Self-Inflicted Wounds

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Progressives running the political organizing group Wellstone Action directed their energies toward “work with communities of color and the LGBTQI community.” When the late Sen. Paul Wellstone’s sons raised the issue of focusing as well on economic issues and the plight of working class voters, they were ousted from the group.

Related: Democratic pollster Charles Cook recently wrote, “It’s not clear that Democrats fully understood why they lost the last presidential election and why their congressional gains were so paltry….” He added, “I met last week with leaders and members of a manufacturing union that was still livid over the Obama administration’s ‘war on coal’ that they believe put many of their members out of work or cut their hours,” and concludes, “A bit of self-reflection rather than just scapegoating might be in order.”

More. Miami Herald columnist Leonard Pitts Jr. is “done trying to understand Trump supporters”:

Besides which, is there really so much left to “understand?” Not from where I sit. Long before Trump even existed as a political force, many of us noted with alarm the rise of a backlash among right wingers deeply angry and profoundly terrified by the writing on the demographic wall. Said writing foretold — and for that matter, still foretells — the declining preeminence of white, Christian America.

A basket of deplorables, clinging to their guns and religion.

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Free Speech vs. Progressive Activism

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Dave Rubin responds, civilly, to protestors. They think the government should forbid speech that makes transgender people feel uncomfortable, including use of the wrong pronouns, and he tries to explain why that is a really bad idea.


The Rubin Report
Dave Rubin goes back and forth with protesters during his entire speech to students at the University of New Hampshire. discussing the importance of free speech the the rights of the individual.

The full, unedited video can be viewed on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Knv7ZwIBmvs.

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Nowadays, How ‘Queer’ Is ‘Queer’?

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Responds Katie Herzog:

Herzog writes:

Indeed, Davidson and Schankler look, from the photos in the paper, like your typical middle-aged new parents, but, rest assured, they are not. For one thing, Schankler prefers the pronouns they/them and the title Mx. For another, as you will notice from the photo accompanying the article, she’s wearing a jacket over her dress, which, the caption tells us, is “gender nonconforming.” Very queer.

Now, I will admit that my first reaction to this article was to roll my eyes back in my head and pull out my application to a lesbian seperatist commune in Taos, but then I remembered that it’s against the rules to question other peoples’ identities (unless that person is Rachel Dolezal) so I reigned in my annoyance.

But then I read it again, and I thought about some lesbian friends of mine back in North Carolina who just had a kid last year. Unlike Davidson and Schankler, who, I presume, used the body parts they were born with to make a kid, my friends had to go about it the old fashioned ways: turkey baster, with sperm purchased from a sperm bank.

That was the easy part.
…

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Bake a Cake, U.K. Edition

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Unlike support, say, for overturning sodomy laws or granting marriage equality under the law, gay people are not uniformly behind “design us a cake celebrating our same-sex wedding, or else we’ll put you out of business. Because…tolerance. ”

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Grenell Confirmed

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The president’s moves to ban transgender service members from the military, even those who have fully transitioned, may preclude him from being seen as transformative on LGBT issues within the GOP, but the party is still changing. Even former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, an ardent social conservative, praised the appointment as ambassador to Germany an openly gay man who supported the fight for marriage equality. Grenell wrote in the Wall Street Journal in May 2012, “I can be proud of President Obama’s personal support for gay marriage and still take exception to his dismal national-security and economic records.”

More. Via The Hill:

The fight over Richard Grenell isn’t the cause of the clearly changing sentiment within the GOP; it’s more of the fulcrum than the spark. There have long been Log Cabin Republicans, now dutifully championing the fact that one of their own will likely be the highest-ranking gay official in U.S. history. Yet now, there seems to be a larger presence of openly gay Republicans than ever before; and consistent with polling data, no one in the party really seems to mind.

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The Commanding Heights

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[We’re back after a server issue took us offline for awhile]

This National Review piece is somewhat overstated—LGBT people in rural areas, especially, still face discrimination. But it is true that in blue America and throughout the national mainstream media the orthodox view is pro-LGBT. Taken to an extreme, however, LGBT nondiscrimination rights become dismissive of others’ rights, such as regarding speech, expression and association.

America is about finding a balance among competing rights, but progressives are behaving as newly ascendant inquisitors.

Another example of progressive orthodoxy run amuck and attacking liberal (in the classic sense) values. At least this time, there was some pullback in the face of an obvious and disingenuous overreach.

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Culture War in Rural America

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From the article:

Gold’s message was, on the whole, a tough sell in Alexander County. For one thing, the very reason he gained an audience — his business success — was part of the reason residents viewed him as different, set apart.

He also doesn’t live in the county, instead residing just outside it, in a luxurious Adirondack-style house with lakefront views. He drives a Bentley to the factory and hobnobs with celebrities, decorating his office and home with framed photos of himself with Barack Obama and Joe Biden and Cher.

Moreover:

Anna Watson, the associate executive director of OUTright Youth, works with LGBT teens and young adults in five counties in the region…and she has worked with its P.R.I.D.E. Club.

“We can’t take the stance of bashing the churches,” she said. Since so many educators attend conservative churches, she believes being critical of religion will only hinder her work….When I asked Gold about her viewpoint, he said, “I understand why she has to do that, but it is kind of silly because we do want to change everybody’s beliefs.”

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