Notably, Leonhardt makes a weak case in his advice for Vice President Harris that many will view as unsurprising. The link chosen to support his claim that Democrats are “well to the public’s left” on transgender issues merely directs readers to another New York Times article by Pamela Paul, which has already been fact-checked and found to contain false and misleading information. The Pamela Paul story falls far short of supporting the idea that the public is significantly opposed to transgender issues.
While some polls show opposition to aspects like sports participation, more recent surveys indicate that the public is against bans on gender-affirming care and does not view transgender issues as particularly salient or worth legislating over. Gallup, Navigator, and the LA Times have all released polls within the last three months showing that the American public views trans issues as a major distraction, opposes forced outing policies, and rejects bans on gender-affirming care for transgender youth. In Gallup’s case, multiple ways of asking about gender-affirming care bans did not affect the result.
If Vice President Harris wishes to follow advice that will win her elections, listening to Leonhardt may be misguided. Many politicians have previously attempted to run on anti-trans and anti-LGBTQ+ platforms with little success. For instance, Moms for Liberty and Project 1776, organizations promoting fiercely anti-LGBTQ+ and conservative policies, lost 70% of their races in the 2023 school board elections. Similar forces saw anti-trans politicians defeated in Michigan, Virginia, Wisconsin, Arizona, Pennsylvania, and many other swing states.
Fuck the New York Times. They have routinely platformed bigots and claimed “well we have to represent both sides.” My rights are not something to be debated. Harris has been far more supportive of trans folk than I realized, I don’t think she would do this. But with this article and the insistent need for the New York Times to platform transphobic assholes, I think I’m finally going to talk my mother into getting rid of her subscription.
If anyone wants to learn more about Harris and her not so mixed background on trans rights, here’s a great article my partner found recently and shared with me. I’m using a Tumblr link to get around the medium paywall and I don’t know how to get around the paywall otherwise. Here’s that direct medium link if anyone can get around it.
Luckily the article itself is older than the medium paywall:
Thank you so much for this, I can now bookmark that one to use in the future.
Unfortunately the archived article cuts off at the same place as the paywalled article.
I was, however, able to read it in full by copying your link to the original into a simple plain text converter (in this case I used txtify.it). Thanks for the article recommendation btw— I learned a lot!
I saw that with one of the more recent archived versions and went back to 2020 to find one that worked. Did it still happen with the one I linked to?
Definitely keeping your solution saved, though.
I was sure it happened to the one you linked to, but in trying to replicate it now, I’m not getting the same result, so it must have been user error on my part. My apologies. The site was kinda buggy trying to load on mobile and you’re probably right— I’m guessing I clicked on something that sent me to a more recently archived version.
Fuck the New York Times
Yes! But fuck Sulzberger in particular…
Here’s an archived version of that medium link that doesn’t cut off: https://archive.is/FNqUx (and that loads super fast)
My current news feed for anyone who needs to understand why trans issues are important or why we ban transphobic content:
David Leonhardt is their “just the facts” COVID guy who throughout most of the pandemic just kept repeatedly saying COVID is no big deal so stop worrying.
https://slate.com/technology/2022/06/covid-race-david-leonhardt-new-york-times-retraction.html
His whole deal is telling people that the status quo is fine so stop trying to change anything.
I’m so fuckin’ sick of reactionaries acting like they’re the reasonable ones.
Every little miniscule step in the right direction is impeded by loud, braying assholes trying to drag us back into the wastelands to prove how manly they are.
I had to look up the phrase “Brahmin left” as I’d never heard it before. It was apparently coined by an economist, Thomas Piketty, in a paper on wealth inequality. In it, among other ideas, he used this phrase to describe a shift in voting patterns where highly educated people, who used to vote more to the right, were now voting more left in western societies. It seems an odd choice to me as Brahmin is the name of the highest ranking caste in India’s caste structure. That basically included the wealthy and the powerful and to me doesn’t conjure up associations with high education. The American Enterprise Institute, a right leaning think tank, says the phrase characterizes “Western left parties increasingly bereft of working-class voters and increasingly dominated by highly educated voters and elites.”
I gather that the phrase has been adopted by Republicans as a slur against the left in their efforts to characterize themselves as the party of workers.
There is no party of workers. If there were, we would have single payer health care, mandatory 2-4 weeks paid vacation per year, mandatory paid sick leave, parental leave, 25$ minimum wage, among other benefits.
We do not have a workers party
We don’t have a dedicated workers party but we do have an anti-workers party. One party has worked towards all of those things you listed in some shape or form.
Sounds like the term I’ve heard a lot: “Champagne socialist”.
Can we use the phrase “focus on” instead of “target”, or something that sounds less like attacking when minority groups are targeted all the time in bad ways. This is not the first article that has phrased it this way.
But it is targeting. Even you just said that minority groups are being targeted. That should be reflected in headlines. Now using the terms “slammed” or “blasted” or whatever is pointless. But target is an accurate word to use.
Did you read the text of the article? The writer is calling for Harris to take anti-trans positions
Point of clarification - the NYT writer is calling for Harris to take anti-trans positions, Erin Reed (aka ErinInTheMorning) is pointing out how that’s bad policy and bad politics
