Clown Car: 6/8/23
This week, Inez and I start by talking about Chris Christie and Mike Pence entering the 2024 race.
We talked about the potential impact of a Trump federal indictment, which we found out was happening less than two hours after our recording. That led to a discussion of the slippery concept of norms, why they’re necessary, and how they’re broken. I bring up my theory that Bob Dole hawking Viagra breached some kind of threshold and changed our politics. We also talk about the role of the Clinton impeachment.
We close by talking about Pride Month, and the backlash to it. People appear to have had enough, with recent successful boycotts against Target and Bud Light, and the resistance to what is happening in schools. Inez has some opinions on where LGBT craziness came from. She thinks it has something to do with a misplaced maternal instinct. I think that’s part of it, but am still not completely sure why trans in particular has become such an important issue to educated white women. I have my own theories, which I don’t get to here. I enjoyed Inez’s critique of TERFs from the right.
I realized during this conversation that we’ve probably been limiting ourselves by talking too much about the horserace, and we have many more interesting things we could be discussing. So while we’re still going to focus on 2024, expect broader conversations like this one in the future.
Listen here or watch on YouTube.
Links:
Bob Dole 1998 Viagra commercial
On George W. Bush speaking at a marketing company
Members of Congress beating the stock market
Mike Pence on a potential Trump indictment
California office of the governor bullying localities and Armenians
Machaela Cavanaugh screaming about trans kids in the Nebraska legislature. Her profile in New York (Apple News link).
Backlashes to Pride month: Muslims in Montgomery County, MD, and Armenians in Glendale, CA
Me on the LGBT dialectic
Semafor on the backlash to Pride Month
Clown Car: 6/8/23
Out of all the theories I've heard, I still find "it's feminism's fault" the least convincing.
You don't need to believe in the importance of sex differences (or even their existence) to reject most of the demands trans activists are making of society! There is nothing in liberal feminism that supports the idea that society has an obligation to "affirm" (i.e., provide medical or mental health support for) anyone's gender identity, particularly when it falls afoul of decades of medical and psychiatric understanding. To the contrary, feminism, applied consistently, turns gender into a private matter, no more political than one's musical taste or fashion.
The main points on which trans activism is clashing with the wider society are currently (1) children/teens transitioning, (2) pronoun demands and (3) colonization of single-sex spaces (sports, shelters, prisons). Both (1) and (2) can be rejected without contradicting classical liberal feminism. As to (3), the very existence of single-sex spaces is a deviation from principle in the first place, but most feminists have grappled with the question and found one or another way to rationalize it or at least except it from their ideology. Compared to the contrivances other ideologies need to invent to stay relevant, it's hardly noticeable.
I'm not sure how much liberal feminism will help solve these problems. It's certainly good for any political movement to have JKR on board, but she isn't working from a particularly ideological lens, nor do Singal, Shrier, Rufo or any others on this field. Theory (mostly not feminist) got us into this mess; there is no reason why theory should be useful in getting us back out. The time-tested strategy "pinpoint one thing everyone agrees is crazy, then fight it and whatever comes to its defense" is both safer and better at building coalitions.
> am still not completely sure why trans in particular has become such an important issue to educated white women
Because those educated white women have talked to people who are trans in person, heard their stories, and believe they deserve to live as the gender with which they identify. It seems pretty straightforward.
The other reason transgender discrimination is an issue now is because the issue of gay marriage is pretty much settled in this country. Gay people won the right to marry the person of their choice, so there's not a big need for activism on that topic.