Horrifying Republican response to Bishop's sermon

I am finding that element fascinating too, TheCourseoftheRiserChanged.

I don't think most people have come across the kind of Catholic social thought that was so influential in the first half of the 20th century, in particular. It was in a sense conservative, but also communitarian, and localist. It's absolutely suspicious of a big state, but also anti-corpratist and even anti-capitalist.

It was hugely influential in the co-op movement and the credit union movement. People influenced by it or involved include Dorothy Day who founded the Catholic Workers movement, Chesterton, and E.F. Schumacher, the economist who wrote "Small Is Beautiful".

It's wild to see that coming to practical political prominence under Trump, although I suspect Trump himself doesn't really have a clue about it. And it doesn't sit comfortably with the big tech millionaires who have also hitched their wagon to Trump.

But it does represent some really new influences on American politics, at least at that level, and I am extremely curious to see how it's going to play out.

Where are you getting this from?
Trump hasn't appointed anyone from the Heritage Foundation to his cabinet.
He has appointed a Hindu woman (sans kitchen sink), a gay man, several Jewish people, an unprecidented number of Catholics, inlcuding a Catholic unionist woman which still has my head reeling and lifts my hopes ever so slightly. Infact the biggest change I think is that the once Puritan USA is suddenly become culturally Catholic. Six out of nine supreme court judges, the VP, Secretary of State, Chief of Staff, Director of the CIA, and whatever Bobby Kennedy's son is going to be, remarkable state of affairs.
Trump owes the Evangelical faction(s?) of the Republican party nothing. If you're interested in where he's situated in terms of intra-Republican struggles this is an interesting listen and only half an hour (if it's accessible outside Australia):
https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/religionandethicsreport/the-untold-history-of-gay-republicans/104630136

I actually do agree with you that there is a huge degree of social media manipulation going on in the 2020s - Tumblr had its infamous Russian bots problem, during the Olympics Facebook was crawling with pro-Imane Khelif bot pages all with the exact same phrasing, you sometimes come across insane QAnon type conspiracy posts that look like they were generated with AI.

But biased moderation hasn't helped matters at all. For years almost all social media platforms had a very pro-progressive ethos - it is only very recently that things have begun to shift. They chose moderation teams with similar ideals to theirs, and those moderation teams tended to nuke the right-wing bot posts (and the humans agreeing with them) and allow the left-wing ones to proliferate. It's a downwards spiral from the first moment you apply an uneven hand. Is it really any wonder that Reddit, Tumblr and Bluesky (mostly former Twitter users) are so full of real-life radicals? And that groups like Reform are using this for their own political leverage?

I also want to push back slightly on the idea that people's concerns are being inflated out of all proportion. Even if proportionately few people are negatively affected to the point of losing a job or being raped in a mixed-sex ward or being arrested or being sucker-punched at a peaceful demonstration, those people have still been negatively affected. Additionally, anyone who hears about this realises it could happen to them too and maybe (especially if they're vulnerable) they reconsider speaking up at work or going to the hospital or writing that Twitter post or attending a protest. This is human nature. How many parents wrapped their kids in cotton wool after Madeleine went missing? How many people wore their seatbelts after Diana's car crash? How many people developed a fear of planes or tall buildings after 9/11? One victim or a million and whatever the odds of it happening to you, it can have a powerful effect on curtailing people's behaviour.

Thank you for your response, by the way - I think the role of social media and overseas / domestic lobby-group interference warrants a discussion, even though we may disagree on the exact whys and wherefores.

The people at the We Need To Talk meeting I went to back in 2018 weren't russian or chinese. We turned up because we were concerned about GRA reform and were encouraged by the Govt to participate in a consultation about it.

Any problems there are have been inflated out of all proportion

For many "problems", it only takes one instance for people to object, and rightly! "Out of proportion" isn't a thing for some matters.

• People have seen photos of male swimmers and athletes taking trophies and medals from women, and they have said "enough" because the acceptable number of women losing to a cheating man is zero.
• People saw rapist male Isla Bryson sent to a women's jail and rapist male Karen White convicted of sexually assaulting women in New Hall prison, and they have said "enough" because the acceptable number of women put at risk of rape by being housed with a male inmate is zero.
• People have seen men on Top 100 Women lists (Philip Bunce) and declared "first woman to do X", and they have said "enough" because the acceptable number of women whose recognition is stolen by men is zero.

You can't blow a problem out of all proportion if it shouldn't even happen once.

Your misogyny, which underpins your belief that people shouldn't object to these things if they "only" happen a few times to a few women, is glaringly obvious.

That's the ... exact same thing.

I don't understand this response. How is the left being captured by gender ideology responsible for Trump being a criminal and a sexual predator?

Use your words? Join activist groups? I'm not sure what you're finding so difficult about this particular concept, unless you're just being picky.

In case it's escaped your notice, there are lots of women doing just what you suggest. But many ordinary members of the Labour party and other leftist parties who have tried to change the party from within have found themselves ostracised and even thrown out of the party by expressing dissent with the party line on genderism.

What do you think would happen by talking or emailing a politician?

From my own personal experience of doing this I can tell you what happens. If I get a reply at all, what happens is that they attempt to avoid answering my questions about genderism or just repeat nonsense about things like how much they are doing for the LGBTQ+ community. So far, after a few dozen emails, I have not managed to have any sort of meaningful conversation about genderism from any political representative of a party which is captured by genderism.

I wrote to all the candidates in my constituency before the last general election. I got nothing back except an automated reply from some of them. I did get a phone call from Labour looking for my vote. I talked to them about my email and my disappointment at not receiving a reply, and spent a few minutes explaining to them about autogynephilia as they desperately tried to end the call. The Labour candidate wasn't elected, so no chance of a follow up.

The media has been heavily manipulative on the trans issue.

About 10 years ago I couldn't understand why a man pretending to be a woman had won a 'woman of the year' award.

I didn't understand why woman-hating men pretending to be women were given so much airtime to air their hateful views (like Paris Lees calling Germaine Greer a bigot).

I didn't understand why every time a man 'came out' as a man pretending to be a woman, the media fell over itself to fawn over him.

Then there were the 'Trans Kids' programmes which had me going WTF? Transsexual children? Really?

Then I found Mumsnet, and found I wasn't alone.

The media tried to manipulate me, but failed.

problems there are have been inflated out of all proportion to send populations into moral panic

There is a common misunderstanding, or propoganda, that objections to TRAs is primarily based on people fearing physical or sexual actual harm. However, what people fear is the loss of the definition and understanding of sex as a distinct category and a protected characteristic. There is nothing 'out of proportion' about this fear. This is the focus of the executive order.

I find that now people tend to say the same things when speaking about political issues - repeat the same log lines we see all over Twitter and other social media. That's due to manipulation.

Things like "transwomen are women", for example.

It will be if you see your aim or purpose here to convert or convince others to your exact persepctive.

I agree, if you had a dissenting attitude to GI, it was banning and ostracism on virtually all platforms. It was "discussed," but only as a stunning brave circle jerk, with a liberal garnish of "Death to TERFs!"

It's extremely dishonest to claim that GC views were permitted openly.

Mumsnet literally was the only place for quite a number of years. I've been posting here since 2017.....and at that time you simply could not discuss this issue freely anywhere else; and it was not being covered in the national media. In fact female journalists were being censured by the media outlets that many had previouslly subscribed to, such as the Guardian.

I don't engage with social media myself, apart from this forum, and one other specialist interest forum. What makes you so sure that you are not being manipulated? There seems to be an implication it is only those who perceive matters differently to you?

i suggest it is mainly those who are not naturally political creatures and who rely on twitter or social media for their info - regardless of affiliation or view - who are most susceptible to echo chambers and distortions.

Some parts of the Project 25 document are interesting, some I really don't like, some I'm indifferent to.

In the end it is a document created by a very political think tank. Donald Trump has not attached himself to it, in fact he's said he isn't interested. As far as his close advisors and cabinet - I imagine some may have an interest but by no means all - they aren't actually all that conservative a group.

This is part of what I am finding confusing about the responses, including from the OP.

For example, the statement that Trump intends to chain women to the kitchen sink? Where is the evidence of that? He's always had women in his cabinet, and in important positions in his administration He's not persued any policies that would actually accomplish those things.

It seems like something people have made up from whole cloth and impossible to take seriously.

Why not look at his (and anyone elses) actual policies and assess them on their merits instead of just making stuff up from thin air, and then getting all worried that he is going to do bad stuff based on what you have made up?

Personally what I'm seeing increasingly is people trying to reject alternative perspectives by putting everything down to Russian propoganda.

You talk about 'manipulation' as if everyone only forms their views by reading social media. (I, for one, don't actually own a smartphone and never have. I rejected the culture that goes with it). Some peopled are just naturally politically engaged. They read books, read history, take an interest in world affairs.

Until relatively recently there has been no media coverage of the clash of rights betwen transgender ideology and women's rights and protections; in fact coverage and discussion was suppressed. The Labour party mantra was " no debate". People were sacked, reprimanded at work and targeted for their understanding and coommitment to the reality of biological sex and to protecting women's integrity. People were also banned from twitter and from other forums, including this one - because it would be patrolled by ideological authoritarians seeking censure.

This forum, in fact, for many years was the only place this issue could be discussed - so it really isn't a case of manipulation in the way you suggest. That is actually quite patronising to suggest. that people cannot think for themselves or reject ideological imperatives that are being imposed on them. This has been a grassroots movement...not a top down one.

Sometimes foundations don't hold, and they have to be reconstructed. Or you discover the foundations on which you've built your house are not as secure as you previously thought.

When you shake free from previous certainties ( and it can be a liberation) - you start to be able to see life from different kinds of persepctive. And if you draw out even further you can see the whole show from above - and the various patterns at play; the way that imbalance in one part creates dysfunction in another...and so on. You realise that there are no fixed or firm political values for all time.

I'd say that much of the recent strand of authoritarianism is coming from the progressive left and from the politics of identity, grievance and intersectionality; and from a younger generation that seems very psychologically and emotionally fragile. The internet age and the addiction to social media has in large part fostered this; and has also led people to disengage from everyday lived reality and from face to face relationships with others - which leads to peope, being unable to cope with alternative perspectives, disagreement, or life's harsher edges. Hence the tendency to want to cancel and suppress or seek out 'safe' spaces.

Aligned to this comes a feeling of moral surety and a belief that only one's own views and solutions are correct and pure.Personally, I no longer find or centre my identify in Left/Right terms or prescriptions.

I don't think you are seeing the bigger picture when it comes to women. My sense is that the realities and consequences of being in a female body have been rejected by recent generations of women and this has led to a devaluing of traditional female roles. The sorts of roles that most women in the world still continue to play. Seeing the female body, pregnancy and motherhood only as an oppression or something to be terminated, has resulted in a backlash and a movement to re-establish the value in such roles. Very few ( and nobody here) are saying that women should be compelled into motherhood, though, or into staying home to look after their children if they don't want to,

I've had three children stayed home when they were young - and really enjoyed creating a home and a garden, and I still do. And I now have a granddaughter who we've had a lot of input and responsibility for because my daughter is a single parent. I think at heart most people want to get married or at least have stable long term relationships and to have family solidarity and connection, and most people still want to have children.

I also think this rejection of being female has in large part led to genderism - the idea that there are no real differences between the sexes, and that men and women are just the same just with different body parts. What woman wants to be 'a woman' when they perceive 'womanhood' only as a source of oppression or suffering or a set of limited prescriptions?

This. 💯

Although I score low on authoritarian traits!

What I see in the US, and increasingly globally, is a fall into authoritarianism.

Why do you think that is though? Why do you think people have begun to push back quite strongly on the ideas of strong individualism, rules and boundaries only existing to be "queered", and so forth?

This is my perspective on it.

Most people want to live in a stable functioning society with some clear boundaries of acceptable behaviour, in the same way that most children want this for their families. People do not tend to enjoy anarchy. People like to feel part of communities, not a lonely island in a sea of selfish neighbours only looking out for themselves. People don't enjoy having to guess where the boundaries are. And generally speaking, people only enjoy hedonism and self indulgence (very individualistic behaviours) for a short amount of time before they start feeling unfulfilled.

As a slightly north of centre authoritarian myself, the fact we're swinging so far in this direction should be cause for concern and reflection, but politicians seem to care more about the left-right swing.

The other reason is that if one group asserts authoritarian tendencies (e.g. trying to get people fired for disagreement, threatening with physical violence, forcing and bullying themselves into a place where they can influence law and so on) then the libertarian social contract has been broken. You can't live and let live if one group is insisting you do things their way or else.

The detail of gender confusion is not the point at all. She was speaking for all those in the US who now feel (and are) very vulnerable.

But it's not gender critical beliefs that make people with trans identities vulnerable. Their vulnerability is increased by perpetuating the belief that people who understand the material nature of sex, and reject ideas about gender, are dangerous and their views are harmful. This creates a false perception of harm. There are many people with trans identities who are friends with people with GC beliefs, and people with GC belief who love their 'trans relatives' unconditionally. They can disagree with each other's views and feelings without letting this contaminate the rest of the relationship.

It illiberal, absolute and authoritarian thinking that leads to problems. Whether this is coming from MAGA or TRAs

The bishop was talking about compassion, a central Christian tenet. That is her job; that is what she is paid for.

The detail of gender confusion is not the point at all. She was speaking for all those in the US who now feel (and are) very vulnerable.

You're trying to move the goalposts now. Give over.

And you are still writing from a position of assuming that women on this board support Trump, whatever "support" even means.

The Dems are responsible for making themselves unelectable. Trump in the White House is a natural consequence of them doing so.