I only know the story from headlines and first paragraphs, so correct me if I missed something here.
Megan Rapinoe of the USNWT soccer team has announced that few if any of the team are going to go to the White House if they win the WWC, because Trump has been so horrible to LGBTQ people and so mean to immigrants. Trump has predictably responded by saying they haven't even been invited yet. I still wish he would not even respond to such things, but it seems to be part of either his strategy or his personality. It's annoying, but ultimately not very important.
Missing from this has been the observable evidence that Trump is the most gay-friendly president we have ever had, including Obama until the last year or so of his second term, when the pressure of the liberal Zeitgeist became too much for him to handle emotionally, whatever his previous objections had been.* Hillary Clinton could be described similarly, though she may have come around a couple of years earlier. With regards to the immigrants, she makes the same "error," that most Trump critics do, not crediting that he has been no problem to legal immigrants at all, only illegals.That Trump is gay-friendly is quietly ignored by many conservatives, especially some Christian groups.
In both cases, people are responding to their tribe rather than the facts. Most, though by no means all, LGBTQ people are liberal, and less solidly, immigrants lean that way. May define themselves more by their liberalism, with their sexual or immigrant status simply an entry point and an aspect. They perceive Trump as not being of their tribe, and the facts don't matter. The same could be said for the Christian groups who are generally unsupportive of gay rights. They perceive Trump as being of their tribe, and are willing to look away and whistle at even a major exception to their tribe's general views.
There was much talk when Obama first started running in 2007 whether he "was black enough." Had he come out in favor of gay rights then, he might not have qualified for that, as the African-American community was not a big supporter of gay rights. Just a thought.
5 comments:
Spot on, I think.
Re:black enough
This question has been raised, quietly, about Kamala Harris as well. I suspect that might have played into her raising the busing issue.
I hadn't known that was a question about Harris. If your guess is correct it was a clever idea by whoever is advising her.
AVI: It comes from the same concept, that neither is part of the "Black American Experience", whatever that is: Obama by being the son of a Kenyan father, not a descendant of American black slaves, and Harris because she's Jamaican, & it would appear her black Jamaican ancestors were slaveowners, rather than slaves.
Never mind that any racism these days is personal, not institutional. They are seen by some as being "less black". I imagine Cory Booker could make use of that, if he dares, and are there any longer any depths to which liberals won't lower themselves?
--Tennessee Budd
I heard it in the context of a post about a 'Republicans pounce' story regarding people pointing out her heritage - Jamaican/Indian(dot, not feather) and largely growing up in Canada after being born in Berkeley - noting that Don Lemon talked about it several months ago.
I heard that she wore a cotton dress at the debate.
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