I sure didn't expect to be passing along a part of a New York Times editorial [gift] but the old Gray Lady is a nice pink and blue today.
... the chaos of these past few weeks shouldn’t mask that in this period, [Trump] has also waged as direct a campaign against a single, vulnerable minority as we’ve seen in generations.
... It should be recognized that society is still grappling with the cultural and policy implications of the rapidly shifting understanding of gender. There are some issues — such as participation in sports and appropriate medical care for minors — that remain fiercely debated, even by those who broadly support trans rights. There should be room for those conversations. But what shouldn’t be debated is whether the government should target a group of Americans to be stripped of their freedom and dignity to move through the world as they choose. This is a campaign in which cruelty and humiliation seem to be the fundamental point.
... It’s true that Americans are divided by the new and shifting politics around gender identity. But most, regardless of party, have a shared respect for their fellow citizens who put on a uniform, pick up a rifle and travel around the world in defense of the nation.
Mr. Trump’s targeting of transgender Americans will go far beyond the military. And his instinct for demonization, his habit of dividing the public into those worthy of protection and those who should be cast aside, his habitual cruelty to those who can be pushed around without others speaking up will go far beyond a campaign against this one small, vulnerable group. ...
The emphasis on the first sentence here is my addition. When government turns to demonizing a tiny vulnerable segment of the people, terrible subsequent acts have been incited. We've seen how this works. Push unpopular people outside the protection of society and humans become capable of atrocity.
Adam Serwer of The Atlantic puts the MAGA campaign to make transpeople Other in its scary historical context. All freedoms won and made real in the last century are put at risk by this assault on law and human decency.
Over the past century, many groups have successfully sought to have their rights recognized, winning, at least on paper, the same rights as white, Christian, heterosexual men. The right-wing project today, which Trumpist justices support, is to reestablish by state force the hierarchies of race, gender, and religion they deem moral and foundational.
Whether that’s forcing LGBTQ people back into the closet, compelling women to remain in loveless marriages, or confining Black and Hispanic people to the drudgery of—as Trump once put it—“Black jobs” and “Hispanic jobs” in which they are meant to toil, the purpose of this ideological project is the same: to put the broader mass of people back in their “proper places.”
To those who see the world this way, freedom means the freedom of the majority to oppress the minority. Attacking trans people first was simply their plan for getting the American people on board with taking many other freedoms away.
That's the MAGA menu, whether they all know it or not.
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