The Texas Republican convention is on track to adopt a radical, anti-civil rights, anti-United States platform. I wonder if this might have some unintended impact on the next couple of elections. Could it discourage Texas Republicans from participating in federal elections at all?
On the table:
Referendum to secede from the United States
Repeal of the Voting Rights Act of 1965, the most effective civil rights law ever enacted
Declaration that Joe Biden was not legitimately elected
Declaration of homosexuality as “abnormal lifestyle choice”
Equal protection rights for the “preborn”
Teaching of Texan superiority in schools
Ban on teaching sexual choice or sexual identity
It’s a huge document, with dozens of policy proposals. Shocking reading
It’s smart. They know they can stakeout their position and then force the other side to compromise so they don’t “alienate” enlightened centrists who will demand a solution in the middle.
It’s a well-defined plan for theonomic totalitarianism. As tempting as it is to want to give these people their own Covenant where they can ensconce themselves and their regressive, repugnant ideology so absurd that even Margaret Atwood can’t top it, they don’t get to take a chunk of my country or the unfortunate people who happen to reside there but don’t agree with this outlandish nonsense.
Trump is relatively pro-LGBT. He was willing to go against that a bit, to keep support from his base, but he is fundamentally a libertarian more than a conservative:
Trump is pro-Donald Trump. He doesn’t have any deep (or even shallow) political philosophy; he just does whatever gets him attention and seems like it will allow him to line his pockets.
Donald Trump has made it clear that he will turn on anyone at any time if he even perceives that he’s being ‘betrayed’. He attacks people who are trying to help him or give him useful advice, people who have formerly supported him but are alienated by his refusal to live up to agreements or pay what he owes, people who have ‘failed’ him by being unsuccessful in carrying out his impossible and idiotic orders, and anyone who dares to contradict the gibberish that spews from the Big Mac slot below his nose. Trump doesn’t have ‘friends’; he has ‘children’ who are beholden to the value of the Trump name and too incompetent to make their way otherwise, sycophants hoping to get some of that Trump slime on them in hope that the aura will make them glow the same fluorescent orange color that attracts his followers like moths to a flame, and the large collection of people who are allied with him out of fear of the wrath of his followers or who believe they can exploit him for their own ends not realizing that Trump has no plan or agenda for them to manipulate.
Because Donald Trump has never been caught in a lie or arbitrarily changed his position on fundamental issues? This brings to my mind images of of Lucy Van Pelt and Charlie Brown playing football…
As a New York libertine I believe Trump “doesn’t care” if someone is gay, since most anti-gay bigotry in America is rooted in fundamentalist Christian beliefs, and Trump is not one of those it isn’t shocking he isn’t deeply anti-gay on a personal level.
But he also does not care at all about the prospects of LGBTQ people whatsoever, he only cares about his own power and standing. Keep this in mind:
Within days of being sworn in, he nominates Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. Note that Gorsuch had a well-documented judicial record of being against same sex marriage–note too that Trump had a large number of conservative judges to choose from, not all of them have such a record. He clearly did not care.
In March 2017 he sent the Center for Family and Human Rights–which the Southern Poverty Law Center has designated an anti-LGBTQ hate group, as the U.S. representative to a UN Commission on the Status of Women.
Also in March 2017, he removed any references to sexual orientation or gender identity from the U.S. Census.
May of 2017 he issued an executive order granting Attorney General Jeff Sessions permission to discriminate against any LGBTQ employees of the Federal government, in the name of “religious freedom.”
June 2017 he tweeted that he was banning all transgender people from serving in the U.S. military
October 2017 Trump nominated Jeff Mateer to a Federal District judgeship, Mateer was quoted as saying “I attend a Baptist church. We discriminate, alright. On the basis of sexual orientation, we discriminate.” He also expressed support for conversion therapy. Mateer’s nomination failed when Republicans objected to his record and behavior.
December 2017, Trump clarifies that he personally supports the arguments then being made by his Solicitor General before the Supreme Court, that businesses ought have a right to deny service based on LGBTQ status.
June 2019, Trump banned U.S. Embassies from displaying the pride flag, and for the third year running refused to express any support for Pride Month
October 2019, Trump’s administration argues in court that employers should be allowed to fire people based on their sexual orientation
Whatever Trump’s “personal feels” for the gay community, his administration was almost entirely in fief to the strongly virulent anti-LGBTQ sentiment that is mainstream in the GOP these days.
He is fundamentally nothing of the kind. He is an authoritarian, nationalistic demagogue. He doesn’t believe in libertarianism any more than he believes in Episcopalianism. If he believes in anything it is kleptocracy, to the extent that he gets to be the kleptocrat.
Why would you or anyone else believe anything that comes out of his mouth on this or any issue? You would have be born yesterday to believe he would act in anyone’s interest but his own?
Don’t you remember that they want to drown it in a bathtub? The right has hated the federal government ever since it sought to protect people from state governments.
Trump is the guy who defunded the police while telling the world that that’s what Joe Biden wanted, and while calling for the police to shoot protesters.
Trump is fundamentally a natural politician. He’ll say anything to anyone and do anything, for and against anything he’d ever said himself, two days apart.
The thing is, though, that doing evil sort of requires a genuine animosity and personal conviction. When half of everything you do is for X and half of everything you do is against X, it creates confusion - and that does hurt everyone - but it doesn’t really end up producing any strong or lasting impact.
Trump wants gay supporters when he’s talking to gays. He hates em when he’s away from gays. That’s who he is and, likely, that can’t be changed.
But you’re free to do anything you want. And that could be to push the GOP into a unified position against LGBT people, or work to keep them divided by using Trump’s inconsistencies and well-documented personal choices against him.
If someone is the Great Disunifier and the hallmark of political weakness is an inability to unify people, I don’t see the advantage in helping him to fail at his superpower.
Trump is pro-Pride.
You can play film of him saying it and flying the freak flag high. I don’t see any reason to not cheer for that. Trump wouldn’t be afraid of doubling down for gay if challenged on the topic, I venture to bet.
If you dared him to denounce his own order to defund the police or, alternately, to be proud of it and say that it was the best defunding ever devised then Trump would always say that it was the best defunding.
The man’s an idiot. The Republicans take advantage of it, already. No reason for you not to as well.
Well, not so shocking when you think, “oh, right; Texas Republicans”
(9) A free enterprise society unencumbered by government interference or subsidies.
Wonder how they feel about subsidies benefitting oil and gas producers or cattlemen.
Mental Health: We support parents’ right to choose or reject, with prior written informed consent and without penalty, each medication and mental health assessment or survey administered to their children.
Parental Safeguard: We support abolishing the Texas Child Mental Health Care Consortium, the trauma-informed care policy, school-based mental health providers, school-based or school-connected mental health interventions, and other public school programs that serve to expand access to minors.
So, I see, an All-Thoughts-And-Prayers-Only approach to what is supposed to be the problem. Basically, the answer to emotional issues is just let the young man go over the edge and then institutionalize him (or let him have suicide-by-cop, I suppose).
Heck, two sentences apart.
And for instance:
McCarthy had the main GOP caucus boycott the committee and pulled Liz Cheney off of the Conference chairmanship over it because of how scared he is that the Trumper members will vote against His Precious ascent to the speakership. Now he is being called a fool by Trump for not having someone in there to defend him and disrupt the proceedings.
Well, that’s the fundamental problem with Trump. It doesn’t matter what you say, it matters what you do. Hell, he said “I condemn White Supremacy” several times, but does that make him not racist?
Trump can say whatever he wants at any moment (and boy, does he!), but until those words are backed by actions, they’re meaningless. He’ll be saying something completely different in five minutes.
