so reading the pundits take on the American election, the general takeaway is that Kama losing was trans people's fault.
Apparently, we are such a threat to the wellbeing of the US that because she didn't join the Republicans in declaring us subhuman was the difference.
This would worry me a little less if this wasn't the overall opinion of Republican and Democrat pundits, which means I fully expect the Democrats to throw us under the bus.
The best parallel I can think of is the internment of Japanese Americans during World War 2, where nobody stood up for their Constitutional rights, and to this day, nobody has even so much as apologized.
Sighs, I was looking forward to a quiet old age, instead I am getting this, and I honestly don't know how to bear it.
Comments
Trans was a side-story
The trans ads (especially the ads about immigrant trans prisoner surgery) were aimed at getting black men to vote for Trump. We now have the first trans woman elected to Congress, Sarah McBride. That is a much bigger deal for the trans community.
There were several reasons why Harris lost, starting with her skipping the primaries. I think the thing that hurt her the most was not distancing herself from Biden (who had one of the lowest approval ratings). In her visit on The View, she was asked if there was anything she would have done differently over the past 4 years. Her reply of "there is nothing that comes to mind" was made into one of Trumps most effective ads. Over the last two weeks of the campaign at least half of her ads were just bashing Trump. The people that loved that ads were already voting for her. She lost this election over the economy and the two wars.
Here in Michigan, we have a very trans friendly state, but we also have one of the largest Arab populations in the US. Michigan voted for Biden in 2020 but Trump this year. The war in the Ukraine just escalated again last night with the largest drone attacks on the Ukraine (145 Iranian Shahed drones launched) and the largest drone attack on Moscow. And the war in the Middle East has lasted far too long. Jimmy Carter lost the 1976 election to Ronald Reagan over his failure in the Iranian hostage event.
Harris won more voters making over $100k than Trump did. But Trump won more votes from the working class. The Democrats won the NE states and the left coast but only 19 of 50 states. The Democrats need to look at the results of the loss to one of the most unpopular persons (Trump) and figure out how to fix this.
Blaming Harris' loss on the trans community is just silliness. :DD
DeeDee
It is silliness .
Bu sadly it is silliness which the idiots who run the big parties will believe.
We had the same in the UK. It's worse for my dear friends in Scotland. The Scottish Nationalists stood up for "trans rights" ( actually self certification, which is just plain stupidity. I had to get a Gender Recognition Certificate from a Trick Cyclust It wasn't hard. You tell the truth. Live a "real life test". Get a certificate). Sadly it became a political football and the Tories, the Tory press, a well known author of pseudo public school crap and even the Labour party are now trying to make us the "bad gals" (Thanks JK, love your work). The important thing is to remember, it's not us. It's them. I don't hate anybody. If people hate me, that's their problem.
Lucy xxx
"Lately it occurs to me..
what a long strange trip its been."
Kamala's Loss was... Kamala's fault!
Plain and simple. She did not do the math, did not do the work needed to win.
She can blame herself for the loss, not us. I did MY WORK. She needed to do hers...
Sephrena
I thought you were going to say
Canadians. I've seen everyone else but Martians blamed and they wanted to complete the list. The biggest factor was simply a failure to show just how good the economy is right now. The administration can't claim much credit for that but they got all of the blame for a perceived bad economy.
Nope it is the voter's fault
It is a failure of basic character recognition by voters.
Take for example in the state of Maryland, the democratic candidate for the Senate, Alsobrooks is in a bit of hot water over some housing tax laws she is in trouble for. As far as I can tell, there were ads that attacked her for that which I would assume came from the Republican party trying to get their candidate, Hogan, elected.
That is a bit of wholesale hypocrisy as those same folks' is a candidate for a far more important office who has done things that are far more egregious than local tax law violations.
So, should she be accountable for it as part of the character litmus test? Hell yes, but of course you know the pot calling the kettle thing.
So yes, Harris being dumped into it at the last minute did not help at all but even then the voter should never have voted for a grifter who would never keep any of his promises and is now beholden to a whole bunch of vicious special interest groups.
Character should be the first priority but clearly he was elected due to voter passion and not by voter logic.
There is an old saying: Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
Side note
The Orange One was asked why trans were targeted and he blatantly said it enhanced 'engagement' as voters reacted to it well so it played well into his twisted drive to avoid jail by getting elected.
But of course that little use of us as 'red meat' for increasing his base comes at a cost to us. Among which (I learned this from an acquaintance at TransWeek I just attended) is in Texas, they are planning to force trans folks who had done name changes due to gender change in that state to revert it back.
Keep this thread alive
That is all
20/20 Hindsight
It is easy to criticize Kamala's performance and ascribe reasons for it now that the dust is settling. Personally, watching from Australia, I thought she did a pretty good job. Sure, she should have prioritized the economy IMHO, but that's just me. The LGBTQ+ vote wouldn't have saved her.
The facts are that 74.4 million people voted for Trump, compared with 74.2 million in 2020, scarcely a landslide.
In 2020 81 million voted Democrat and in 2024 71 million, a collapse of about 14%. That means that 10 million stayed at home.
We can speculate as to why that was, with all sorts of reasons from the effects of the Gaza war on Arab-Americans, to the loss of Latino and Black males, the economy, etc, etc.
I believe that a proportion of US males (and some women) were just not ready for a woman President and particularly one of colour. It was bigotry that cost Kamala.
That's just my theory and you are free to disagree with me.
Proof
This election is proof that you can't go wrong underestimating the integrity and intelligence of the American voter. We succeeded in running Nixon out of office for crimes he might have committed (not proven at the time of the election). Yet we (the voters) elected a man who is actually a convicted felon. Way to go, America.
Honestly, I'd rather have Nixon than Trump.
“When a clown moves into a palace, he doesn’t become a king. The palace becomes a circus.” - Turkish Proverb
So many reasons to say no!
But it has become acceptable to support a man who raped a woman. The bar has descended underground.
Love, Andrea Lena