Soraya's right, but we need to confront the fact that this is also behavior that has been extremely effective politically for the Republicans, and it's not really a strategy that's available to the Dems.
"The American Civil Liberties Union tracks "anti-LGBTQ bills." The group says the bulk of them contain restrictions on transgender people and that a record 575 bills had been filed in states through April. Last year, there were 533 and there were 510 in 2023"
JFC they're obsessed. Lunatic behavior.
While the Democrats have spent the last few decades trying to be a big tent with something to offer everybody, the Republicans have been building a weapon. The GOP understands that you can fell any tree, no matter how small you are, with enough cuts, and so they continually hack away.
The Democrats, meanwhile, are led by people who aren't really on board with chopping down trees and who are convinced that the only way you can do it is if you're strong enough and have a big enough axe to bring it down in one stroke. And because they reject ideology, they can't bring masses to bear
The GOP is a dedicated machine for achieving specific political goals-the most open and brutal white supremacy, patriarchy, capitalism. The Democrats are a hodgepodge of, essentially, everybody who isn't 100% on board with the GOP, because Republicans who aren't get primaried and replaced.
There absolutely are Democrats who are on board for behaving like a political party, for taking every possible swing, for standing for something rather than just trying to win for the sake of being the winner. The leadership hates their guts for it.
May 10, 2025 21:42
