Dem
49
GOP
51
We firmly dislike writing items like this one. However, we are also not going to look the other way and be party to normalizing such behavior. And so it is that we have a substantial item, for the second time this week, on the Trump campaign's demagoguery.
It is abundantly clear that the campaign has decided that leaning into the anger and hatred is where the votes are. Sometimes, as with the Puerto Rican joke on Sunday, Trump apologists say "Whaaaaaaaaaaat?" and claim that they are shocked that something like that happened. Other times, and this happens a lot, the apologists claim Trump is "going off script" or that "you can't take him literally."
We will point out three things that give lie to these protestations. First, if the candidate does or says something often enough, then that becomes the script, like it or not. The hateful and violent stuff emerges from Trump on a daily basis, it's the defining feature of his message. Second, J.D. Vance also regularly indulges in hateful and violent rhetoric. If Vance is anything, he's a loyal lapdog, and he does what he is supposed to do. If the "real" script was something else, he would stick with it. It isn't something else. Third, and finally, Trump campaign managers Chris LaCivita and Susie Wiles may not control the candidate, but they do control the ad buys. And virtually the only Trump commercials running these days are the vile ads that scapegoat trans people. It's not just your imagination, or ours; the campaign's total spending on anti-trans ads is now more than $65 million. We are not going to link directly to the ads, but if you want to see the one in heaviest rotation, it's called "Kamala and Transgender Athletes" and it's here.
The anti-trans ads are reprehensible for three reasons. First, of course, is that they pit Americans against other Americans in a hateful way. It's one thing to say "The other side's ideas are wrong." It's another thing entirely to say "The other side's very existence is wrong." Second, the ads are all very, very misleading, with quotes and video footage taken out of context, usually to tell a tale that isn't even true. For example, the commercials give the impression that then-California AG Harris was a radical when it came to making reassignment surgery available to prisoners. In fact, she was quite strict about doing what the law called for, and nothing more (keep reading for more on this). Third, and finally, it reflects very, very poorly on the Republican candidate that all he's got is "I will protect you from the scary trans people." Less than ½% of Americans are trans. Even if you believe that the presence of trans people, or that the availability of gender-affirming care, or that trans women's participation in women's sports is harmful, that simply cannot be among the 50 most pressing issues facing the country. Pretending otherwise is dangerously close to gaslighting.
Now, everything we've written about so far is old news. Time to move on to the new news. In just the last 24 hours, the Trump campaign has added plenty more hateful fuel to the hateful fire. Trump himself, as part of his campaign of xenophobia, floated the idea that if he returns to the White House, he will withhold federal funding for law enforcement unless police departments agree to participate in mass deportations. There is much of his proposed agenda that is just fantasy, but we have to note that this scheme could actually work. There are plenty of police departments out there that are very Trump friendly, and besides, law enforcement agencies can't afford to go without funding while lawsuits, etc. are worked through.
In addition to this, Trump (well, someone working for him, and presumably acting on his orders) filed a lawsuit yesterday against CBS. What is the claim? That, in airing the Kamala Harris interview, the network engaged in "partisan and unlawful acts of election and voter interference." What damages are being demanded? How about $10 BILLION dollars? By complete and total coincidence, the suit was filed in Amarillo, TX, where there is only one federal judge who hears cases: Trump's trained monkey Matthew Kacsmaryk. Maybe Trump's legal team just didn't know that CBS is headquartered in New York City.
From a legal vantage point, the suit has zero merit. First, CBS has enormous leeway here, per a little thing called the First Amendment, and did not come within a country mile of doing anything actionable. If you want to see a broadcaster who approaches that line much more closely and much more frequently, tune into Fox or NewsMax sometime. Second, Trump was given every opportunity to sit for his own interview, and chickened out. Third, and finally, 10 BILLION? Really? You never know what Kacsmaryk will do, but the suit should be summarily tossed, and the lawyers involved should be sanctioned for wasting the Court's time.
Of course, Trump is not actually after the money. Consistent with the campaign of hate and fear, he's: (1) villainizing the media (and, as an added bonus, Harris), and (2) putting media outlets on notice that if they don't adopt the party line, he'll come after them with all his might if he becomes president again. We tend to doubt that it was planned, but it's certainly very interesting that there's news of Vladimir Putin engaging in similar shenanigans this week. Alphabet (Google), which owns YouTube, has blocked the Russian government and its propaganda outlets from posting their content to the site. This gave Putin the sads, so he told a Russian court to hit Alphabet with a big fine. How much? $20,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000,000. That's 20 DECILLION dollars, or 180,000,000,000,000,000,000 times the entire annual economic output of the whole planet.
Again, we are guessing that the timing between the Russian case and the Trump case is a coincidence. If so, it speaks to how very similar the Putin mindset and the Trump mindset are when it comes to viewing the media as an enemy to be punished. If it is not a coincidence, then it means that Trump is either taking inspiration from Putin, or that he's taking marching orders from Putin. None of the three possibilities discussed in this paragraph reflect well on the former president.
Anyhow, that's two demagogic things from Trump himself in the last 24 hours or so. The third comes from his running mate. Vance sat for an interview with Joe "I pretend to be nonpartisan, but I'm really a Republican shill" Rogan yesterday, and unspooled all sorts of anti-trans rhetoric, indulging in conspiracy theories about gender reassignment surgeries being performed on 9-year-olds, and proposing that many young people who claim to be trans are just faking it to get into Ivy League schools (hmm... did we inadvertently just reveal a bit too much about how we got into Yale, J.D.?). In case the anti-trans stuff wasn't enough, Vance also dabbled in some Islamophobia, entertaining Rogan's notion that Muslims might just try to implement sharia law in one or more U.S. States.
And please note, this is not even an exhaustive list. It's just that there's only so much time, and one can take only so many downer news stories at once.
When the two guys at the top of the ticket go back to the well of violence and hatred, over and over, their supporters do tend to notice. And so, yesterday there were also plenty of stories about rank-and-file Republicans who decided to mimic their Dear Leader. To take one example, there was a parade in a small town in Pennsylvania yesterday, and one of the participants decided to include a Kamala Harris impersonator, bound and pulled behind a golf cart, in a manner reminiscent of the American slave system. Not only was the creator of the float thinking that way, but the audience witnessing the parade apparently approved, as nobody said anything to local officials until the event was over.
And the consequences of the conspiratorial, angry, scapegoating rhetoric go far beyond just outlandish bigotry theater. No, the words of Trump, Vance, et al. are doing all sorts of harm. We've saved up a number of stories on this front, largely because we just didn't have it in us to write them up, but it would seem that now's the time, whether we like it or not. So:
Those are some of the national news stories; we thought we'd round it out with something more "local" (in a manner of speaking) and more personal. Again, the major thrust of the Trump campaign right now is transphobia. And reader A.B. in Wendell, NC wrote in yesterday with a comment we'd like to share:
I have HAD IT with these horrible ads Trump is putting out, attacking my community. All trans people are family to me, in a way even my supportive flesh-and-blood relatives never can be... we have been through the crucible together!
So I want to set the record straight about some of the things in these ads. When I see a guy screaming that he does not want his tax dollars paying for sex changes for prisoners, I scream back at him: "Tough sh**, the SUPREME COURT says it must be!"
And when they claim Kamala Harris was the first to help pay for an inmate surgery, they are completely spinning that. Look up the case of Norsworthy v. Beard sometime. In that case, Kamala, as California AG, OPPOSED the surgery for Michelle Lael Norsworthy—the person referred to in one of the Trump ads, though not by name. Kamala LOST that case, because the Supreme Court had already ruled.
To Kamala's credit, unlike some of our SPINELESS Democratic so-called allies—who, in the face of this onslaught, have backed away from support for my community—Kamala hasn't. By her actions, she is showing she has evolved since Norsworthy. While I would like more full-throated support from Kamala, I understand why, in the current political climate, this is not possible. It's a crappy reality, but these days, activists like myself, and our allies are forced to fight a rear-guard action, trying to stop harmful legislation, instead of further advancing our rights and dignity we deserve as humans and Americans.
Now then... the Supreme Court! Yes, SCOTUS has ruled on the issue—as early as 1976, in fact. In the case Estelle v. Gamble (1976) the "deliberate indifference standard" was set. In that decision, Thurgood Marshall wrote that it was a violation of Eighth Amendment rights to deliberately fail to provide an inmate with necessary medical care.
Then, in Wilson v. Seiter (1991), SCOTUS created the "identifiable human needs" standard for determining Eighth Amendment violations. The Court asserted that the prisoner must show that the institution has denied a basic need (burden of proof on complainant, and the three mentioned items were food, warmth, and exercise—leaving the lower courts to determine what other items, if any, fell into this category).
Because of the Estelle ruling, prisoners have a well-established right to adequate medical care. "Adequate" has since been determined to be a level of care comparable to what the inmate would receive if not behind bars. In short, if, on the outside, a person displaying certain symptoms would be afforded gender-confirming surgery, an inmate displaying those same symptoms should be afforded that same care and, if they are not, it is an Eighth Amendment violation.
And so THAT is the real truth. Kamala did not initially support inmate gender-confirming surgeries—in fact she fought it in Norsworthy v. Beard and lost. To her credit, she has evolved since then, and, as I said, while not voicing full-throated support for my community, at least she has stood firm and refused to back away from support for us, unlike some cowardly Democrats I could mention. I may not like the political realities, but I do understand them and, by not backing away from support for us, Kamala shows a courage I wish all Democrats had.
Damn, am I tired of being the favorite whipping girl every 4 years! I am tired of being demonized, villainized, otherized and scapegoated. I am hurting nobody by just trying to live my life in the best way I can. I am violating no laws. In fact, I am currently a Criminal Justice major with a 4.0 GPA... while also working a full time job. Some may dislike and disparage people like me, but to them I say that if my very existence is troubling to you, then it is YOU who have the problem, and you don't get to turn your hangups into MY problems. The Constitution NEVER gave you or anyone else the right never to be made to feel a little uncomfortable. As former Associate Justice Louis Brandeis was wont to say: "Your right to swing your fist ends where my nose begins."
Thanks for this, A.B.
Let us close by noting that this entire item, all 3,000 words of it, has a very sharp tone. We usually dial it back, in an effort to keep things as fair and as dispassionate as we are able. But this item isn't about political differences at all. It's not about what the correct tax rate is, or whether the government should fund lunches for children, or if marijuana should be legalized. No, this item is about human decency vs. human indecency. And so, we're not going to bite our tongues, or in ANY way imply that both sides have a point. What Trump, Vance, and their various supporters and enablers are doing right now is absolutely vile and has no place in a civil society. We would think 100% of people would agree with that, though obviously that is not the case. (Z)