A Few GOP Convention Reflections

Donald Trump’s acceptance speech was full of the jingoistic bombast and wrong-headed policies on trade and immigration that prevent me from giving him my vote (I’m for the Johnson-Weld Libertarian party ticket). And the GOP platform, as previously discussed, was given over to hardcore social conservatives and the religious right, and consequently is awful on LGBT issues.

But I contend wholeheartedly that despite the platform committee’s antics on the sidelines, the Republican Convention represented a dramatic change from the past—and for the better—on LGBT issues, and failing to recognize that is simply partisan myopia. A quick recap (along with the consensus liberal and LGBT media assessment):

Ted Cruz: “Whether you are gay or straight, the Bill of Rights protects the rights of all of us to live according to our conscience.”
(media assessment: code for discrimination)

Newt Gingrich: “If our enemies had their way, gays, lesbians and transgender citizens would be put to death as they are today in the Islamic State and Iran.”
(media assessment: absurd fear-mongering)

Peter Thiel: “Every American has a unique identity. I am proud to be gay. I am proud to be a Republican, but most of all I am proud to be an American.”
(media assessment: sellout)

Donald Trump: “Only weeks ago, in Orlando, Florida, 49 wonderful Americans were savagely murdered by an Islamic terrorist. This time, the terrorist targeted our LGBTQ community. No good. And we’re going to stop it. As your President, I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology.” [applause] “I must say as a Republican it is so nice to hear you cheering. Thank you.”
(media assessment: pandering)

The liberal media and LGBT left-progressive establishment were, of course, dismissive—at best, window-dressing and all that. But Trump’s comments and Thiel’s remarks were a huge departure for the GOP.

The last openly gay Republican convention speaker, then-Rep Jim Kolbe of Arizona in 2000, didn’t mention being gay. Nevertheless, the Texas delegation staged a protest while he spoke, removing their hats, bowing their heads and publicly praying. Nothing like that happened this time, nor is it likely to ever happen again.

More. Donald Trump was never likely to pay much attention to a committee-drafted platform he didn’t control, and letting the social conservatives run riot with it was a sop to the evangelical-right delegates, many of whom (but not all) were initially pledged to Ted Cruz. But Cruz’s convention speech nonendorsement of Trump has made the bad blood between the two men even worse. On reflection, Trump’s outreach to “LGBTQ” voters was like his own nonendorsement of the platform planks opposing LGBT social acceptance and legal equality that the Cruzites had pushed through.

It quite likely, I believe, that if Trump were elected he would sign The Equality Act—the proposed federal law to include LGBT antidiscrimination provisions in the Civil Rights Act—should it reach his desk. I’m no fan of the measure on libertarian grounds, but it’s the top item on the political agenda of progressive LGBT activist groups. However, given their virulence toward Trump, I suspect if he wins they will act to keep that from happening.

Furthermore. Wall Street Journal columnist Holman W. Jenkins Jr., a “Trumpian nonbeliever,” writes that Trump’s acceptance speech:

…was a masterful if lengthy exposition of his nationalist-Peronist viewpoint: America is a nation of lovely people of every creed, ethnicity and sexual orientation best by murderous illegal aliens, Islamic terrorists and the predatory trade practices of other countries.

I think that’s right (which is why I support Johnson-Weld). But it’s also right that the rejection of political gay-bashing by Trump throughout his campaign, and no mention at all of abortion in his convention speech, was a not-so-subtle repudiation of the platform committee’s hard-edged political-social conservatism. If Trump were elected, the platform in 2020, under his control, would likely be very different—especially since, as the Pew Research Center reports, 61% of young Republicans favor same-sex marriage.

Which may be why, at least in part, an extreme social conservative like Paul Mero has announced Trump has chased me from the GOP.

Scott Shackford writes at reason.com, GOP’s Overall Message to LGBTs: We Don’t Actually Want You Dead, Okay? While I’m generally a fan of Shackford’s often-astute analysis, I think Trump went beyond that in calling the LGBTQ victims in Orlando “wonderful Americans” and praising the convention audience for applauding that line. True, the GOP has set a low bar when it comes to LGBT equality, but that doesn’t mean we should dismiss signs that it’s being raised.

46 Comments for “A Few GOP Convention Reflections”

  1. posted by Jorge on

    It’s probably Pope Francis who got the ball rolling on all that. Too simple?

    I did *not* like Peter Thiel’s speech. But he had a line that sounded a lot worse when it came out (the bathroom line) than I think he really meant.

    • posted by TJ on

      If the Republican Party cares about LGBT Americans, then why not support civil rights legislation?

      Why not pledge to combat bullying in schools? Why not support the Supreme Court cases on privacy and equal protection? Why not? Why not?

      Well, because the Republican party wants to pretend to care, while also be lazy.

    • posted by TJ on

      Im not sure how the former Argentina president can invoked in talking about TPP.

      Peron’s popularity was largely tied to his wife, who backed women’s sufferage and a host of infrastructure and social welfare programs….

      His presidency was less overtly nativist and more concerned with a British expat elite.

      He was also less popular when he wife passed on, and became much less beloved later on in his political career.

    • posted by TJ on

      Jorge;

      Pope Francis said some nice things about gay people that were nicer then anything previous Popes have said (setting aside the theories about what a certain Pope might have done, had he not died so soon).

      Although, I don’t think that the Vatican has really had any interest in entering into a meaningful conversation with groups like, Dignity (gay Catholics) and still opposes any civil legislation to deal with anti-gay discrimination/harassment.

  2. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    But I’ll still contend that the Republican Convention represents a dramatic change from the past on LGBT issues, and failing to recognize that is simply partisan myopia. A quick recap:

    Ted Cruz: “Whether you are gay or straight, the Bill of Rights protects the rights of all of us to live according to our conscience.”

    And the context? The punch line of an appeal to give government sanction to public-sector and private-sector discrimination against gays and lesbians. Anyone who reads this comment as anything other than a rhetorical device (the evil gays are trying to take away Christian’s rights to live according to their conscience) is a moron.

    Newt Gingrich: “If our enemies had their way, gays, lesbians and transgender citizens would be put to death as they are today in the Islamic State and Iran.”

    Ah, the “vote for us or Islamic terrorists will throw you off a building” meme. Notice that Gingrich did not suggest that Republicans should do anything about it.

    Peter Thiel: “Every American has a unique identity. I am proud to be gay. I am proud to be a Republican, but most of all I am proud to be an American.”

    I think that allowing Thiel to speak is a step forward. I’d be more impressed if Thiel had expressed any level of support for equal treatment for gays and lesbians instead of characterizing gay rights as a “distraction”, or commented on the platform, perhaps saying something like “This too shall pass”. Instead, he pulled a DeMaio. Maybe Thiel doesn’t give a flying fork about military service, marriage equality, non-discrimination in employment, housing and public accommodations, but many gays and lesbians do care, and that’s why “equal means equal” is an issue, uh, distraction. But Thiel, while dismissive, did not express support for the Republican platform planks, either, and that’s good.

    Donald Trump: “Only weeks ago, in Orlando, Florida, 49 wonderful Americans were savagely murdered by an Islamic terrorist. This time, the terrorist targeted our LGBTQ community. No good. And we’re going to stop it. As your President, I will do everything in my power to protect our LGBTQ citizens from the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology.” [applause] “I must say as a Republican it is so nice to hear you cheering. Thank you.”

    The President Presumptive will protects gays and lesbians from “the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology”. A step forward. And particularly so since almost all Republican politicians commenting on Orlando in the aftermath twisted themselves into verbal pretzels trying to avoice the “gay” word. The applause was heartening. TPP has apparently taken Republicans to the point where Republicans draw the “keep the gays in their place” line at murder. That’s progress.

    The media assessments are mostly dismissive – window-dressing and all that. But Trump’s comments and Thiel’s remarks were a huge departure for the GOP …

    I agree.

    The Republican Party has reached the point — finally — where it seems willing to accept that gays and lesbians exist and have a right to live in the open, although the party continues to resist equal treatment under the law across the board. It may not seem like much to be willing to admit we exist, but it is a major step forward for the party. I don’t think that’s window dressing. It takes the party from the political landscape of the 1950’s into the political landscape of the 1980’s, and that’s significant.

    But, Stephen, get real. The party put forward a detailed platform that stands in opposition to everything gays and lesbians have gained in the last decade. The President Presumptive expressed no disagreement with that platform at any point in the process in his remarks to the convention, in part, no doubt, because his stated positions on LGBT issues support the platform’s positions on almost all issues. Senator Cruz and Speaker Gingrich are both hard core in opposition to “equal means equal”, as is TPP’s running mate, Governor Pence, of whom Jimmy LaSalvia remarked “When Mike Pence wakes up in the morning, the first thing he thinks about is, How can I stick it to the gays today?

    None of the remarks you quote (and I think that you got them all) lends support to the idea that “the Republican Convention represents a dramatic change from the past on LGBT issues”. It doesn’t, at least by any objective standard. The Republican Party continues to oppose “equal means equal” up and down the line, as it has for the last two decades. If anything, given that this year’s platform is (in LCR’s characterization) “the most anti-LGBT Platform in the Party’s 162-year history”, is a step backwards. A step backwards not a step forward.

    • posted by Tom Scharbach on

      I believe, Tom, that you are making the error of conflating political progressivism with gay rights.

      I think that if there is any conflation between the two, it exists because the fight for “equal means equal” has been the province of “political progressivism” by default, “political conservatism” having abandoned the field in deference to “social conservatism”, which opposes legal recognition or rights for gays and lesbians up and down the line.

      In the absence of an active conservative gay rights movement during the last three decades, the issues became defined in terms of “political progressivism” rather than “political conservatism” (e.g. with respect to marriage, in terms of equal rights rather than as a means of social control as proposed by Bawer and Rauch in the 1990’s).

      It was not out of the question in the early 1990’s that a conservative voice favoring gay rights could develop. In fact, it looked to me like it would happen. But it didn’t, and the writers/thinkers who had the capacity to develop that voice left the field, leaving “social conservativism” the only conservative voice in the discussion.

      So, like it or not, “gay rights” and “political progressivism” have become conflated in the sense that I’m talking about, because the political center has adopted the logic and language of “political progressivism” on the issues.

      I don’t see that changing — that is, I don’t see a conservative voice developing at this stage in the process, except as a way to explain/justify the progress that has been made — because there still aren’t any (or hardly any) conservatives willing to dig in and spend the political capital needed to fight back against the prevailing “no way, no how” opposition of social conservatives.

      And the cat is out of the bag, anyway, because the political center has embraced marriage equality and non-discrimination.

    • posted by Tom Scharbach on

      I might add to the foregoing comment (gay rights came to be defined in terms of “political progressivism” rather than “political conservatism” because gay supportive traditional conservatives (think classical liberals) left the playing field to “social conservatism”) a few thoughts about the role of “libertarian conservatism” over the years.

      Libertarian conservatism was never a factor in the fight, and (almost by definition) it could not be a factor in the fight. Libertarian conservatism is conflicted in any case where government plays a role in social conflict through law, and in a fight about whether or not our laws should be used to level the playing field for gays and lesbians, the conflicted nature of libertarian thinking kept libertarians on the sidelines.

      The conflicted nature of libertarian thinking is evident in the Libertarian Party’s platform:

      Sexual orientation, preference, gender, or gender identity should have no impact on the government’s treatment of individuals, such as in current marriage, child custody, adoption, immigration or military service laws. Government does not have the authority to define, license or restrict personal relationships. Consenting adults should be free to choose their own sexual practices and personal relationships.

      Using the fight over marriage equality as an example of how the conflicted nature of libertarian conservatism muted libertarians in the fight, consider the core libertarian argument that we’ve heard over and over again in various forms: “Libertarians believe that the government should play no role in defining or regulating marriage. But since it does, until we can get government out of the role of defining and regulating marriage, gays and lesbians should be allowed to marry on an equal footing with straights.”

      That argument makes perfect theoretical sense, but it is not a forceful argument in favor or marriage equality. It is a grudging argument in favor of non-discrimination (“We don’t believe in marriage, but since you force us to say so, gays and lesbians should be able to get married too”), at best, rather than a positive argument in favor of marriage equality. It did not provide a counter to the forceful and energetic opposition of social conservatives.

      The Bawer/Rauch “social control” argument had teeth, and had the argument been developed, it might have reshaped conservative thinking on marriage equality. But it was not.

      So there you have it, Jorge. Traditional conservatives abandoned the playing field to social conservatives. Libertarian conservatives didn’t abandon the field, but could not (because of their beliefs about the government’s role in defining and regulating marriage) make an argument that countered the social conservative arguments.

      The battle over “equal means equal” has been a battle about equality under the law. Libertarian conservatives, for the most part, abhorred the role that law played in the conflict, so did not make a positive case for equality under the law. Traditional conservatives were steamrolled by social conservatives, and abandoned the field, giving up the opportunity to make a position case for equality under the law.

      • posted by TJ on

        for decades, the standard Libertarian/Objectivist game in America was to vote Republican, looking the other way on a number of issues, because the party promised smaller government.

        The mainstreaming of the Internet in the 1990s made it harder to do (look the other way) because issues that didnt get much notice by mainstream press, could be debated and exaimed online.

        Suddenly, gay rights wasnt a minor issue that could be sidelined.

        Yet, the standard libertarian/Objectivist game was still being played out in the 1990s.

        The 2003 Supreme Court case pushed two libertarian groups to actually stop looking the other way, at least temporily.

    • posted by TJ on

      Also. quite a few of our foreign policy allies arent exactly really friendly with their gay citizens.

      Saudi Arabia comes to mind. Vigilante groups were killing gays in Iraq before ISIS got involved.

  3. posted by JohnInCA on

    As I say every time claims that the Republican party is really changing (this time): I’ll believe it when it results in different behavior.

    Not to mention that I suspect the “Party of Trump” will only stick around if Trump wins. If he loses, the party will probably swing back again.

    • posted by Tom Scharbach on

      The “Party of Trump” does not offer much hope for change, Pollyanna aside.

      The President Presumptive opposes marriage equality, has pledged to appoint Supreme Court Justices off a list of radical conservative judges who almost certainly will overturn/limit Obergefell as cases come forward, supports states’ rights to pass laws that directly discriminate (e.g. North Carolina) or sanction private discrimination (e.g. the so-called “religious freedom” bills), has put together an advisory board composed of anti-gay conservative Christians to advise him on such matters, and has promised to revoke Executive Orders reducing discrimination in federal contracting, and didn’t life a finger to modify the party’s 2016 platform. Even his much ballyhooed “embrace” of gays and lesbians in the acceptance speech consisted of nothing more than a promise to protect gays and lesbians from “the violence and oppression of a hateful foreign ideology” — the foreign ideology being Islam” — but ignored the persistent efforts of home-grown ideology — the ideology of the conservative Christian anti-gay right — to deny us equal treatment under the law.

      The President Presumptive may not have any personal animus toward gays and lesbians, but anyone who is looking to TPP to take an active role in changing the party on LGBT issues is deluding themselves.

  4. posted by Doug on

    These comments mirror my reflection of the GOP convention:

    “Donald Trump has vowed to appoint judges who will overturn the Supreme Court’s ruling on marriage equality, has stated that he supports states’ rights to pass laws that give permission to discriminate against queer people, and he recently courted 400 of the most anti-queer leaders in America, so his promise to protect queer people (especially as the leader of the Republican Party which just passed “the most anti-LGBT platform in history”) is nothing but a pile of steaming elephant shit and anyone who tries to tell you otherwise ― including Trump himself ― is lying to you and themselves. “

    • posted by TJ on

      TPP pledges to appoint judges who will rip out the legal progress made, promises to only care about some peoples religious freedom and has no coherent foriegn policy to actually help promote human rights.

  5. posted by Houndentenor on

    How would Trump’s immigration policy have saved anyone in Orlando? The shooter was born in the US. I realize that facts no longer matter to any Republican but that one is particularly nonsensical and an insult to those 49 people. The GOP is running on the most anti-gay platform it’s ever had while using the Orlando victims to advocate for a policy that wouldn’t have made any difference in their situation. It’s just fear-mongering. If the GOP cares about lbgt people, they should show that by their actions. Currently we see almost exclusively the opposite of care.

  6. posted by Jorge on

    Not to mention that I suspect the “Party of Trump” will only stick around if Trump wins. If he loses, the party will probably swing back again.

    That was much of the problem with Rick Santorum’s second place showing in 2012. After Romney lost, it all went down the drain. Or so I had thought, until Trump won and the Sanders losers became very sore. Perhaps in 2020 we’ll get Santorum again!

    My reaction to the Trump speech is a mixture of cynicism, frustration, and cold pride, in that order. Trump’s speech combined the best elements of both Lindsey Graham’s highly perceptive and bipartisan neoconservatism and Rick Santorum’s attentiveness to institutional oppression. His presentation was far better than either of those two could ever hope to match! And people–Republicans–felt a passion for it. Such I thing I have long sought. Evidently a certain measure of dishonesty and an instinct for the jugular are prerequisites to getting elected. I do not need to be fooled to be sold on Trump.

    Mr. Miller chose not to mention the minor coverage of Caitlyn Jenner in Cleaveland. Excuse me, Cleveland.

    I believe, Tom, that you are making the error of conflating political progressivism with gay rights.

    Let me point out that gays were not the only minority or otherwise oppressed group that was called out during the RNC. In almost every single case, a dual message was given: we support you, and we’re gonna keep the system in place (perhaps with tweaking) and beat back liberal efforts to change the rules. “Law and order” (can you find a more glaring racial dog whistle than that?), and explicit sympathetic mention of elevated unemployment for African Americans and Latinos. “Radical Islam” again and again, alongside a Muslim invocation.

    This was a very credible message, and it was also a very anti-liberal message. What you have at the RNC, over and over again, is a statement that we should take responsibility for and act on behalf of the best interests of minority and female citizens, but reject the solutions proposed by a majority of minority and (probably) female intellectuals and politicians on how to meet those best interests. It is a call for empathy and responsibility and a rejection of consensus and deference.

    • posted by Lori Heine on

      Bless your heart, Jorge. Serve some croutons on that.

      • posted by Jorge on

        No. I refuse. God will simply have to command this cynic to noble action.

    • posted by Doug on

      ‘. . . we should take responsibility for and act on behalf of the best interests of minority and female citizens. . . ‘

      Is punishing women for having an abortion good for women?

      Is repealing same sex marriage in the best interest of LGBT community?

      Is support for Conversion therapy in the best interest of the gay community? I’m sure you will look great with a pink triangle on your chest.

      Is repealing gays in the military in the best interest of the LGBT community?

      You are totally delusional, Jorge. Almost every fact Trump stated in his acceptance speech was in fact an outright lie.

      • posted by Jorge on

        I think your questions are irrelevant to Tom’s observations, Doug.

        You are totally delusional, Jorge. Almost every fact Trump stated in his acceptance speech was in fact an outright lie.

        Technically, the reason I would be delusional should be because I know Trump lied and support him anyway, not because I believe him.

        But the truth is, I just have better perception and pattern recognition than you do.

  7. posted by GOP's Overall Message to LGBTs: We Don’t Actually Want You Dead, Okay? | Michigan Standard on

    […] perspective as a libertarian gay man who is not a leftist or Democrat. Stephen Miller, over at the Independent Gay Forum’s Culture Watch, sees the invocation of the gay community in speeches at the convention as a “dramatic change […]

    • posted by Jorge on

      “and the message that the Republican Party doesn’t want to see LGBT people killed by ISIS feels more about pushing a particular foreign policy agenda, not about actually becoming more inclusive. Maybe I would feel differently had I ever identified as a Republican, but as a lifelong political independent, it tastes like the weakest of teas.”

      That is quite possible. That the Republican party is poor at making people outside its several bases feel comfortable is one of its best-known weaknesses. Pat Buchanan often writes of feeling strong enough ties to the party to vote for the nominee even though it has gone in a far different direction from him. I myself identify strongly with the evolution of the Catholic approach over the past half-century, and with the trends in the party that match it.

      At their highest ideals, the Democratic party is very much a social party (rainbow coalition, diversity, etc.), while the Republican party is more a coalition of several independent fiefdoms (the big tent). A gay Republican will place value on tolerance–a promise to be left alone, or non-sabotage as he pursues his own agenda–while a gay Democrat will place more value on a promise for aid or collaboration–acceptance.

      Thus, limiting mention of gays to foreign policy or other distant presentations is a code that Democrats and Republicans interpret differently.

  8. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    It quite likely, I believe, that if Trump were elected he would sign The Equality Act—the proposed federal law to include LGBT antidiscrimination provisions in the Civil Rights Act—should it reach his desk. I’m no fan of the measure on libertarian grounds, but it’s the top item on the political agenda of progressive LGBT activist groups. However, given the virulence toward Trump these groups are expressing, I suspect they would do whatever they can to keep that from happening.

    Keep what from happening? Keep The President Presumptive, should he become President, from signing the Equality Act should it get through Congress? How? By opposing the bill because TPP might sign it if President? Not likely.

    Stephen, you’ve spent too many years with your head in Republican poltical circles, I suspect. You seem to think that Democrats, should TPP become President, will act just like Republicans did when President Obama took office in 2008 — block everything that the President proposed, even when he advanced bills that Republicans proposed and favored. I don’t think that Democrats are angels, but I don’t think we’ll see them acting like Republicans should TPP become President.

    The Republican Party is a sick party, and has been since 2008, getting worse and worse by the year. I don’t think Democrats will develop the fever.

  9. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    Donald Trump’s acceptance speech was full of the jingoistic bombast and wrong-headed policies on trade and immigration that prevent me from giving him my vote (I’m for the Johnson-Weld Libertarian party ticket).

    Stephen, this is just a thought, no doubt worth what you paid for it. It seems to me that you have an opportunity this election cycle to make the case for libertarian ideas — for the positives about libertarianism and the Johnson/Weld ticket — instead of focusing on the Republican Party’s deficiencies. It may be that you will be voting for the Libertarian ticket this fall solely because you can’t bring yourself to vote for Trump/Pence, but if you have affirmative reasons for voting for Johnson/Weld, I think it would be a good thing to shift the discussion in that direction, at least part of the time.

    The Republican Party’s TPP-Pee ticket this election cycle is hopeless, combining TPP’s “jingoistic bombast and wrong-headed policies on trade and immigration” that you find objectionable with Pee’s hard-core, conservative Christian hard-core anti-gay instincts and positions that other gays and lesbians find objectionable. I don’t know if many homocons will follow your lead — Milo Yiannapolus, Peter Thiel and LCR clearly will not — but discussing something other than TPP-Pee would be interesting. It is going to be a long, long election cycle this year for all of us.

  10. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    If Trump were elected, the platform in 2020, under his control, would be very different.

    If TPP is elected, the 2020 Republican Platform, whatever it says or doesn’t, will be the least of our problems.

  11. posted by Tom Scharbach on

    . If Trump were elected, the platform in 2020, under his control, would likely be very different—especially since, as the Pew Research Center reports, 61% of young Republicans favor same-sex marriage. Which may be why, at least in part, an extreme social conservative like Paul Mero has announced Trump has chased me from the GOP.

    Odd, though, if that’s the case, that Mero didn’t mention (or even allude to) TPP’s supposed “not-so-subtle repudiation of the platform committee’s hard-edged political-social conservatism”:

    There is no lesser of two evils in the choice before conservatives. Both candidates are politically evil. I will not vote for one evil because I think the other is more evil. Bill Buckley famously held that he would vote for the most electable conservative. Neither Hillary Clinton nor Trump is conservative. I think building some gargantuan wall on our southern border is un-American. I think rounding up millions of people and isolating an entire religion are un-American ideas. Trump is not America first; he’s cynicism first. He’s fear and anger first.

    The Republican Party was founded on the conservative sense of justice, lost its way mid-20th century and regained its identity during the Reagan years. With Trump, it is now gone. The national Republican Party is no longer conservative. No longer is there any bulwark standing between sanity and insanity. We’re now simply trading between political correctness and fear and anger. We’re trading with our worst selves.

    Of course, unaffiliating is symbolic. I remain loyal to my friends. I remain loyal to politicians I admire, such as Gov. Gary Herbert, Sen. Mike Lee and a host of state and local officials. As a conservative first, I am loyal to people, not parties. But neither do I want to underestimate the symbolism. The Utah Republican Party is dangerously close to leaving behind many influential conservative voters. I’m unaffiliating on this basis, too.

    All of the craziness, the obsession with constitutional minutia, the cultish worshipping of founding fathers, the purity tests and just plain emotional know-nothingness trending inside the state GOP are deeply disturbing to me. When Herbert and even Lee are accused by state GOPers of committing some sort of apostasy because they chose to gather signatures as well as attend the state convention, I’m flabbergasted.

    Stephen, I don’t know what is driving your insistence that TPP is going to usher in a new, gay-supportive era in the Republican Party for gays and lesbians. Is it his repeated pledge to overturn Obergefell? His promise to appoint Supreme Court justices off a list of 21 of the most socially conservative judges in America? His choice of one of the most prominent anti-equality politicians in the country as his running mate? His stated support for North Carolina’s moronic “bathroom bill”? His pledge to do all he can to bring FADA to his desk for “signatures and enactment”? What?

    I’ll grant you that TPP has not made any of these positions a centerpiece of his campaign in the way that he has made his attacks on Mexican immigrants and Muslims a centerpiece. But what does that mean?

    I see no evidence whatsoever that TPP, win or lose, is going to lift a finger to usher in a new, gay-supportive era in the Republican Party. You seem convinced otherwise, for what reason I cannot fathom. But consider this: If TPP becomes President Trump, you and I (and everyone else, including the Republican Party) will be stuck with President Trump in 2020. You see that as a positive in terms of the party’s positioning on LGBT issues. I don’t. But if TPP does not become President Trump, then what? I don’t know, but I think that we can look forward to a bloodbath in the party between now and 2020. Who do you expect to be the players then? Pence? Cruz? Rubio? Ernest? Who among them is going to carry the right to the anti-gay conservative Christians?

    The Republican Party will change on LGBT issues over time, because it cannot sustain itself in current form. The “Priebus Autopsy” was right about the fact that demographics matter, and demographics are moving, even the in Republican Party, in favor of “equal means equal”. The question, and the only question, is when the Republican Party is going to get off the “faggot, faggot” bus.

    You were disappointed that the Republican Party didn’t get off the bus in 2012. You are disappointed again, for good reason. I will simply repeat what I said in the run-up to 2012: “It is going to take a while for the Republican Party to break loose of the death-grip of religious conservatives. The death-grip was thirty years in the making, and it will take time to undo it. But it will happen, eventually, because the county is changing rapidly. It won’t be too many years before opposition to “equal means equal” becomes a political liability, and that will break the death-grip.”

    I don’t know when that is going to happen. It seems to me that the Rise of Trump is going to make the process more difficult rather than less because I think that TPP will not become President Trump, and the intra-party bloodbath that will follow is going to get in the way of a natural evolution in the direction of “equal means equal”. I hope I’m wrong.

  12. posted by TJ on

    The Libertarian Party ticket is two Republicans who actually held partisan office. The GOP has become so disfunctional that quite a few conservatives may vote libertarian this time around. Given how crazy the libertarian/Ayn Rand party is, that is saying something.

    It will be interesting to see how the LP fairs with ballot access and inclusuion in debates.

    • posted by Tom Scharbach on

      It will be interesting to see how the LP fairs with ballot access and inclusion in debates.

      The LP has ballot access in 36 states at present, and in process of qualifying elsewhere. In 2012, I believe that the LP had ballot access in all 50 states by the time of the general election, although I’m not entirely sure about Michigan or Oklahoma.

      The Green Party presently has ballot access in 22 states, and is in process in all but three others (Indiana, North Carolina and Oklahoma) where GP candidates will be write-in, pending legislative action.

      The Commission on Presidential Debates lists the following criteria for inclusion:

      1. EVIDENCE OF CONSTITUTIONAL ELIGIBILITY

      The CPD’s first criterion requires satisfaction of the eligibility requirements of Article II, Section 1 of the Constitution. …

      2. EVIDENCE OF BALLOT ACCESS

      The CPD’s second criterion requires that the candidate qualify to have his/her name appear on enough state ballots to have at least a mathematical chance of securing an Electoral College majority in the 2016 general election. …

      3. INDICATORS OF ELECTORAL SUPPORT

      The CPD’s third criterion requires that the candidate have a level of support of at least 15% (fifteen percent) of the national electorate as determined by five national public opinion polling organizations selected by CPD, using the average of those organizations’ most recent publicly-reported results at the time of the determination. …

      The LP and the GP candidates meet the constitutional requirement, and will likely meet the ballot access requirement. The 15% threshold is problematic — as of today, the RCP polling average is: Clinton 40.4%, Trump 40.0%, Johnson 7.2% and Stein 3.0%.

    • posted by Lori Heine on

      Yes, TJ, sound principles are CRAAAAAZY.

      • posted by JohnInCA on

        Either:
        (A) Libertarian/libertarian principles are crazy, which is why sound-minded people don’t accept them
        or
        (B) People are crazy, which why they don’t accept sound-minded Libertarian/libertarian principles.

        Take your pick.

        • posted by Lori Heine on

          Which “people” are crazy? The increasing number who are becoming libertarian?

          We’re picking up new converts, incidentally, on a much faster rate from the left than we are from the right.

          Talk about inconvenient truths.

          As the process accelerates, I look forward to the lies and hysteria from statists. It’s most entertaining.

          To borrow a line from Khrushchev (of all people), we are going to bury you. And we’ll do it without having to fire a single shot.

          • posted by Lori Heine on

            Incidentally, the bigoted slurs against people with mental health conditions certainly do mark you as a “progressive.” In our current, bizarro-world political landscape, anyway.

            Your team certainly has no integrity left. Bernie just betrayed all of his supporters–completely sold them out. And of course we know how much it means when he warns America that Hillary is “unfit to be president.”

            What goes around does indeed come around.

            Oh, but libertarians–we’re “crazy.”

            Hardly surprising anymore, but certainly disgusting.

          • posted by JohnInCA on

            “Which “people” are crazy?”
            Hey, I gave you two scenarios that explained things. You’re free to choose which one to believe.

            “The increasing number who are becoming libertarian? “
            As for the “increasing number”… call me in two years. Counting hens before the hatch and all that jazz. If Libertarians can turn the Trump-reaction† into a real game-changer, that’d be something special. But it’ll probably be another “Libertarian Moment” like every year before.

            Or, in other words… yeah, and half of America is moving to Canada if Clinton/Trump wins.
            ____
            †And have no doubt, increased interest in Johnson/the Libertarian Party is a reaction to Trump, not the merits of Johnson/Libertarian Party.

  13. posted by Jorge on

    “The national Republican Party is no longer conservative.”

    Thank God.

    I’m sick and tired of Tom repeating the lie that Republicans call out “faggot” when campaigning for votes. Much of the antidote is removing the stranglehold conservatives currently have over the Republican party. The Norquist tax pledge. The NRA. The increasing reliance on ultrapartisan majorities to produce abortion reform. All good causes that have their place, but the rigid orthodoxy behind them has made Republicans just as intellectually lazy as Democrats, and that creates crazy law. For all their disdain for the leftward lurch of the Democratic party during and before President Obama was inaugurated, the conservatives were part of the problem in reverse. The backlash is welcome, and having a nominee even more of an extreme moderate than Giuliani could have been in 2008 is the price of having a party even more extreme conservative than it was in 2008.

    You know what’s changed? I think it’s gay marriage. When abortion was the figurehead conservative issue, there was little dissuading the Republican base from a philosophy of attacking “90% conservatives” (their typical attack on Justice Kennedy). When gay marriage replaced it, that political foundation crumbled; then Trump could move in and give them abortion, and almost nothing else.

    • posted by Tom Scharbach on

      I’m sick and tired of Tom repeating the lie that Republicans call out “faggot” when campaigning for votes.

      Really? You throw a hissy about “faggot, fagoot” every time I make the historical allusion to George Wallace’s deployment of race as a political wedge after his 1958 loss to John Patterson:

      CHESTNUT: George Wallace with his keen political antenna, understood immediately why he had lost. And I think he decided at that point that he would exploit race to the extent it took necessary that we — that he considered necessary to win.

      JENKINS: And in doing that, he made a Faustian bargain. He uh– the one time progressive decided to sell his soul for the governorship. And, uh, he could never turn back on that fully.

      SEYMORE TRAMMELL, Barbour Co. District Attorney: George Wallace came back to the district after the defeat, back to our county, and he asked me if I would come over to his office and talk with him. So I did. And he said, “Seymore, you know why I lost that governor’s race?” I said, “I’m not sure, uh, Judge. What do you think?” He said, “Seymore, I was outniggered by John Patterson. And I’ll tell you here and now, I will never be outniggered again.”

      CHESTNUT: People ask me a lot of times, was Wallace a racist? Now, was he a Ku Kluxter? No. Did he get up every morning and say, let me go find some black folks so I could lynch them? No. He wasn’t that. And he, he would not have favored those who felt and there were those who felt that way. But he could be perfectly reasonable in a conversation with a black person. And he could leave, and in the next ten minutes, deliver the most racist appeal that you’ve ever heard in pursuit of votes.

      WILLIAMS: In that time, those days, people didn’t want negroes to be upgraded. And that’s why he hollered. That’s why he said nigger, nigger, nigger. Because he knew, you know, the white people was against negroes and he wanted to be against negroes so he could be elected.

      CARTER: When Wallace turned to the politics of race one of his supporters who was horrified, said, “George, why are you doing this? Why are you doing this?” And Wallace, sadly he thought, said, “You know, I tried to talk about good roads and good schools and all these things that have been part of my career, and nobody listened. And then I began talking about niggers, and they stomped the floor.”

      Enough, Jorge. The Republicans cynically deployed fear and loathing about gays and lesbians over and over and over again as a tool to rouse the base. Just like George Wallace used race in the 1960’s. Learn something about American history and you’d not confuse a historical allusion with a “Tom repeating the lie that Republicans call out “faggot” when campaigning for votes”, a “fact” that exists only in your confused mind. Never said it, never suggested it. I’ve always used “faggot, faggot” to describe a political strategy and make a historical allusion to a dark and ugly time in our politics, a time as dark and ugly as the Bush/Rove/Melman use of “faggot, faggot”.

      • posted by Jorge on

        Really?

        No. I’m just using my intolerance of it to make a point.

        Enough, Jorge. The Republicans cynically deployed fear and loathing about gays and lesbians over and over and over again as a tool to rouse the base.

        That was a nice history lesson. It was about the wrong subject matter.

        There are only two people in politics I am aware of who have performed that kind of stunt about gays this century: Ann Coulter and John Kerry.

      • posted by Tom Scharbach on

        That was a nice history lesson. It was about the wrong subject matter.

        That’s why “faggot, faggot” is an allusion to “nigger, nigger”, not a retelling of “nigger, nigger”.

        I understand, from your many denials that the Republican Party ever used gay marriage as a wedge issue, your assertion that Senator Santorum was a champion of LGBT rights, properly understood according to the Gospel of Jorge, and so on, that you don’t agree with the allusion between “faggot, faggot” and “nigger, nigger”.

        That’s fine.

        I’d just appreciate it if you didn’t mischaracterize the allusion between “faggot, faggot” and “nigger, nigger” as a claim that Republican politicians used the word “faggot, as in “I’m sick and tired of Tom repeating the lie that Republicans call out “faggot” when campaigning for votes.“. If you’d just say that “Tom is wrong. Republicans never used LGBT rights as a wedge issue.“, I wouldn’t have respond every time to clear up the record.

        It would save you from having yet another venial sin on your record, and it would save me time.

        • posted by Jorge on

          I understand, from your many denials that the Republican Party ever used gay marriage as a wedge issue

          There is a big difference between using gay marriage and other planks of the gay rights movement as a political issue on principled grounds and using bigotry against gays as a wedge issue. (It is also not the same as using gay rights as a wedge issue.) That is a difference you fail to apprehend again and again, and as long as you fail to do so, and as long as you continue to do so using the most deceptively guttural and emotionally manipulative language you can find, I will continue to call you out on your intellectually deficient and frankly biased reasoning.

          Under no circumstances can it be contemplated that I should consent to those tactics. This is not meant as a personal attack.

        • posted by Tom Scharbach on

          I will continue to call you out on your intellectually deficient and frankly biased reasoning.

          No problem. Just change your part practice and do it accurately.

  14. posted by Jorge on

    It won’t be too many years before opposition to “equal means equal” becomes a political liability, and that will break the death-grip.”

    Today the speakers at the DNC alleged that the Republican nominee does not believe in equal pay for equal work and that the revolutionary cause that has influenced the party platform is about ensuring equal opportunity regardless of birth income and a living wage to single parent-headed households.

    If the Republican party does not support equality on those terms 50 years after the Civil Rights Act and the War on Poverty, I doubt it will support “equal means equal” with respect to gay rights in the next 50 years. I see no reason to doubt my usual belief that the progress of the gay rights movement will be halted before all of its goals are realized.

    • posted by Tom Scharbach on

      If the Republican party does not support equality on those terms 50 years after the Civil Rights Act and the War on Poverty …

      Jorge, the conservative Christian demographic of the Republican Party is still fighting the battle for “seg schools“. What do you think vouchers are about, anyway? Of course, its not just about segregating the schools racially anymore, except in areas of the South, so much as it is about segregating the schools from ideas.

      • posted by Jorge on

        Jorge, the conservative Christian demographic of the Republican Party is still fighting the battle for “seg schools“. What do you think vouchers are about, anyway?

        You are asking someone who lives in the most segregated public school system in the country what he thinks school vouchers are about.

        I think school vouchers are about breaking up the unions, dropping kids out of special education, indoctrinating people with state-sanctioned religion, and shaming parents into checking their children’s homework. (Yeah, no.)

        I think school vouchers are about good government.

        • posted by Doug on

          ‘. . . indoctrinating people with state-sanctioned religion. . . ‘

          I think it’s time to take off your tin foil hat and get back on your medication, Jorge.

          • posted by Jorge on

            Wait, that implied that I can be cured.

            What’s your excuse?

        • posted by Doug on

          There you go again, Jorge, making assumptions. Medication for a mental disorder in no way implies a cure, it only make the voices you hear more manageable.

          • posted by Lori Heine on

            Ridiculing people with mental health conditions! Wow, aren’t you the enlightened and evolved little progressive?

            That this sort of pig-ignorance passes with the masses today as “progressivism” explains a hell of a lot.

  15. posted by Kosh III on

    I just encountered a quote which is all too true; spoken by Sen. Margaret Chase Smith R-ME about McCarthyism.
    “I don’t want to see the Republican Party ride to a political victory on the Four Horsemen of Calumny—Fear, Ignorance, Bigotry, and Smear.”

Comments are closed.