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Feminism: Sex and gender discussions

Trump and LGBT+ Voting

81 replies

Sunscreeneveryday · 05/11/2020 06:48

I was looking at the Sky news breakdown of the US Exit polls, showing how different groups voted.

According to the data from Sky, those who voted Yes to the question "Are you gay, lesbian, bisexual or transgender?" overwhelmingly voted for Trump (76%).

It's early and I haven't slept much, can anyone explain this? My brain really hasn't woken up yet.

Trump and LGBT+ Voting
OP posts:
PhilSwagielka · 06/11/2020 09:49

Anyone who thinks Trump is an ally to LGB people is kidding themselves, but then Mumsnet is pretty shit about lesbian and bi women. I feel like we don’t matter and giving a shit about us and policies that may harm us is ‘woke’. Thanks for that.

Biden isn’t woke. I don’t know why you lot think he is. He’s the safest, most milquetoast candidate they had. Someone like Buttigieg wouldn’t have got through. Can you imagine how the Republicans would act if the Dems had a gay leader?

Are you all fans of Amy Coney Barrett too?

PhilSwagielka · 06/11/2020 09:50

[quote Mrsfrumble]@StandWitch I read an interesting article yesterday about Cubans in Miami Dade voting Trump as a reaction to the perceived wokeness of Biden and the Democrats. It mentioned a dislike of the term “Latinx” which they felt was unnecessary and being imposed on them from outside the community, and being lumped in with Mexicans as a poor, victim minority. I’ll see if I can find it and post the link.[/quote]
Not just Cubans, other Latin people say they hate it cos it doesn’t make sense in Spanish and you’re better off using Latine.

PhilSwagielka · 06/11/2020 09:52

@DidoLamenting

Being left wing and being woke is not at all the same thing

George Galloway is one of the least woke people on the planet and very left wing as is Brendan O'Neill.

The likes of Owen Jones and Ash Sarkar would have conniptions if you told them they were political bedfellows of Galloway and O'Neill but they will share many views.

George Galloway is also antisemitic and anti-abortion. No thanks.

Oh, sorry, is it woke to care about repro rights now?

HumanFemale1 · 06/11/2020 10:13

I don't see why is this confusing, Biden said he plans to pass the Equality Act within 100 days of his presidency and that trans rights are the civil rights of our time, LGBT people are more aware of the trans bs than the average person so voted to stop that.

Shedbuilder · 06/11/2020 10:47

PhilSwagielka, you do realise that quite a few of us here are lesbians, don't you? I am, for one, and I know that woke comes in all guises — from people on the right who are virtue-signalling, through to misogynistic and homophobic members of Momentum.

DidoLamenting · 06/11/2020 11:24

George Galloway is also antisemitic and anti-abortion. No thanks

Not sure what your point is- I was just pointing out it is possible to be non- woke and left wing.

Oh, sorry, is it woke to care about repro rights now?

Not sure what your point is here either. I'm on the right politically and very far from woke. If by repro rights" you mean abortion I am pro- choice.

I

PhilSwagielka · 06/11/2020 12:12

That's what I mean, yes. Abortion, family planning, contraception etc. And my point is that George Galloway has a fair bit in common with conservatives - a lot of people on the far left do. Not liking Jews much, for instance. I'd have thought socialists would be pro-choice but Galloway is Catholic IIRC, maybe that's why he's a forced-birther.

@Shedbuilder I'm glad. I've seen some support in here for horrible homophobic fundie twats just because they're anti-trans, and fundies do not have a good track record when it comes to LGB people.

'Woke' on Mumsnet, honest to G-d, seems to mean 'anyone who cares about anything other than class'. I thought 'woke' specifically referred to black American social consciousness. So Bernie Sanders isn't woke but Biden is now?

And why would LGB people want to vote Republican when Republicans have a consistent track record of shitting on us? You really think people like Pence are on our side and won't make things more difficult for LGB people?

DidoLamenting · 06/11/2020 12:19

I'd have thought socialists would be pro-choice but Galloway is Catholic IIRC, maybe that's why he's a forced-birther

The Labour Party in Scotland when it was a real force relied heavily in Glasgow and the west on the Catholic, working class vote. I doubt that voter segment was in favour of abortion.

You have a rather simplistic way of looking at things- if one believes x, then you must believe z,y and a,b,c too.

rivierliedje · 06/11/2020 12:57

Really that politicL compass is very good and applies all over the world. Being on the lefr economically does nor imply being liberal on social issues. Ir can and the two do sometimes fo together. But they are two seperate scales.
Also a lesbian and hild no illusions that republicans are good for lgb. They aren't at all. But that does not make Biden a socialist or even all that socially liberal. He falls not far from the conservatives and the DUP on both scales (much closer to them than to labour for example)

nauticant · 06/11/2020 13:31

Trump's success with Latin voters was down to this line being accepted uncritically by many:

"Biden is a socialist."

DidoLamenting · 06/11/2020 13:56

@nauticant

Trump's success with Latin voters was down to this line being accepted uncritically by many:

"Biden is a socialist."

That was mentioned several times in interviews with Floridian voters.

The Democrats are to the right of mainstream Conservatives in the UK. The telling point is health care. No Conservative government is ever going to replace the NHS with a private health care system (despite the scaremongering on the left).

No Democratic administration is going to introduce an NHS system.

transdimensional · 06/11/2020 14:31

@StandWitch

There were HUGE swings to Trump among Cubans in Miami-Dade, who voted overwhelmingly for him.

He also gained very large swings in 95%+ Hispanic areas in Texas.

I think the left in the UK has already learned that it can't take its so-called client vote for granted, as in Northern England & the Midlands. This is the latest lesson.

Of course, they shouldn't take them for granted. But Miami-Dade's relationship to the Democratic party is scarcely comparable to that of northern English heartlands to Labour: (1) Miami-Dade voted Republican in the 1980, 1984 and 1988 presidential elections, (2) Biden's vote in Miami-Dade, at 53%, is slightly above what the Democrats gained there in 2004, 2000, significantly below what Clinton won there in 1992, and only slightly below what Clinton won there in 1996.

Either way, as others have said, Trump has certainly pushed the Democrats=socialists equation hard, and takes a harder line on both Cuba and Venezuela than his predecessor did.

Because of its Cuban exile makeup the Latino vote in Florida isn't really comparable to that elsewhere. Whatever happened in Texas, overall Biden is projected to win 46% of the vote in Texas, the highest vote share for a Democratic candidate there since 1976. And in many places such as Arizona and Nevada the Latino vote is partly credited with the fact that these places are increasingly in play in presidential elections (whether or not Biden wins them this time round).

A better analogy for Labour taking N England for granted would probably be provided by how Trump was able to seize the rust-belt states such as Michigan, Penn and Wisconsin, last time round. Still, all three of those were won by Ron Reagan twice, so again not all that close an analogy; the Labour heartland didn't contribute to Thatcher's landslides.

StandWitch · 06/11/2020 19:00

The Democrats won the 1988 Texas Senate race with 59% of the vote. Trump will have won Texas with a bigger margin than Bush in 92 or Dole in 96.

Nevada has always been in play - it only failed to vote for the winning candidate in 2016 and 1976, in the last century.

Arizona has flipped because of an increasing Hispanic population, but also because of educated white migrants, largely from California.

www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/11/06/chillingeffect-gave-red-state-arizona-doseof-blues/

It's probably not a good idea to compare Miami-Dade now to 32 years ago - the Hispanic population was 35% in 1980, 49% in 2000, and around 69% today.

The equation for the Republicans is very different to the Conservatives - the US has a large minority population, and states such as Arizona will be majority-Hispanic in a decade or so.

Biden has won this election by spending lots of money campaigning towards white voters in Pennsylvana, Wisconsin & Michigan, which he has recaptured. Trump has won the largest Republican minority vote share since 1960, despite Black Lives Matter, despite being an evil racist, and so on www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/once-again-democrats-have-misunderstood-minorities/2020/11/05/6d55d668-1fa6-11eb-ba21-f2f001f0554b_story.html

The Tories don't need to care at all that they are no longer a force in Bradford, Yardley, Slough, Luton and other constituencies with large Muslim populations that they held or performed well in under Thatcher & Major.

Clearly most religions tend to be extremely conservative socially, whereas both the Democrats & Labour are socially very liberal. The black population of the US votes almost exclusively for the Democrats, but it is not a significantly growing force. Trump won Mississippi with 60% of the vote, while the population is 37% black, while Pennsylvania will give Biden the White House while it is 80%+ white.

'Minorities' are not a single group - the Tories have held Harrow East against trends in London by appealing to Indian voters (as distinct from other South Asians).

In the current US election then a few hundred thousand extra Hispanic voters in Arizona over the last however many years will certainly have helped the Democrats, but it's simultaneously possible for their to be more Hispanic voters but for those voters to be less Democrat-voting than in the past.

You need to appeal to the right voters in the right places to win elections - Corbyn did well in 2017 by appealing to middle-class liberals, but he was trounced in 2019 when working-class white voters abandoned generational support for Labour and switched en masse. It remains to be seen this is a permanent realignment - e.g., conservative parts of the South still have many Democrat remnants, such as Joe Manchin who won the Senate seat held by Democrat Ku Klux Klan leader Robert Byrd. Manchin himself is not a KKK member, but he does vote against abortion and so on and take pains to say that he is a conservative Democrat, because otherwise he would be toast before his extremely socially conservative constituents.

In the UK there are all kinds of Momentum types who hold seats where they have little in common with their constituents. That was true for many decades, e.g., the Peter Mandelson, a member of the Hampstead elite won thumping majorities in Hartlepool, as did Blair (Fettes & Oxford) himself in Sedgefield, symbolically captured by the Tories for the first time since WW2 in 2019.

I recently read this article in The Grauniad about a journalist who moved to Portland from London, and she was horrified that the US was not as liberal as she hoped www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2020/oct/31/we-left-the-uk-for-portland-expecting-a-liberal-dream-that-wasnt-the-reality

It would seem that culture war issues should be more off-putting to voters in the US than in the UK since there are more of them - the UK religious vote is often Muslim and Labour-voting in spite of this, while the Christian vote is hardly an electoral force. Yet apparently Biden has just won an election by being slightly more appealing to educated white voters following 4 years of BLM, trans rights, and such like, while being less appealing to minority voters.

Clearly the likes of the Lib Dems & Momentum are batshit insane on trans issues, but I doubt that will stop them eventually doing all their craziness - if it doesn't put off enough voters in the US, it's not likely to do so in the UK.

Although perhaps without Trump the Democrats would have been hammered handily. And without covid, of course, he should have won at a canter.

DidoLamenting · 06/11/2020 21:31

Not on point but here is John McCain's concession speech. I doubt we'll hear anything as gracious from Trump.

The timing was wrong for McCain and he was saddled with Sarah Palin. There has to a Republican president at some point and it's a pity he didn't get the chance.

StandWitch · 08/11/2020 07:23

On-topic, Day 1 Biden is likely to rescind Trump's transgender military executive order.

In addition, Biden Cabinet picks on Education and Justice are certain to restore Obama-era rules allowing transgender criminals to switch to female prisons, and transgender students to use the facilities of their choice, while the Housing & Urban Development Secretary will nix new rules allowing women's shelters to exclude transwomen. The Secretary for Health will restore rules on health insurance covering transgender-related treatments, and there will be an end to support for female athletes in athletics. There will also be further extensions to 'non-binary' identity, and numerous other measures related to transgender rights.

queenofknives · 08/11/2020 09:07

I think a narrow and slightly ambiguous win for the dems is possibly the best outcome. The woke left are framing it as "white surpremacy" that trump increased his share of black/latino/LGBT vote but the dems now should be aware that the woke policies push people to the right. Maybe a new balance can be established from this. I suspect if trump won there would be increased rioting and violence by BLM/Antifa - might still happen but harder to justify now and will expose them much more. I don't think there's anything good about the dems right now. They are extremely corrupt. But it looks like they won't have the Senate and therefore won't be able to get anything done, so maybe there can be a time of recalibration. I hope.

LadyWithLapdog · 08/11/2020 09:26

How are the Dems extremely corrupt?

queenofknives · 08/11/2020 09:45

Sorry, I meant to say the whole 2-party system is corrupt and both parties are corrupt. They are interested in getting power and staying in power, and using that power to further their personal interests (check out Hunter Biden's emails, oh sorry you can't, they've been censored...) I'm not saying the Republicans are great and the Democrats are bad. They're both horrendous. Neither party has anything of value to offer; the only hope I hold out is that as neither side got a convincing victory, some kind of balancing influence will have to come to bear, or maybe a viable third party will arise. I liked the idea of Unity 2020 although I think it was all a bit of a shambles - but maybe now there's a chance for something like that to come through.

LadyWithLapdog · 08/11/2020 10:01

Wow, that takes some intellectual effort to think Rep and Dem have nothing to offer. I don’t think I’m interested anymore. Just a brief foray into the feminist section and it’s not at all what I expected. Disappointing.

queenofknives · 08/11/2020 10:09

I'm not speaking for all the feminists on mumsnet!! God forbid. I'm only speaking for myself and how I see what's going on. Other people have different views, as you'll see if you read through this thread or others.

Here's an article from the very left-wing woke publication The Guardian which comments on Democrat party corruption. I'm sure there are loads of different aspects to this discussion but it definitely doesn't take any intellectual effort to see the moral bankruptcy in both parties and the lack of any unifying vision or policies that will defend US democracy. www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/oct/11/hunter-biden-democrats-joe-biden-ukraine-trump

Shedbuilder · 08/11/2020 10:10

What's so disappointing? That we're not all whoop-di-doop about Biden rolling out a pro-trans agenda?

queenofknives · 08/11/2020 11:35

This is the analysis I was waiting for. Not saying it's unbiased in any way, but at least they set their biases out and you can see they try to be fair and take in different perspectives.

LadyWithLapdog · 08/11/2020 11:41

Pro-trans is pro-equality agenda and I don’t see how that’s a bad thing. Get over it.

LadyWithLapdog · 08/11/2020 11:43

What’s disappointing is that the majority of threads get turned into this endless discussion about toilets.

queenofknives · 08/11/2020 12:00

Pro-trans is pro-equality agenda and I don’t see how that’s a bad thing. Get over it.

Amazing. What a fantastically convincing argument.

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