It was only a matter of time before they came after Mayor Pete.
Once you become a front-runner, all bets are off, and they start coming after you. Who? Well, look in the rear-view mirror - who is closest behind you? But it was only a matter of time before they came after Mayor Pete and took the gloves off on the whole gay thing.
I noted before that America isn't ready for a gay President, and that eventually, people would sober up, at least halfway through primary season, when people in those "flyover" States start to vote. But beyond that, identity politics will rear its ugly head, as well as the backlash (which I predicted) to the ever-increasing ludicrousness of the LGBITQRST alphabet movement.
What do I mean by this?
Point Number One: Nobel Peace Prize winner, former drug-addict, and terminally ill radio host Rush Limbaugh said the obvious - America isn't ready for a gay President. A lot of people rushed (sorry, pun) to condemn what he said. And while I think Mr. Limbaugh is a worthless sack of shit, he was correct in his assessment.
I get it - the gay thing can be creepy at times. You are not "homophobic" if you find it somewhat jarring to see two middle-aged men kissing in public You are homophobic if you believe that justifies you beating the crap out of them for kissing. There is a big difference there, but many in the Alphabet movement fail to see this - that the right to be left the fuck alone is a major accomplishment. The right to force other people to like you will negate the former. That brings us to....
Point Number Two: The Alphabet movement has added so many letters to its name that I can't keep them straight (sorry, pun again, I'm on a roll). The whole thing has gotten out of hand. When I was President of the GLSA at Syracuse, we had weekly meetings where we would ceremoniously tap a keg of beer and have "a gay old time". That was back when "gay" had two meanings. Today, the GLSA building is home of the LGBTQRST "Queer Studies Program" with a lot of deadly serious people trying to make an academic major of it.
I am not kidding about this - in addition to worthless degrees in "African-American Studies" and "Women's Studies" you can get a degree in "Queer Studies" - I never realized I needed a credential for this job! Sadly (pun again), gay has only one meaning today - it has become a grim occupation.
I am not kidding about this - in addition to worthless degrees in "African-American Studies" and "Women's Studies" you can get a degree in "Queer Studies" - I never realized I needed a credential for this job! Sadly (pun again), gay has only one meaning today - it has become a grim occupation.
The height of ridiculousness is the transgender thing. That's not my bag, and I find it creepy. That doesn't make me "transphobic" only human. Seeing a guy in a dress with a full beard is, well, jarring. And no, I am not sure that having some guy in drag read bedtime stories to pre-schoolers is a great idea, or at the very least, if parents object to this, that doesn't make them rotten people.
I do think there is something very, very wrong with parents who encourage their children to "choose their gender" before they are of legal age. And it is a crime to mutilate a child's genitals, whether it is to appease a primitive form of Islam, or a primitive form of gender identity. These decisions should be left to when a person is at least 18, if not 21 - and not paid for from the public treasury, thank you very much (or from my insurance company). Again, the right to be left the hell alone - that's great. Forcing this on children? Asking others to pay for it? Wrong, dead wrong.
But it gets worse. In Connecticut, a lawsuit has been filed by some female high school athletes, arguing that transgender students should not be allowed to compete in female athletics. At issue is two transgender athletes (boys who identify as girls) who are running away (pun, again) with all the track and field trophies, Statewide. They may "identify" as girls, but their genetic makeup and physical makeup aren't going along with the program. As a result, they have an unfair advantage over real female athletes (there, I said it - real - not "cisgender" or any of that PC crap). These young women were hoping to get athletic scholarships based on their accomplishments in the field. But as a result of this touchy-feely PC nonsense, they are denied this - and Title IX is stood on its head. Leave it to men to take away what little progress women have achieved.
The "Right to be left the hell alone" movement has gone way to far, and has gotten to the point where they not only want to be left the hell alone (which is all I ever wanted) but want to insert themselves into people's lives. There is a big difference between the two. If you want to dress up in women's clothing, whether as a sexual fantasy or as an "identity" it doesn't bother me. But when you go claiming to be a women that changes things, particularly for women. When asserting your rights takes away from others' rights (particularly an historically disadvantaged group as women) then something isn't right.
And this ever-expansion of the Alphabet movement will lead to a backlash, and this lawsuit in Connecticut is just the tip of the iceberg. What annoys me is that progress has been made, and we stand to lose what progress we have by pushing a good thing way too far. People get nervous when society changes too quickly - it disorients them, and they push back by voting for restraint. We are seeing this across the Western world, whether it is the Brexit movement, the rise of conservative candidates in Europe, or in Trump's Nuremberg rallies.
Point Number Three: Identity Politics are Dead. A group of protesters calling themselves "Queers Against Pete" disrupted one of his fundraising events. I smell AstroTurf. I smell Roger Stone-style political pranks. I smell the Russian Internet Research Agency. I smell mendacity! The whole thing reeks of a setup. This group-from-nowhere claims that Pete Buttigieg "hasn't done enough for the [Alphabet movement]". What is more likely is the whole thing is a set-up for Bernie, funded by Russia in order to help Trump. A few posts on Facebook and Twitter is all it takes to get a few useful idiots to show up at a protest.
But even assuming this is a real group of people who spontaneously organized, it illustrates the fallacy of identity politics. The whole Alphabet movement is flawed - the idea that even gays and lesbians have something in common is a myth - as I have noted before. You see three men wearing dresses. One is a drag queen, one is a transvestite, one is transgender - they have nothing in common and may in fact, dislike one another. The transgender person resents the drag queen, who is "camping it up" and making an entertainment spectacle (which can be quite entertaining, if done properly). The transvestite may in fact be heterosexual and have nothing in common with gays, drag queens, or transgender people - he just wants to wear fishnet stockings while having sex with wife. The transgender person claims they are another gender, and not "gay" or "transvestite". They have nothing in common, but are lumped under one rainbow umbrella.
You can't lump people into one group, particularly based on disparate interests. For the life of me, I don't understand some of these new letters added to the Alphabet. Queer? Intersex? Asexual? Whatever these things all mean, why are they lumped together with the others? Why are they lumped together with me? We have nothing in common.
Pete Buttigieg represents a pretty large group of homosexuals in America. He just wants to be a regular person - left the hell alone. He served in the military, went to school, got a job, and wants to settle down and marry. His views on economics and politics are not radical left-wing. Yet some posit that your sexual identity should dictate your political, social, and economic views. But such is not the case, which is why identity politics don't work.
I went over this before. Politicians try "Hispandering" to the disparate Latino or Hispanic "Community" which is not really a community but a series of labels slapped on people. Many are devout Catholics and thus have very conservative social values. Others have very conservative economic views. Just because you speak Spanish, doesn't mean you embrace socialism.
The same is true for Blacks - many are devout Southern Baptists who are not comfortable with liberal social issues. Not all believe in liberal economic issues, either. Many are wondering whether Democratic pandering, in the form of promises of increased welfare benefits, set-asides, and "reparations" are only conditioning Blacks to depend on government, instead of becoming separately empowered.
Identity politics simply don't work anymore - if they ever did.
* * *
Of course, the real group behind this latest attack on Mayor Pete isn't hard to discern - the "Bernie Bros" - a mostly gen-X group of bloggers who pine for socialist change so they don't have to pay back their student loans. Or at least that is who they appear to be - online bloggers and commentators can be from any country, particularly Russia. Russia wants Sanders as nominee, as Trump can handily beat him. And even if Sanders won, Russia still wins, as America would be even weaker.
But among the raging true-believer useful idiots in the Sanders campaign, people like Buttigieg represent the traditional centrist part of the Democratic Party - the Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, Joe Biden sorts, who don't necessarily believe in pure socialism, nationalized medicine, or punishing Wall Street.
As I noted before, Pete was toast as soon as it came out he worked for a secretive "Management Consultant" group after college - a creepy group that advises some of the most odious clients imaginable. It's not the sort of thing that bothers me - or most Americans. It is the sort of thing that makes the far-left see red.
In a socialist utopia, 25% of the vote is winning.
But as some have pointed out, and the cartoon above illustrates, if you group together support for all the "socialist" Democrats (Sanders, Warren, Other), it is dwarfed by support for more "moderate" Democrats (Buttigieg, Klobouchar, Biden) both in the votes so far, and in the polls. I think down the road, centrists will coalesce around one candidate, who will then pull into the lead.
And once again, Bernie will claim it was "unfair" and that the system was "rigged".
That man really needs to go away.
