Log Cabin Republican James Driscoll writes that his support of Trump cost him a 15-year long position as political consultant to AIDS Healthcare Foundation, and that his landscaping was vandalized because he put up a Trump sign.
He recounts that Juan Hernandez, a fellow Log Cabin Republican, was attacked by anti-Trump thugs at a Trump rally, leaving him bloodied with a concussion and broken nose.
Alas, this kind of response to Trump supporters isn’t uncommon: Navy Vet’s House Torched in Florida, Vandalized with Anti-Trump Graffiti, which also reports, “Investigators are looking into possible connections with anti-Trump graffiti that was sprayed on two mobile homes near Mango, Florida, earlier this month. One of those homes was set on fire, too.”
More. From Austin Bay:
[S]ince the election Americans have seen a lot of broken glass, witnessed beatings and suffered hours-long traffic and business disruptions within their cities. … Peaceful protests? No, the demonstrators vandalize and destroy. They have two goals: intimidating people and sustaining the mainstream media lie that Donald Trump is dangerous.
There’s an awful lot of projecting of their own inner demons outward, allowing them to engage in ritualized virtue-signaling. Screaming obscenities while carrying signs reading “Love Trumps Hate” is the obvious example of the lack of self-reflection regarding their behavior.
A disturbing encounter between two young anti-Trumpists and a man wearing a “Build the Wall” t-shirt. Feel the love? (I don’t support “the wall,” by the way, but this encounter is revealing in terms of who is boiling over with rage and engaging in mocking condescension. And it’s not atypical.)
In Too Much Stigma, Not Enough Persuasion, Conor Friedersdorf argues that “the coalition that opposes Donald Trump needs to get better at persuading its fellow citizens and winning converts, rather than leaning so heavily on stigmatizing those who disagree with them.” You think?
21 Comments for “More Progressive Tolerance”
posted by Doug on
Shall I list all the folks roughed up and abused by Trump supporters?
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Stephen is limning old resentments, culminating a posting frenzy (four in the last five days) illuminating the sinful ways of evil progressives, all the while waiting in useless anxiety for “an openly gay person to [be named to] a Cabinet or Supreme Court post”, as he and Walter Olson so confidently predicted after the election [see “Trump and LGBT Issues: Beyond the Fear-Mongering”, Stephen H. Miller, November 12, 2016].
With Richard Grenell having been passed over for UN Ambassador in favor of Nikki Haley (who is neither gay, nor gay-supportive, nor knowledgeable about foriegn affairs), and Cabinet positions for which Peter Thiel might be suited (e.g. Treasury, Commerce, :Labor) having been filled, and it unlikely that the President-Elect will burn “The List” and appoint Peter Thiel instead, the chances of that happening are looking increasingly slim. Peter Thiel, apparently, got all the reward he is going to get, his five minutes of fame before the RNC, talking about everything but LGBT issues.
So we can expect lots more of the same old same old in weeks ahead, I’m afraid.
James Driscoll’s article points out issues we might want to discuss:
True enough. Will the President-Elect deliver?
And beyond recognition, what of equality itself? What will the President-Elect actually do in terms of sustaining/pushing equality for gays and lesbians beyond the symbolic gesture?
We won’t know until after the inauguration.
posted by TJ on
When Bayard Rustin died, I think that then President Reagan said something relatively nice about him in a speech (mostly to claim him as a neoconservative) , but his history and contributions were generally sidelined because he was gay and held onto some strong, Bernie Sanders-like views on human rights. He was generally supportive of Israel and (while a democratic socialist) he was critical of Communist governments
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Statement on the Death of Bayard Rustin
August 25, 1987
We mourn the loss of Bayard Rustin, a great leader in the struggle for civil rights in the United States and for human rights throughout the world. He will be sorely missed by all those who shared his commitment to the twin causes of peace and freedom.
As few men have, Mr. Rustin understood that the struggle for the two is inseparable; either we achieve them both or neither. Mr. Rustin held to this belief all his adult life. This took great physical, intellectual, and, most of all, moral courage. He was denounced by former friends, because he never gave up his conviction that minorities in America could and would succeed based on their individual merit. But Mr. Rustin never gave an inch. Though a pacifist, he was a fighter to the finish. That is why over the course of his life he won the undying love of all who cherish freedom.
posted by TJ on
Again. The statement carefully ignores Rustin’s homosexuality, his gay rights support or his support for social justice
posted by TJ on
Harvey Milk was the subject a major film (critical and commercial success), while “Brother Outsider” (Rustin) was a great book\documentary that got seen on PBS.
Granted, Bayard Rustin spent much of his political activism on non-violence, civil rights issues impacting black citizens and fighting poverty.
He was – relatively- openly gay and his political world view certainly backed gay rights as part of universal human rights, but he didn’t campaign for gay rights until the 1980s.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Rustin was awarded the Medal of Freedom in November 2013, and well deserved it was.
posted by Houndentenor on
So far every announced cabinet pick has been openly hostile to gay rights (not just marriage). This is actually a lot worse than I thought it would be, not that I didn’t think it’s wasn’t going to be a shit-show. Fuck the homocons. They deserve what’s coming. The rest of us do not.
posted by TJ on
1. It would be more useful to condemn all political violence, rather then ignoring the raw hatred and acts of violence committed by Trump supporters.
2. Political belief or party membership is generally not covered as a class in civil rights, the Constituitional case law is muddled on the matter.
I think it probably should be in some cases, but you probably would not a problem with say, a “faith based” charity firing someone for being gay or voting for Hillary. Some consistency would be nice.
Trump did not say much about AIDS policy, so I’d imagine that an AIDS charity is probably more worried about what the VP did say (and how Trump still put him on the ticket).
The VP-elect said (if I’m not mistaken) that we should eliminate AIDS funding and instead spend money on sending gays to conversion therapy.
I can see why an AIDS charity might just find that position a bit hard to reconcile with the charities mission.
posted by Houndentenor on
Stephen opposes workplace discrimination laws anyway. So I don’t understand the nature of his complaint. Right-wingers think that employers should be able to hire and fire anyone they want, so what is the problem? Is he now arguing that they don’t? Oh right, it happened to someone like him for a change so now it’s wrong. What a fucking hypocrite. I can’t even bother to pretend to be surprised.
posted by Jorge on
I believe Pence expressed a belief in funding therapy for people who want to change their behavior. I’ve never read of any other source of the conclusion that he supported conversation therapy.
I’ve also never read of any other version of this quote, which leads me to conclude he only said it once.
What I have read and heard are some rather fanciful justifications for how that describes conversion therapy in the fashion that usually earns its pejorative connotation. I think the most famous one was by Rachel Maddow. I thought it was full of gaps in logic.
Oh, and this is key: I also have questions about when Mike Pence said it.
I am much more concerned about what Mike Pence says today. I paid close attention during the Vice Presidential debate, and I did not like what I heard.
posted by TJ on
Out in the more “red” communities and States most of the hated and violence is being directed at Trump “enemies” or anyone that did drink the Trump Inc. Koolaid.
I condemn political violence. Period.
I think political debate has gotten too uncivil, too much like talk radio and cable news talking heads.
That’s different from saying “oh. My! Political violence against Trump supporters is wrong ….so let’s pretend that political violence and general incivility is something that sweet, sunshine little Trump supporters would never do..”
posted by Houndentenor on
Vandalism is a crime. It should be prosecuted no matter who does it to whom. Of course Stephen points out a few cases of supposed liberals (do we know who actually committed these acts) vandalizing conservatives and not the hundreds of cases of swastikas painted on Jewish people’s homes and other alt-right inspired violence since the election. All of it is wrong, of course. Some of us can see that. Stephen is too blinded by his hatred of anything left of Breitbart to see that that though.
As for being fired, some of us keep anything political off our social media accounts because it might cost us a job we are applying for. That has been the reality for a very long time. Why is it always conservatives bitching and moaning about this. It’s just as hard to be a liberal in a conservative area or workplace as the opposite, but it’s the right-wingers who shriek the loudest. You’d think they were the only ones facing any discrimination. In Stephen’s case it’s that he’s a fucking hypocrite living in a safe blue area because he wouldn’t dare live as an out gay man in a deep red neighborhood. His liberal neighbors are far more accommodating of his conservative views than far right neighbors would be of his homosexuality. His choices reveal that he knows that better than anyone. The rest is just standard homocon hypocrisy.
posted by Doug on
Sorry to burst your bubble, Stephen.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-crime/drunk-men-screaming-trump-attack-muslim-straphanger-article-1.2896163
posted by Tom Scharbach on
‘Taint the half of it. Doug.
posted by Jorge on
I was so shocked nobody intervened. Someone intervened the last big headline that happened here.
Maybe it was the time of day? This incident happened at 10pm. I don’t know when the other incident happened. 10pm on a train? I wouldn’t do much unless I believed the danger was greater.
posted by William T. on
http://www.philly.com/philly/blogs/real-time/S-Jersey-man-arrested-in-post-election-vandalism-in-South-Philly.html
Middle-aged black guy arrested for spray painting racist pro-Trump graffiti in hate crime hoax.
posted by Throbert McGee on
I’m shocked that that nobody (so far) has posted camera-phone footage to YouTube. (Seriously, at 10 PM on a Thursday night in midtown Manhattan, on a subway line that passes through Grand Central Station, no one managed to get video of the incident?)
posted by Throbert McGee on
Of course, I’m not insisting it was a hoax — maybe corroborating eyewitnesses WILL come forward. But it’s best to wait 24-48 hours before deciding.
P.S. Anyone heard about the “Children of Satan” letter that’s been sent to over a dozen mosques (maybe two dozen at this point) across America? My guess there is: NOT a Muslim hoaxer trying to “raise awareness of Islamophobia,” but also NOT an alt-right white-supremacist. Instead, I’d put my money on “non-Muslim or ex-Muslim with cultural ties to Persia/Iran, whose family may have suffered after the 1979 Islamic Revolution.” (This has not been confirmed by the FBI; it’s just my guess from reading the news with a discerning eye.)
posted by Throbert McGee on
I just want to emphasize: According to the alleged victim’s own words, “[she] had left an event at Baruch and was on her way home on an uptown No. 6 platform at the 23rd St. and Park Ave. stop at about 10 p.m. Thursday when the men started taunting her.”
Now, 23rd & Park Ave. is pretty much hipster-central and there is plenty of nightlife in the vicinity. It’s most definitely not the “sticks of NYC.”
posted by Throbert McGee on
Um, I’m not sure. I interpreted it as “We should not auto-renew the Ryan White act unless we’re sure that the money won’t go towards free Truvada,” or something along those lines. In other words, not “eliminating” AIDS funding, but auditing the funding with greater scrutiny; and not enabling high-risk behavior.