Well, I had forgotten until Twitter reminded me that today's mass shooter in American is not the first transgender person to "go postal" and shoot up a school.
I have posted before about how unhelpful it is for either side to rush to identify the background of mass murderers, who obviously must be psychologically disturbed extremists acting inhumanely, as a way of point scoring in the political and culture wars.*
That said, it is also extremely bad for any group to keep telling itself that, if people don't 100% agree with or support their ideological positions, they are evil and must want them dead.
Now, while I have complained for years that the American Right has spent the last 3 or 4 decades increasingly demonising (now, often in the literal sense) anyone even slightly to their left, I don't think I am "two sides-ing" this [see below] by pointing out that, indeed, transgender activists and commentators are routinely, on social media, absolutists about their cause and allow for no argument or nuance at all, and accuse the likes of JK Rowling of all sorts of ill will and evil. Just this morning people were posting about this soup throwing transgender person:
who in the above video said "she [Posey Paker] is advocating our genocide", and in his latest video is weeping into his home webcam about how "they" want to kill him.
While I don't doubt transgender folk can face danger on the street from stupid Right wing thugs who ridiculously want to categorise each and every one of them as a danger to women and children, and having a couple of dozen incel young men (what is it with Victoria? - it's such a weird state) giving Nazi salutes at rallies is something that is an extraordinarily bad look for the, um, anti-trans cause, I still think it's a counterproductive wild exaggeration for them to talk at rallies as if they may as well be Jews in Nazi Germany, or something. I mean, the political response from (Australian and New Zealand) government has been nearly entirely positive for the transgender side, and the Liberals are not winning any votes over it.
And again, of course, I think both extremes of the transgender rights debate are acting hysterically.
But, going back to America: I agree with those who have commented on Twitter and elsewhere that, while Trump may only have got a few thousand MAGA dills to attend his Waco rally, the 100% fascist nature of the imagery and rhetoric was not emphasised enough (or condemned enough) in the media:
A defiant and incendiary Donald Trump, facing a potential indictment, held the first rally of his 2024 presidential campaign Saturday in Waco, Texas, a city made famous by deadly resistance against law enforcement.
In an extraordinary display, Trump opened his rally by playing a song, “Justice for All,” that features a choir of men imprisoned for their role in the Jan. 6, 2021, insurrection at the U.S. Capitol singing the national anthem and a recording of Trump reciting the Pledge of Allegiance. Some footage from the insurrection was shown on screens.
Trump, in his speech, defended the insurrectionists and railed against prosecutors, including those overseeing multiple investigations of the Republican former president.
“You will be vindicated and proud,” Trump said “The thugs and criminals who are corrupting our justice system will be defeated, discredited and totally disgraced.”
So, yeah, the transgender culture war is very ugly, and might sometimes even have helped inspire deadly action, but in terms of long term danger to democracy and society overall, there is no doubt at all that radical rhetoric from the MAGA Right is the far, far bigger danger to America.
* It's also - obviously - painfully stupid of the Right to argue it's all
because mental health treatment being "de-institutionalised", what, 50
years ago; or because of "side doors"; or because there just aren't
enough "good guys with guns" on or near the school. Their pathetic "it's anything other than too easy access to guns" is just so obviously stupid to the rest of the planet, and a significant number of Americans too.
4 comments:
The Right becomes far too hot and bothered about the transgender movement. The transgender activists are their own worst enemy. The Right fear a form of psychosocial dynamics that encourages people to go down the transgender road. There might be something to that but it is very hard to conceive that people would willing adopt a gender shift which is guaranteed to make their life much more difficult. Every study I looked at dismissed it as a possibility.
I had a hunch there might something much more sinister that is causing the rise in transgender numbers. That is what drove me to the literature. The bods are arguing that various pollutants could be driving the changing sexuality numbers. There is also evidence that relates to various hormone related pathologies, including cancer.
It used to be that Tasmania was the weird state: Bob Brown and Brian Harradine. Dammit, why does it have to be Victoria now I live in it!
Sorry. That was me. :)
Queensland still has the most insistent climate change denialists, I must admit. That's probably down to having too many people living outside the capital. It is ripe for my "reverse Pol Pot" policy.
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