here's the comedy duo of Sputter & Grunt!")
I third the appreciation! Circumstances mean I usually read the columns (& comments) a few days behind in batches. What a treat. Happy Hogmanay when it comes!
Well, Roy, everything old is new ever so often: same ol' Anita Bryant idiocy, and risen zombie like from Florida...
And it's just not quite playing to masses: just the MAGA faithful: as others have noted. People who get upset about, well, pronouns mostly will not have to be concerned about it in the slightest. And even in my little redneck town, trans folks and gay folks are living unmolested...Poverty is the real crime, and woe betide you if you are poor and trans, say.
Trying to find out about a local political, yea, 1st Amendment story (Citizen journalist Nydia Tisdale dragged from public GOP rally for the crime of videotaping it) in the county where the Libertarian/Log Cabin/coke head ex lived: and beside the jump on the story (She is still appealing her arrest on "resisting arrest") was next to the local church notices: and the guy had joined the local Presbyterian Church.
This is the guy who'd come out in garterbelt and stockings to signal play time: and who would periodically rage at being categorized with "those freaks" the trannies and drag queens...
To have extremely fixed and armored ideas about sex indicates, at least, deeper problems.
And, of course, "money answereth all things", and certainly nothing is more respectable, even if it's not old.
Worriedman and others are right: real normies don't care much about other's private stuff, as most men don't have to tell you they are Real Men: and when they do, they are insecure in it.
And if they tell you they are an Alpha, they are a joke, immediately.
Saw a Tiktok last eve of Tulsi Gabbard on some Fox News show pulling some kind of Joseph Welch moment on George Santos: "Have you no shame," she asks. And George sputters, lies further, deflects, sputters again.
So the answer is probably no, he has no shame... and when Tulsi Goddamned Gabbard calls you out for a lack of integrity, wow.... I mean.... wow.
That boy's got a bright future ahead of him in tomorrow's GOP. But also the moment is so corny theater. Real as pro wrestling...
I've been amused in the outrage machine slurry to hear people (some of whom ought to know better) say, "Santos told us he's GAY, yet he just got divorced from a woman!"
The reversal on gay marriage - not just the Supreme Court decision in Obergefell but the massive swing in public opinion that preceded that decision and then continued after - took a lot of people by surprise. And for a time most of these gay-haters shut the fuck up, baffled by the breakthrough, isolated and surrounded., but never, NEVER, accepting. So when the anti-trans grift came along, they thought, "Well at least THIS we can win!" And sorry-not-sorry, no, you won't.
Some Repugs in Our Fair State want to ban drag shows. How exactly that works, or who defines and enforces that kind of nonsense, who knows. Are you going to ban Mrs Doubtfire, or Harvey Korman in the Carol Burnett Show, or Monty Python, or Milton Berle, or any comedy featuring a “mistaken identity” subplot with people masquerading as another gender? I mean, how does that even work? How do you translate conservative neuroses into law?
Meanwhile, Kristiiii Noem was given a flamethrower for Christmas, which she gleefully used to light up cardboard boxes while people froze in the blizzard at Pine Ridge. Now that’s some quality governmentin’! And the video of her playing Guns n’ Ammo cover girl works equally well in a campaign video or the video for The Cramps’ “Bikini Girls With Machine Guns.”
"Some Repugs in Our Fair State want to ban drag shows. How exactly that works, or who defines and enforces that kind of nonsense, who knows."
If, as promised, the new Republican Congress will read the entire Constitution out loud, said Repubs in Your Fair State will need to pay extra attention to the "First Amendment" portion.
Ha ha, they don’t pay attention when we pass initiatives to legalize cannabis or require ethics standards for officeholders. Why would they start listening now?
Reminds me of Trump telling officials in the DOJ, "You just CLAIM there's fraud and we'll take care of the rest." For DeSantis, it's enough to have the headline "State arrests fraudulent voters" or "State investigates vaccine" he knows nobody's going to be paying attention when all the charges get dropped or the "investigation" leads to nothing. Look at how much mileage Fox News got out of the John Durham "investigation" and when it all fizzled out they didn't report that at all.
Does anybody doubt for a minute how this all ends up? Not so many years from now, some folks will give their pronouns, others won't, nobody will give a fuck. The grifters will have moved on to another grift, and Republican voters will have conveniently and completely forgotten the thing that consumed them just a few short years before. "Hey, remember when you got yourself all worked up about Drag?" will be met with a confused and icy stare.
Getting to the confused and icy stare is going to be a longer road than you think, especially depending on where you live.
Since the Republican Party watched Nixon board Marine One and swore "never again" they have bet the seed corn, the farm, and firstborn male child on doubling down, and that is how they have maintained a grip on power (well, that and gaming the system. And shameless lying). They are not going to let go of what they see as their only option to remain relevant until it stops working, by which I mean they start losing elections, and losing really badly. Like MGT and McConnell losing badly badly.
A significant plurality of the base have been convinced they are in a righteous existential war with Evil, with Evil represented by drag Queens, soy boys, and trans women (funny, you never hear about the dangers of trans men, wonder why that might be. Hmmm...). The only reason Republicans aren't hammering on the LBG part is because they aren't what is firing up the base, the "funny-looking" people are, and Republicans will keep hammering as long as they believe it gets them enough votes. Like "woke", this stuff is playing really well with the base, and that's all the Republican Party cares about. Like FDR welcoming the hatred of industrialists, they welcome the sneers of San Francisco values liberals.
True, maybe I'm being over-optimistic, but I also have confidence in the ability of Republican leaders to gin up a new Moral Panic when the excitement of the old one starts to fade. It's not that they eventually come to their senses, no, they never do that, but the leaders wave some new shiny object in front of their faces and they promptly forget the old one. That confused, icy state you'll get is a brain attempting to stave off recognition that it's been manipulated in exactly the same way, over and over and over again.
This is all true, but watching the Republican Party has gotten like watching an ex brother-in-law go from weed to acid to vodka to spray paint and glue to fentanyl. How far down can they go before ripping the space/time fabric to shreds?
O.G. Original Gay
There's a marketing tag if ever I...
Oh. Crap.
Whether we all get to Valhalla or not at least we'll always have Castro Street ca. 1977...
Just to state the obvious and provide some framing and context: The anti-gay/anti-trans/anti-LGBTQ+ is all part of the reactionary movement now taking place in order to turn the nation into a Republican Jesus theocracy where white men control all women, non-straights and non-whites in the name of their lord. Of course, Dobbs and that coach's prayer ruling from last summer are the tell of what's going on.
And yes, I know there are liberal Xian denominations but such influence as they have is local (and good for those people!) and not terribly influential on what can be called the macro level. (Hence narrowing it to Republican Jesus.)
"their hate is neither narrow nor specific, and it will reach pretty near everybody soon enough"
Hasn't it already?
I saw a Twitter thread the other day asserting that part of the reactionary temperament is a visceral aversion to any ambiguity, which they find intolerable. I think that's insightful and along with their love of hierarchies, it plays a huge role in conservative ideology: men lead/women follow, whites in charge/Blacks governed, cis-straights normal/gays and trans abnormal.
Then to give it all legitimacy and to hide the fact it's just the age-old story of those in power fighting tooth and nail to retain that power, they slap a coating of Jesus on top of it and label it God's Will.
Anxiety. It's what's for sinner!
LOL and don't forget the airing of the grievances for dessert. When you're a conservative, every day is Festivus.
"I have to be sure about what happens when I die!" Sorry, pal.
Thank Gobbs I'm not alone in seeing how devoted conservatives are to hierarchy.
Preservation of hierarchy (atop which they sit) is their only true principle. I think that's the meaning of Wilhoit's dictum.
It took me a long time to realize this, but after, oh, a few decades, beginning in my high school days as a "conservative" (thanks, Dad!) and become, via drugs and hippie ethos, a leftie/commie type in my 20s and early 30s, to more sober assessments of politics and ideology since the 80s through the present day. I can't remember when I realized that conservative ideology was essentially empty of any real principles except that of the will to power; I had an inkling in 2001, when the GOP seemed to embrace things they hated about the USSR, especially the suppression of dissent and the encouragement of ratting on suspected dissidents who would oppose our violent response to the Trade Tower attacks. The regressive anti-science stances of the last few years also have a Soviet-style look. Their idiotic complaints about Hollywood are right in that groove, because art should express their ideology, dammit!
I think the turning point for me was economics -- I realized that conservative economic principles were transparently unempirical and unproven, merely articles of faith. They are window dressing for their one true principle, aka, preserving the hierarchy.
I'm glad you're not alone in seeing this, Pere. It would be hard to be the only one; it would be what they call crazy making!
"whites in charge/Blacks Jim Crowed"
fixed
Oh, they're fine with ambiguity, as long as it supports the cognitive dissonance that's the central tenet of the Republican Party these days.
Hence Schrödinger's Immigrant, simultaneously sucking up the welfare and stealing your job.
Or Schrödinger's virus, simultaneously Chinese-engineered Bioweapon and nothing more than the common cold.
Schrödinger's President, simultaneously a weak, doddering old fool and a vicious controlling tyrant.
Oh, that Schrödinger sure gets around!
Out cattin' every night!
Saw him down at that new fast-food place, Cat in The Box.
Along with the Republican attack on anyone not a white male, there is the pathetic phenomenon of those victims choosing to jump on the Republican hate train, probably because joining the winning team is thought to endure future success. I recall a 2016 post-election argument with an otherwise smart surgeon, who insisted that women and Blacks voting for Trump proved the Republican Party wasn’t misogynist or racist. The idea that Log Cabin Republicans prove the Party is pro-LGBTQ+ is laughable but the consequences are tragic. It’s amazing that each of these groups (women, Blacks, LGBTQ+) embraces a political movement that wants to strip away their rights. Self-hatred may play a role but I think it’s mostly wanting to be with the powerful despite the likelihood of immense personal harm.
And in the moment at least some sense of "what have the other guys ever done for us besides troll votes?", which I cannot argue, if what one does is ignore the frantic attempts by the diligent sensibles to prop up civil society in the face of the mob...
Maybe also a belief in their own exceptionalism. "I'm not like those LOSER trans people! I'm special! They'll accept me."
My guess is Republicans can be pretty friendly, when they want to be. Any Black person who shows up at the local Republican meeting for the first time is likely to get a warm welcome, as a heaven-sent opportunity to prove "we're not racist!" And as long as they nod along agreeably and don't take offense at "You're one of the good ones!" they're welcome to stay and may eventually find themselves running for the United States Senate. Because, as one Black Republican said, "The line's shorter over here."
Oof for the shorter line line...
Mind you, if they start getting all uppity, having OPINIONS and asking QUESTIONS, then we'll have to regrettably mark them off as "one of the difficult ones" and ice them out. One can only hope they'll take the hint and leave quietly.
"Gays against groomers" is kinda like "Niemöller against trade unionists."
What surprises me about the power-hungry, rabid right-wing is that they overreach. As SundayStyle notes, they hate ambiguity, so nuance is not their forte. You may be able to get lots of people on board with trans hate (and even a little violence just to keep them in line), but going after the OGs just isn't going to fly: too many ordinary people know and care about friends and relations who are gay. Although my handsome, strapping 6' son can probably take care of himself, anybody who comes for him is going to have to go through me first. And his father and brothers. And even his cousins.
Goddamn right!
The magic of leaving the closet.
As always, a conservative is someone who stands athwart history yelling "I don't wanna!!"
Or, more realistically, hides tremulously, deep in a cave, well behind his (usually his) fellow cowards, pushing on their backs, yelling "You go first!"
I've always said Libertarianism is "You ain't the boss of ME!" masquerading as a political philosophy.
Nice summary!
I just think this was a huge mistake from by conservatives.
I think a vast majority of people are just happy that this isn't any kind of thing anymore. Everybody knew Uncle Stanley was gay and that his roommate Chuck was really a whole lot more than just a roommate but they could never say , And now, instead of Stanley coming to Thanksgiving dinner by himself and giving people that somebody just farted look when all the old folks ask him when he was going to find a nice girl and settle down, everybody goes to Stanley and Chuck's on Thanksgiving for the best brunch ever! People used to have a whole lot of moments with Stanley that they would always dread. That shits over with.
I work in a production facility with 100 or so factory workers. The package plant material for catalog and online nurseries. It's hourly production work. They could either work here or the ball bearing factory, the cardboard box factory or the dog food factory. We pay less than the other places but we don't drug test. Out of these hundred people at least 20 I would say it might be difficult to figure out which pronoun you should be using. But you know, nobody really gives a shit. The anti-gay/ trans stuff really get 30% of the people worked up, but it's going to be the same 30% who are going to get worked up about some stupid shit or the other anyway. It means diddly the vast majority of the blue collar people I bump elbows with all day.
Hearted for the factory. The number of non-sensible people who worked at our shop in the 20 years I worked there was approximately 1. The rest were all, to the last, groovy in their various ways.
It's a paradox: The fact that fluid gender is so widespread is what really riles rightwingers, so they're trying to get their fingers into every crack of shame and self-disgust among their parents, colleagues, classmates etc. Since their prejudices became unfashionable they've just gotten more intensely vicious about them.
They go into shrieking fits over pronouns. It's some kind of horrible tyranny dictatorship to them to HAVE to use someone's chosen pronouns, much like face masks are some kind of Nazi training for mindless mass obedience. Gender roles and pronoun usage are apparently natural law, like gravity, and can never be messed with.
One I heard recently was, "OK, someone can tell me their pronoun in a meeting, ONCE, but I better not hear that shit in meeting #2." Awfully generous of him, I thought.
"My name is Robert, but you can call me Bob."
"Oh, you IDENTIFY as Bob, do you? And I suppose you're going to FORCE me to go along with your sick fantasy, instead of accepting - like any NORMAL person would - the name your parents gave you! And now I suppose I'll be CANCELLED just for speaking the TRUTH, ROBERT!"
But it's a real, immediate, and personal example of someone telling them what they can and can't say! A dream come true! In-your-face tyranny! Hunter S. Thompson really was a prophet ("Is America really a nation of 200 million used car salesmen who will kill anyone who makes them uncomfortable?").
I think most people, no matter what their deep-down prejudice might be, prefer to mind their own business, and consider that position to be common courtesy.
Let us hope!
Thing is, it's really hard to get people to care about stuff, especially en masse, whether it's climate change or pronouns. Most people are going to say, "Sorry, too busy, don't really have time for that." And I can't really get too angry about that, because life in America is hard for a lot of people, they've got their hands full just taking care of their own needs. But to those people, Drag Queen Story Hour must seem as distant as the melting polar ice caps.
Plus they can handle quite simply by saying “not for me.”
Hear, hear. The hatemongers toiling in the groomer mills have been turning out pre-fab bigots for decades, so this is nothing new. The voters who suckered for Rove's anti-gay marriage amendments in 2004 (all passed overwhelmingly in 11 states) and Prop 8 in California didn't go away, and I doubt if more than a handful ever changed their minds. If anything, they've been energized by Trump et al blowing off the manhole covers to release the shit from the sewers to stink up the atmosphere. Remember, Trump got 11 million more votes in 2020 than 4 years earlier. So the fields the Raichiks and Carlsons of the world are plowing have lots of manure to help them grow. Here's hoping normal people ultimately defeat them.
Hearted, tho the image of Raichik & Carlson plowing their respective fields has me looking away in embarrassment (but who am I to protest?)...
One thing that has changed since the USA of 2004 is a good number of the bigots voting in favor have died, and the new crop of bigots are desperately hoping those dead bigots makes good fertilizer...
It's kinda fun to see someone who's as desperately normie as McConnell stand at a mic now & look chagrinned that there's really no way the GOP will ever be a party that will feel home to normies again. Strictly a freak caucus from here on out.
I think this is why I still can't get over my joy at the midterms, as close as they were. For my entire life, the Republicans had a good thing going as the Daddy Party, the party of "normalcy", the people to run to when the Libs let things get out of control. Crime and inflation were perfect issues for them, rooted as they are in concerns about safety and security. And boy, if there was ever a year in which these two issues should have guaranteed massive Republican wins, this was it. A pandemic-caused bump in crime (even if not the "massive crime wave" they screamed about) and levels of inflation we haven't seen in decades should have locked the whole thing up for them. But then it didn't.
If the core of your appeal is based on running boring businessmen who "know how to create jobs and meet a payroll and balance a budget" then turning your party into a freak show is exactly the wrong way to go, and yet what choice did they have? Boring businessmen are, well, boring. Deficit hysteria no longer has the following it once had, even if they wanted to go back to being the green-eyeshade-accountant guys, there's just not enough of a constituency for that to win much. Nope, they're stuck with the freakitude and the losing that goes with it.
Trump blowing off the manhole cover to release the shit was and is his greatest appeal to the base.
Mmhmm.
The enduring fact that Swamp Thang is the best thang that ever happened to 74 million Americans should give one...
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The thing about it that gives me hope is that a lot of MAGAs crawled out of sewer for him and him alone. Certainly his son doesn’t have his toxic charisma. I’m guessing many of them never bothered to vote before, and will probably go back to bitching from the couch. Of course, the race is on to mimic his essential shittiness, but for whatever reason the Ted Cruzes of the world don’t have his putrid allure.
Exactly, his appeal completely escapes me, so I can't explain why Ron DeSantis doesn't have the same appeal, but it's a fact nonetheless.
DeSantis doesn't have the same appeal because he's a sheep in wolves' clothing. (Periodic reminder that he was once an unknown Congressman.)
I think the True Believers can see that Ron DiSantis and Ted Cruz and the like are playing batshit crazy, Trump is the real deal.
He sorta reminds me of Scott Walker [shudder]. Builds a political career on government-hatin' when he's never done anything in his life except be in government or run for the chance to be in government. Most Republican politicians are like that, and their voters don't seem to mind the inherent contradiction, but that type also doesn't win the fierce love that Trump did. Just a guy you're hiring to do a job (like break the public-sector unions) but he's not the marrying kind.
I've come to think it's because at root Trump is a salesman. After he shot his wad as a developer and casino mogul, he turned to selling himself as a brand, the steaks and vodka we all love to point and laugh at were a test run, and he hit his stride as a "consultant" for resort and hotel development, along with a little light money laundering. He sold himself to the base as the avatar of all their resentment and fear, and they bonded like a baby duckling following a dog. If DeSantis ever figures that out, then he'll be dangerous.
I totally agree with this, and although I can't say to what extent Trump's personality-cult members will transfer their adulation to DeSantis or Cruz, it seems likely that a substantial portion of them won't be moved by a substitute, Trump-lite figure. None of them has the charisma, as you say, or the history of being in the public eye as long and notoriously as the Donald.
I think many analysts who go the "Trumpism existed before Trump! We're fucked!" route don't recognize even this possibility (I'm thinking of Thom Hartmann). While it's true that the racist, misogynist, homophobic, xenophobic element has been with the US population from the beginning, it still needs unique circumstances to bring it to the fore.
But then again, I thought nobody serious would vote for Reagan, Bush I or II, or Trump. If one of the hopefuls lets his or her (but not "their"!) freak flag fly and that banner is out there enough, who knows?
Totally possible another cult leader will come along, but it will have to be another sine qua non jerk. The base has clearly sniffed out the Trump-manqués, and doesn't care for the smell. Besides, they're financially in deep on flags and hats and NFTs.
Yeah, it's like if the Democrats needed another Obama every four to eight years or they had no chance of winning. Once in a generation, maybe not even as often as that, life gives you a superstar that millions fall in love with, but it's not something to be relied on. Fortunately for the Democrats, having actual ideas for how to improve peoples lives can carry you through even if your candidate isn't Mr. Excitement.
Trump has been counted out before. This time, he has serious legal jeopardy that he can't just buy his way out of, but he still has all the levers a wealthy white man can command to fight with, and if/when he's indicted by DOJ (and may that day be soon), he will deliver the biggest victim act of his life to the base, and the hints won't be as subtle as they were on Jan 6, because his ass will be on the line, not just his Presidency. We're nowhere near done with him yet.
"(but not "their"!)"
2 marks!
Much of his putrid allure comes from The Apprentice
I have to wonder how much of the anti-gay/anti-trans is really part of misplaced anger from failing to cope with their own homosexual urges. To be sure, every accusation is a confession for these people, and we need look no further than, say, Dennis Hastert to see a high-placed groomer helping to lead the charge against supposed homosexual groomers. For adolescent boys, "you're gay!" is a taunt tossed about to try to spackle over their own innate feelings. Most normal and healthy men and women come to terms with it by becoming confident in their own sexuality, whatever it might be.
But for many people, the thought that they might have had feelings or even urges toward someone of the same sex is terrifying. For them, the only way to cope is through violent denial and lashing out against anyone who might trigger those feelings again.
Then, too, there's also the deep and abiding envy over what conservatives think those other lives are like. Their own sexuality profoundly repressed, conservatives imagine queer folk as living in a non-stop orgy, a constant fuck-fest. Gazing down at their own withered and disused genitalia, they KNOW it's just so unfair! Someone has to stop all that fun!
" For adolescent boys, "you're gay!" is a taunt tossed about to try to spackle over their own innate feelings."
Yeah.
Adolescence has dramatically expanded in duration for a buncha these folx.
I think it's the sex. For people who claim to hate & be disgusted by gay sex, conservatives spend a HELL of a lot of time discussing what goes where and how, and posting pictures from Pride of kink folks.
Similarly, the reaction to -- horrors -- children! at Drag Brunch and Drag Queens at the Library is about their own fears. Kids think drag is funny and colorful and playful and silly, they're not wondering "How in the world do these people fuck?"
I really appreciate your columns, Roy. My anger at these assholes renders me subverbal when I think about this shit too long. I just sputter and grunt. So thanks for maintaining the rage and the ability to communicate.
I second your appreciation. (Also, I can hear an Ed Sullivan type announcing "and now, all the way from London, England, here's the comedy duo of Sputter & Grunt!")
I third the appreciation! Circumstances mean I usually read the columns (& comments) a few days behind in batches. What a treat. Happy Hogmanay when it comes!
Well, Roy, everything old is new ever so often: same ol' Anita Bryant idiocy, and risen zombie like from Florida...
And it's just not quite playing to masses: just the MAGA faithful: as others have noted. People who get upset about, well, pronouns mostly will not have to be concerned about it in the slightest. And even in my little redneck town, trans folks and gay folks are living unmolested...Poverty is the real crime, and woe betide you if you are poor and trans, say.
Trying to find out about a local political, yea, 1st Amendment story (Citizen journalist Nydia Tisdale dragged from public GOP rally for the crime of videotaping it) in the county where the Libertarian/Log Cabin/coke head ex lived: and beside the jump on the story (She is still appealing her arrest on "resisting arrest") was next to the local church notices: and the guy had joined the local Presbyterian Church.
This is the guy who'd come out in garterbelt and stockings to signal play time: and who would periodically rage at being categorized with "those freaks" the trannies and drag queens...
To have extremely fixed and armored ideas about sex indicates, at least, deeper problems.
And, of course, "money answereth all things", and certainly nothing is more respectable, even if it's not old.
Worriedman and others are right: real normies don't care much about other's private stuff, as most men don't have to tell you they are Real Men: and when they do, they are insecure in it.
And if they tell you they are an Alpha, they are a joke, immediately.
Saw a Tiktok last eve of Tulsi Gabbard on some Fox News show pulling some kind of Joseph Welch moment on George Santos: "Have you no shame," she asks. And George sputters, lies further, deflects, sputters again.
So the answer is probably no, he has no shame... and when Tulsi Goddamned Gabbard calls you out for a lack of integrity, wow.... I mean.... wow.
That boy's got a bright future ahead of him in tomorrow's GOP. But also the moment is so corny theater. Real as pro wrestling...
"That's my story, and if you don't like it, I have others."
Gabbard only got on him because she hates gay people -- or rather her cult does https://www.insider.com/tulsi-gabbard-science-of-identity-controversial-religious-sect-2022-10?amp
This is definitely the case...
I've been amused in the outrage machine slurry to hear people (some of whom ought to know better) say, "Santos told us he's GAY, yet he just got divorced from a woman!"
Checkmate, I guess...?
I've had two ex-wives, doesn't change a thing...
Santos' life is, to say the least, a target-rich environment, so maybe find another target, folks.
I will not be surprised if the marriage was of the green card variety.
Reread it. Never mind...
Willie Nelson & Julio Inglesias basically sing my theme song
The reversal on gay marriage - not just the Supreme Court decision in Obergefell but the massive swing in public opinion that preceded that decision and then continued after - took a lot of people by surprise. And for a time most of these gay-haters shut the fuck up, baffled by the breakthrough, isolated and surrounded., but never, NEVER, accepting. So when the anti-trans grift came along, they thought, "Well at least THIS we can win!" And sorry-not-sorry, no, you won't.
Some Repugs in Our Fair State want to ban drag shows. How exactly that works, or who defines and enforces that kind of nonsense, who knows. Are you going to ban Mrs Doubtfire, or Harvey Korman in the Carol Burnett Show, or Monty Python, or Milton Berle, or any comedy featuring a “mistaken identity” subplot with people masquerading as another gender? I mean, how does that even work? How do you translate conservative neuroses into law?
Meanwhile, Kristiiii Noem was given a flamethrower for Christmas, which she gleefully used to light up cardboard boxes while people froze in the blizzard at Pine Ridge. Now that’s some quality governmentin’! And the video of her playing Guns n’ Ammo cover girl works equally well in a campaign video or the video for The Cramps’ “Bikini Girls With Machine Guns.”
"Some Repugs in Our Fair State want to ban drag shows. How exactly that works, or who defines and enforces that kind of nonsense, who knows."
If, as promised, the new Republican Congress will read the entire Constitution out loud, said Repubs in Your Fair State will need to pay extra attention to the "First Amendment" portion.
Ha ha, they don’t pay attention when we pass initiatives to legalize cannabis or require ethics standards for officeholders. Why would they start listening now?
Look to DeSantis. You deliberately use vague language to describe the crime, and let the cops, DAs, and judges do the heavy lifting.
Reminds me of Trump telling officials in the DOJ, "You just CLAIM there's fraud and we'll take care of the rest." For DeSantis, it's enough to have the headline "State arrests fraudulent voters" or "State investigates vaccine" he knows nobody's going to be paying attention when all the charges get dropped or the "investigation" leads to nothing. Look at how much mileage Fox News got out of the John Durham "investigation" and when it all fizzled out they didn't report that at all.
Does anybody doubt for a minute how this all ends up? Not so many years from now, some folks will give their pronouns, others won't, nobody will give a fuck. The grifters will have moved on to another grift, and Republican voters will have conveniently and completely forgotten the thing that consumed them just a few short years before. "Hey, remember when you got yourself all worked up about Drag?" will be met with a confused and icy stare.
Getting to the confused and icy stare is going to be a longer road than you think, especially depending on where you live.
Since the Republican Party watched Nixon board Marine One and swore "never again" they have bet the seed corn, the farm, and firstborn male child on doubling down, and that is how they have maintained a grip on power (well, that and gaming the system. And shameless lying). They are not going to let go of what they see as their only option to remain relevant until it stops working, by which I mean they start losing elections, and losing really badly. Like MGT and McConnell losing badly badly.
A significant plurality of the base have been convinced they are in a righteous existential war with Evil, with Evil represented by drag Queens, soy boys, and trans women (funny, you never hear about the dangers of trans men, wonder why that might be. Hmmm...). The only reason Republicans aren't hammering on the LBG part is because they aren't what is firing up the base, the "funny-looking" people are, and Republicans will keep hammering as long as they believe it gets them enough votes. Like "woke", this stuff is playing really well with the base, and that's all the Republican Party cares about. Like FDR welcoming the hatred of industrialists, they welcome the sneers of San Francisco values liberals.
True, maybe I'm being over-optimistic, but I also have confidence in the ability of Republican leaders to gin up a new Moral Panic when the excitement of the old one starts to fade. It's not that they eventually come to their senses, no, they never do that, but the leaders wave some new shiny object in front of their faces and they promptly forget the old one. That confused, icy state you'll get is a brain attempting to stave off recognition that it's been manipulated in exactly the same way, over and over and over again.
This is all true, but watching the Republican Party has gotten like watching an ex brother-in-law go from weed to acid to vodka to spray paint and glue to fentanyl. How far down can they go before ripping the space/time fabric to shreds?