Trump has peaked

it occurs to me that lots of American women are probably having an ‘Oh shit, not HIM’ moment that is very similar to the one Boris Johnson prompted in many of us last year.

Perhaps it might be somewhat cheering to hear that while his comments did definitely make some of the left dig in even harder, it also helped to break the weird spell of unspoken, but completely common beliefs.

The grownups on the UK left are only now beginning to panic and back pedal, but the they did get a little bit worse before it started to get better.

Hopefully similar will happen in the US, and now that Trump has blasted the subject out into the open, someone like Tulsi Gabbard will, in comparison, now sound very reasonable, even though some of her positions are more or less identical to those Trump is reciting in the video

These clips are from March and April 2022

Thanks for correction - it’s easy to miss nuance/details/misinterpret when you are thousands of miles away!

Thanks for taking the correction so graciously. As a Yank, I have a vested interest in following this all very closely.

Trump is a misogynist, so his support on this is for completely different reasons than the views most here hold (and in any case Trump doesn't hold values other than self-worship, as far as I can see).

It's a bit like him wanting the meat he eats as veal to actually be veal rather than pork identifying as veal. Many American right-wing men hold equally dehumanising ideas about female people as the inclusive lot which calls as by our body parts.

So no, Trump doesn't care about women's rights here. He just wants to win again.

In the US, the extremely polarised political situation does mean that it becomes much harder to convince those not on the right in politics that women's traditional rights and concerns do matter without looking like someone who supports Trump etc.

The problem is that now both political extremes view being a woman as a bundle of sexist stereotypes, but progressives can't accept that this is happening to them, too. So they will hold on to their righteous crown as justice fighters for the most marginalised minority ever, while also accepting the idea that women's names, words, spaces, awards etc. can all be erased. They justify this as fair because they are still for the reproductive rights for all people, not only for men, but also for vulva people and womb-carriers and gestation-capable people etc.

Sigh. The situation in the US is ghastly.

Thanks for correction - it’s easy to miss nuance/details/misinterpret when you are thousands of miles away!

I follow many left-leaning, ‘progressive’, often US-based accounts on Instagram.

Believe me, when I say the thousands and thousands of comments are anti-Trump, and even dragging JKR into and aligning her with him, on this message from him.

We think light is finally shining on the topic. But is it? It’s very hard to keep the hope up when I see that.

DeSantis is an interesting figure, 30 years younger the Trump & Biden with an exemplary 15 year record in the Navy (retiring at the rank of Lieutenant commander). He went to Yale and Harvard and played for Yale’s Baseball team.

His military service is very helpful politically, but this exaggerates it somewhat. He joined the navy in 2004 and was discharged in 2010, so six years on active duty, not 15. And you're not considered to have retired from the military unless you've done 20 years of service.

en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_DeSantis

This is a thread that could be on AIBU don’t you think?

Trump is such a public figure and generally unpopular here that it could say, AIBU to agree with Trump about this?

Then people who do not know what has been happening, and who never go on FWR because they don’t think of themselves feminists, would get a glimmer

Absolutely. He’d say anything, absolutely anything, to get votes. He doesn’t have any genuine beliefs at all. I remember how he was pro-choice (or didn’t care either way) until he realised that to get Republican votes you need to be pro-life, so off he went in that direction.

Can you imagine how furious Trump is that his biggest rival this time around is known for images like this?

And just the one marriage, unlike Trump!

DeSantis is an interesting figure, 30 years younger the Trump & Biden with an exemplary 15 year record in the Navy (retiring at the rank of Lieutenant commander). He went to Yale and Harvard and played for Yale’s Baseball team.

He’s everything, Trump aka ‘Cadet Bone Spurs’ would like to be, basically.

Plus, DeSantis has been an elected politician for ten years already, starting in Congress before becoming Governor of Florida, all his dirty laundry has long been rifled through.

DeSantis chose a Latina woman, Jeanette Nuñez, as his running mate/ lieutenant governor & his wife Casey, is a TV presenter and makes for a very personable potential First Lady. He’s very popular with socially conservative black and Hispanic voters (who the Democrats take for granted).

Trump is WILD with jealousy and desperately trying to take DeSantis down. Today’s video on Gender is Trump blatantly copying DeSantis’ homework.

This.

Wow, talk about not f#£_ing around.

If he gets in (a strong possibility I'm told), then this could be huge. It came from America, it ends in America?

I do wonder whether it's too strong and will get a kickback - but obviously I can't disagree with.aby of what he's said . He needs to get all kiddies off social media though as it's coming from there more so than in the schools.

Is this how you stop a social contagion? Prohibition?

Having seen all this Scottish Prison stuff I think I'd like critical thinking being taught in schools too.

Thanks for that, Nicola, i'm only halfway through but it's really interesting. Next to Trump, he sounds a lot more rational, but I know what you mean - (reading between his lines).

But on the other hand, he's not as (faux) outraged as Trump.

He hasn't gone for the jugular.

I guess that will count in his favour with some and not with others.

Interesting though, that it's become a real political issue.

The gender stuff starts from about 7:50 on the DeSantis clip, btw - he starts with sports.

Here’s DeSantis from 3 months ago:

He’s got 3 preschool/infant school age kids himself and I think he really does understand what’s going on with kids right now, it’s not 75% autocue as it is with Trump.

His language makes me wince a bit but that’s probably because I’m an oldschool sandal weaving lefty who is still coming to terms with losing Labour to IDPOL and still can’t quite cope with people who say ‘Blame Marxism’ - even though I know that if you dig all the way through Queer theory to it’s roots, that’s the germinating seed.

(I suppose my wincing is a bit like when new posters turn up here and tell us off for calling transwomen men. They know we aren’t wrong but it still feels shocking and takes them some time to recalibrate)

Exactly. There will be a lot of stuff that people, especially parents who he is specifically targeting, who simply don't know about any of it and this is absolutely going to force the issue.

What do you mean 14-year-olds are getting double mastectomies, citation please?

Sure

<Produces umpteen yeet the teet photos>.

Orange man good . Hes going for the full hit including the teachers. 😊👍

I would imagine a lot of registered Republican voters will recognise this as stolen from Ron, who seems to be a very big threat to Trump (presumably why Trump has copy pasted almost directly!)

I don’t think Trump will get the GOP nomination this time around, but I would imagine a lot of normies, both in the US and beyond (including here) are currently unaware that schools transition kids without parental permission? They’ve likely noticed the sports thing, maybe the prisons, but they likely won’t know that some ‘trans kids’ are hidden from their parents.

I think Trump is repugnant and no friend to women. But pushing back gender politics and punishing those complicit in the brainwashing and mutilation of children and the erosion of women's rights is going to be a formidable task. It's never going to happen if we wait for nice people with all the right beliefs to do it, we need powerful people. Even if it means holding our noses for a while.

Yep, he's not going after the die-hard democrats, he's going after the floating voters in the middle. And they might just be convinced by it too when they start publicising what's happening in schools (amongst other places).
The main problem with DT doing this is a lot of people are "orange man bad" and will automatically say whatever the opposite opinion is. It'll definitely bring sunlight though.

He’s just hoovering up a rival’s policy.

This time it’s a primary rival, Ron DeSantis, but he’s done the same thing with Bernie Sanders in the past.

He’s keen on snagging the sorts of people we sometimes call Blue Labour, the red wall -type voters.

But he is, isn't he?

Biden needs to convince people he's not radio controlled.

Trump really hasn't changed his view on this, it seems the same as it was before.

There is a reason he's resonated with so many people, why in the second term he even increased his votes from black and Hispanic voters.he is generally pretty good at putting his finger on what "regular" people are thinking and messaging in that direction - he may have now undone that with the stuff that happened after the election, but up until then his messaging was effective. And Biden has totally fucked any chance he had of convincing those same people that he is a moderate middle ground guy.

Personally I agree with him but is it too extreme? Will people think "I can't be on the same side as Trump"
Sturgeon was lampooned because she said that people who disagreed with her were transphobes, homophobes and racists. She attacked people instead of engaging in sensible discussion.
We need to do the reverse: Trump is not everyone's cup of tea (understatement!) but does that automatically make him wrong on this subject? Engage with the debate, not the debater. An ad hominem attack is a poor argument.