[spokaneplumb]

Those two things already barely exist. I’m skeptical it’s possible, in a nation of hundreds of millions, to get them much closer to not existing than they already are.

So if those are the parts really bothering people… it sure seems like a case of looking for something to be upset about, in which case attempting to address their grievances won’t help. Or, a case of being told by people who are exaggerating the situation that these are actually really big deals, then not bothering to check whether that’s true. And in that second scenario, I don’t think making reality even closer to what they prefer than it already is will convince them of anything, so again, why bother to try to address their concerns?

Their perception is out of phase with what’s actually going on, that needs to be fixed before any useful discussion about some nugget of a point they may hypothetically have or helpful nuance their perspective might provide can meaningfully be engaged with.

[inglor_cz]

It is more like "outrageous things dominate the news cycle". It is not even a new thing; on a similar note, already in the 1990s, people started believing widely that child abduction from the street was a real danger in their own communities.

That said, the politicians meet the demand, sometimes to their own detriment. The Trump campaign could only deploy the "Trump is for you, Kamala is for they/them" slogan because Kamala herself, in 2020, felt the need to conform to then-prevailing winds and declare that she would fund gender-change surgeries for prisoners from taxpayers money.

Is that a thing? No, as far as we know, 0 prisoners asked for a taxpayer-funded gender change surgery before or after, and there was probably no risk for Kamala in 2020 if she brushed that question aside as marginal and irrelevant.

But she wanted to prove her progressive credentials on a thing that barely existed, and the thing that barely existed turned viciously against her four years later.

Maybe it would be better if politicians just didn't chase barely existing things in EITHER DIRECTION.

[spokaneplumb]

> The Trump campaign could only deploy the "Trump is for you, Kamala is for they/them" slogan because Kamala herself, in 2020, felt the need to conform to then-prevailing winds and declare that she would fund gender-change surgeries for prisoners from taxpayers money.

She was asked a question about it once by Fox, because Trump had brought it up, and answered that yes, she would follow the law and not deny medically necessary gender affirming care, and noted that the Trump administration had also followed the law in the same way. It was a response to an unfounded fact-free attack, prompted by a question from an unfriendly network. She didn’t bring it up again.

You have not found an example of a leftist politician chasing barely-existing things in this example—the opposite, in fact, she was playing defense to right wingers trying to make something out of nothing at all.

Do prominent democrats do this, on some topics? Probably! But they don’t have a media machine and strategy structured around that as a core activity.

[edit] I mean, they do this because it works, of course. Look at the thread on PG’s piece, and this one. It’s clearly working to get people riled up and shift the zeitgeist, reality be damned. “Welfare queens”, that was a fun one, and so successful that I bet 35+% of Americans who’ve heard the term still think it was an actual problem. Some fizzle (“they’re eating the pets!”) but they’re not punished for those instances, so why not endlessly throw out BS and see what sticks? Some of it does, and then we’re all talking about a bunch of basically-fake grievances instead of anything that matters, and they may even use the BS to advance positions that do affect things that matter. It’s so very tedious to deal with.

[jonfromsf]

The ACLU had her fill out a form where she agreed to that position in 2020. That’s why it was a topic that Fox could ask about. This is absolutely a case of a tiny minority making a point of making the candidate take a fringe position, or be bullied by the activist class.

[HDThoreaun]

This is not how politics works. Politics is about spectacle, not facts. In order to turn people pro-trans the movement needs to come out emphatically against those two things. Make a spectacle out of it. “We’re just like you” consistently works