Target. Canary in the coal mine for the Dems?

[UnseenParticipant]

It’s a sign of the times. Target doesn’t hate gays. They actually are stocking “(LGBTQ+) pride” items. However, they’d also hate for some nut case to enter a store with an AK-47 and start shooting employees as well as anyone who looks like they might be gay or trans.

Target to pull some LGBTQ items after ‘threats’ to employees

I think the Democrats need to think hard about whether now is the time to go all-in on some aspects of trans rights, gender affirmation, and pronouns, are a few examples of things many voters either haven’t made up their minds about, find uncomfortable to think about, or profoundly dislike.

Getting ahead of the country’s skis on these issues could have the party figuratively (to pursue the skiing analogy further) hitting a tree at breakneck speed in 2024.

I’d love for the Dems to support atheists more openly. I also think it’d be politically unwise of them to do so. Ditto for supporting LGPTQ+ issues.

I think the pickle Target finds itself in is a classic canary in a coal mine.

[—Participant]

I think the pickle Target finds itself in is a classic canary in a coal mine.

Target is being targeted by extremist offshoots of a populist movement. Trans rights is tangential. You won’t kill the populism by backing off on any single issue. That’s addressing the symptom, not the disease. Unless the dems can find a way to deal with xenophobic fear-mongering, the instigators who rile people up will always have that edge. Build the wall is a classic example. It was an inane plan that any person capable of thirty seconds of continuous sober thought should have been able to see as garbage, but an alarming number of people couldn’t because they needed immigrants and undocumented workers to be the mule to carry all their misplaced anxiety, fear, and frustration.

The Dems could 180º on trans rights or immigration issues or women’s rights or just about any damn thing, but another issue will come up in its stead.

[UnseenParticipant]

Autumn wrote:

The Dems could 180º on trans rights or immigration issues or women’s rights or just about any damn thing, but another issue will come up in its stead.

The Democrats could largely downplay those things in the interest of getting power. I don’t see a 180º full reverse as either an option or even a possibility. For some issues, it’s just not time yet. The country quietly did a cultural shift toward accepting gays and lesbians such that now about 2/3 of the public wants full rights for gays and lesbians. There will never be a full reversal to near 100%, at least not in our lifetimes. Right now, realistically, it’s not the time, in a political sense, to go all in on the whole package. That’s my take.

• This reply was modified 1 year, 6 months ago by  Unseen.

[—Participant]

Right now there is an emergent crisis for trans rights where states are mandating child abuse in the interest of ideology (hypocritically, the very thing many Republicans accuse trans people of doing). So whether one wants to back off or not for political convenience, there’s a callousness to that you may never really be able to come back from. Part of what loses the Dems credibility in what might have been their base is their tendency toward tepid pandering. The question is, what does it gain them? The problem is, it doesn’t gain them an answer to the aforementioned populism which is malleable and adaptable rather than locked down on any one issue.

Biden (or any potential Dem candidate) doesn’t just have to worry about votes against him (them); he has to worry about voter apathy. In the last election, people riled up about voting against Trump may have been enough to close the deal, but how many of those votes can be carried over to the next election? How many will stay home on election night?

Realistically, the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual, and queer people were not fought for silently neither was the shift silent. It was just extremely protracted. The gay rights movement went through the exact same bullshit for decades. It was contentious and politically inconvenient most of the way, and at times met with violence. The federal Dems don’t have a good track record on gay rights even up to this day. It’s simply a better record than the Republicans, which is a pretty low bar to hit.

[UnseenParticipant]

@autumn

The GOPers are already pushing an agenda against gays in full knowledge that 2/3 of Americans are accepting of gays and lesbians. An agenda that would roll back many of those gains. Imagine a U.S. with a GOP-dominated Congress (both houses) along with a rabid right wing populist President like Trump or DeSantis. In that case, one shouldn’t expect improvements to slow down. Expect rollbacks in rights and official harassment for non-cisgender Americans.

[TheEncogitationerParticipant]

Unseen,

Even without threats like this, mega-size retail stores and malls need a precinct of armed security with arrest powers just to deal with non-work-a-day riff-raff who loot and trash the places and try making the places into sets for the latest Karen or WorldStar video.

Target should put out notice in all media that if customers don’t want, need, or like a product, simply don’t buy it and eventually it will go off the shelf, but don’t anyone dare threaten any executive, supplier, employee, or customer or face potentially deadly consequences.

This junk is the last thing I want. Target is the only place nearby that exchanges CO² cartridges for my Sodastream. If they knuckle under to these knuckle-draggers, they’ll knuckle under to the BDS mob and I’ll be left with a product I can’t use unless I have cartridges delivered.

[—Participant]

Unseen wrote:

@autumn The GOPers are already pushing an agenda against gays in full knowledge that 2/3 of Americans are accepting of gays and lesbians.

That’s the point. The Republicans can gain more ground with fewer numbers because they rally their base and they know they can win even without the majority of the popular vote as long as they can get the gap close enough. The Republicans will play the wedge issue card. The Dems can’t afford to just to ignore it. Voter apathy will tank them.

At the end of the day, it’s not even about trans rights in terms of political currency; it’s about the fight. Trans rights largely exploded on the American political scene after the Obergefell v. Hodges decision. Nothing new was added to the conversation (until Peterson’s compelled speech bs, but even that wasn’t entirely new). I suspect many people felt, at the time, that the same-sex marriage issue was largely dead (until the Supreme Court shifted so badly). Trans rights became the substitute battle ground to angrily shout across the aisle about. Americans generally support non-discrimination for transgender people, but they have a very weak understanding of things like trans care for minors. If given fodder to hate on politicians like DeSantis for criminalizing appropriate medical care for youth, people will take it.

While it would be lovely to see an America that doesn’t rely so heavily on polarization to make the needle on elections move, that’s not the America you have.

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