There's a WOMAN in the White House (nearly)

[ReallyRatherNerdy]

Finding this very emotional. Dancing round the kitchen. Anyone else?

As an American, here’s how I see it.

Neither Biden or Harris is “woke”.

They won by a tiny margin, mostly because they are not woke.

Nevertheless the progressive authoritarians are going to be lobbying like hell their issues. It’s our job to lobby like hell the other direction.

If you’re American, join the WHRC, or other affiliated groups. Get organized. Don’t lose hope - in fact we should be the MOST hopeful now than ever. There is a chance with divided government to create legislation that is sane and reflects the opinion of the majority of Americans, that trans women and men are worthy of Protections in law against employment and housing discrimination (which unlike in the Uk they do not currently have), but that this should not be done in such a way as to violate The rights of women to fair sport and a reasonable expectation of privacy.

There are two major routes of attack. One, help to work to pass the ERA if you are in a state that has not (or donate to those states). The ERA is a proper way to defend women’s rights as it uses sex (not gender) and leaves up to courts to decided exactly how to interpret.

Second, women’s groups are organizing to amend the Equality Act to protect gay and trans peoples rights via sex stereotyping and sexual orientation rather than the undefined “gender” as currently written. These clarifications should make the bill palatable to some moderate republicans (Susan Collins et al) or make them look bad for opposing it. It will obviously also protect anyone who is gender nonconforming which actually protects more people than as written currently.

Women in the US need to organise and resist, but there's no way that another four years of Trump would have been a good thing for women's rights.

also this. With trump nothing could happen to improve the situation or clarify it in law. The progressive left has Trump derangement syndrome. All he need to do is say is the sky is blue and the media would scream and shout what a bigot he is, can’t he see it’s purple basically and what even is color, how racist. Trump for 4 more years HARMS our ability to solve this or almost any issue.

Forum next week on amending the EA by women’s group feminists in struggle - t.co/oDAYpVjYe0

They’re on Twitter too.

My sister and I live in the US and didn't want Trump or Biden to win, and she's anti-abortion. Then when Trump lost, we both became so happy. We've been texting back and forth all day about the joy and peace we feel now that Trump lost, like a huge weight has been lifted off the country. It feels like a great evil has been conquered.

I sincerely believe Biden won’t last a whole term so Harris will be president. I’m pretty comfortable with that although dislike the sneakiness of putting someone up who you know isn’t healthy enough to do the full term. She’s not particularly left wing despite what the republican supporters cry. Got slated by her own party and the black community because of being an Attorney General and locking people up

The guy has serious dementia issues. I know it was a Republican attack slur but doesn’t mean it’s not true. Doesn’t know where he is or who he’s speaking about half the time and is being held up on a stick. Was a choice of a deranged person or a dementia one. President is a hard non stop job. Not saying Trump was ever normal but it took its toll and diminished him further. No way Biden can manage the workload and will have to be propped up and you can’t fake or re-record live broadcasts

I found your post really informative FWRLurker. Thanks. Good to hear that there is some hope for US women and girls if action is taken now.

trans women and men are worthy of Protections in law against employment and housing discrimination

I had no idea that this wasn't already the case in the US. Trans people should of course have these rights.

Dementia is something that requires an in-depth assessment to diagnose. It is really not something that a layperson can definitively diagnose from watching someone's televised speeches, or a former urologist who happens to be an elected Republican House rep can diagnose as it's not their area of expertise.

Biden is (to me) disappointingly elderly and it's possible he could die or become incapacitated in office. A number of US presidents have died in office, often from assassination, so it's always good to keep a sharp eye on their running mate.

Pretending you can diagnose a medical condition when you have no expertise to do so is highly irresponsible.

She makes Priti Patel look like a benevolent humanitarian by all accounts. Her record as Attorney General is appalling. She even appealed a court decision that California's death penalty was unconstitutional. On the other hand, if her accession encourages women to get into politics that can only be a good thing.

@TheNighthawk

I’m happy there is a female VPOTUS, but I’m not happy about it being KH. Not happy about how she climbed the ladder to get there or many of her views. There are many better qualified more deserving women that should be there, like Condoleezza Rice for example

This.

Except I think the sex of the person is irrelevant. It is their views that matter.

The celebration of the achievement of office simply because that person is a certain category or identity is utterly spurious. Look at the exhilaration when Obama won office as a POC, yet he was a disappointment - complete waste of time.

Both Biden and Harris are beyond contempt IMO.
Biden - friend of murderers and terrorists - Harris liberal leftie and destroyer of women's rights.

It is also a puzzle to me that Americans who have even a molecule of Irish DNA feel they have the right to meddle in Irish affairs.

Wtf? If you mean supporting the Good Friday Peace Agreement then his DNA is irrelevant surely.

Maybe Joe can have a word in her shell like about how the death penalty is not really a cool progressive idea then?

Of course I understand the euphoria at getting rid of Trump. But I also think that, when you want the party you support to listen to your concerns, then the best time to get their attention is before an election, while they need your votes. I am not saying this because I enjoy picking at scabs - although I know that's how it sounds. I'm saying it because I think more of us - and this includes the UK -need to learn to play hardball.

So on that note, please can someone explain the Senate runoff in Georgia to this Brit?

@ClarenceBoddicker

I sincerely believe Biden won’t last a whole term so Harris will be president. I’m pretty comfortable with that although dislike the sneakiness of putting someone up who you know isn’t healthy enough to do the full term. She’s not particularly left wing despite what the republican supporters cry. Got slated by her own party and the black community because of being an Attorney General and locking people up

Well yes. I struggle with the acceptance of the sneakiness because it's Someone We Like too. It feels manipulative and untrustworthy. You either support the democratic process or you don't. We can't turn a blind eye just to get rid of the person we don't like. I believe it's dangerous path to go down and there will be a price to pay.

I’ve noticed a few people - friends in real life but also on places like MN - insisting that any black public figure is “woke” when most black people you ask usually don’t agree with that characterisation at all. I’m starting to think it’s a way of saying “person of colour who talks about racism more than I’m comfortable with.”

My left wing American friends are all “Kamala is a cop” and only voted for Biden because Trump is a fascist. Otherwise in their view she’s a centrist who happens to be black and Asian but they don’t really care about her identity.

I really hope women don't give up or feel disheartened with the Biden/Harris win. I'm not an expert in US politics, but I do follow it closely. I do think there is hope, but only if women mobilise and push back.

The conversation about gender rights being incompatible with women's rights was never going to be civil under Trump. Because the counter was always, if you don't agree with him on this, then you must agree and endorse every other policy of his, plus his pussy grabbing and racism. There was too much polarisation and too much background noise to have the conversation. Women who don't agree with their rights being eroded didn't want to be associated with Trump either, so they sat in silence. All the liberal shows like Colbert, SNL made a big deal about the bathroom bill etc, and focussed solely on Trump's hatred, not women's concerns. Trump is (will hopefully be, once they haul his orange arse out of the WH) history. Nobody wants polarising politics anymore. The time is ripe for the conversation.

There is EVERYTHING to play for now. Right now. The Presidency is meaningless without the Congress and the Senate. That's the main reason Obama was a failure, he couldn't get anything through in his second term because he lost the Senate.

The Democrats' hold over the Congress has been weakened in this election. That's a big deal. It shows that the 2018 blue wave was more about rejection of Trump than the embracement of extreme (for the US anyway) left wing politics. The House Majority Whip, James Clyburn of South Carolina - a black man - said yesterday that the "defund the police" policy is what has caused this loss, a policy he vehemently disagrees with. Where does defund the police come from? Progressives and BLM. And who is piggy backing BLM? TRAs. So that's a core weakness right there.

Georgia will have 2 special elections for its Senate seats in January 2021. Georgia is a red state. Going blue in the Presidential election this time was remarkable, and the Dems got it by the merest sliver, which is why it's going to the recount. Getting these senate seats too is far from a given.

If the Dems get those 2 senate seats, that's a hung senate. And when you have a hung senate, the person who gets the deciding vote is the Vice President. Kamala Harris is potentially about to become the most powerful person in US government. Not in 4 years' time. Now.

So, 2 choices now:

1. Mobilise in Georgia against the Democratic candidates for the senate. Make sure they don't get those seats. This will immediately chop the legs off the Biden administration. They will have to hope that they get the senate and retain the congress in the mid terms in 2022; and hope that they haven't so pissed off people by their inability to get anything done in the inventing years, that they end up losing both. If they lose the midterms, it's all over for Biden/Harris. And I doubt that Harris would be the successful candidate to run in 2024 following a failed administration. Potentially poisoned brand (if the economy tanks, if Covid wasn't sorted out because they could not get the legislation through); plus, the progressives will see this as just one more corporate Dem failure and want rid. They hate her anyway. They will be pushing for a "new Bernie"/ AOC type of candidate in 2024.

1. Lobby hard with the Democrats. Tell them you will help them to deliver Georgia, and/or help them to keep both houses in 2022. But only if women's rights to separate spaces is sacrosanct, and that women's rights to describe themselves and their bodies by terminology they choose is not to be touched. And everything else. Women need to become a single issue lobby on this. Deliver this, and you get women's support in 2024 for your presidential run.

Kamala Harris. Which is it? According to this thread, she's either a right wing corporate democrat who supports the death penalty, or she a left wing, progressive nut job who wants to erode women. She's neither. She doesn't strike me as mad enough to have extreme opinions on anything. She's just a politician who will bow to the voices that will give her the maximum power. In politics, that's usually the voices that will deliver support from both left and right, and allow compromises so shit can get done.

The left know this and absolutely hate her for this, and they are the main drivers of the TRA stuff in the US. Check out The Young Turks on YouTube, a big "progressive' online platform. They absolutely hate her and all other mainstream/middle of the road democrats. That's who women are up against with regard to TRAs. Conservative America is not on board. However, the same progressive movement needs women big time. All women, not just the left wing ones. They don't have the numbers/mandate for all the other progressive stuff they want to get done without the women that occupy the middle ground.

I have no doubt that the vast, vast majority of Americans want to go back to normal, middle of the road politics. The extremes of the progressive movement, and their successes with AOC et al, were a counterpoint to Trump on the other extreme. They are not representative of what the majority want in their politics or their politicians. Most people just want to live their lives and not have to plug their brains into politics outside of elections. Jobs, education, available health care, a thriving economy is what they want. Outside of that, they just want to live their lives in peace. They don't want the constant ideological drama over identity. They don't want wholesale societal changes, wrong think laws, and being made to feel guilty because of some supposed privilege. Nor do they want other groups to be marginalised, they want them to be "normalised". They just want apple pie America that's available to everyone. Reform, not revolution.

I really hope women don't give up or feel disheartened with the Biden/Harris win

I don't feel disheartened or like giving up, a lot of people I know don't either - it seems like a turn for the better, a more inclusive, more "hopeful" and not far right type stuff which is where it was all going for want of a better word.
Maybe some do want down that path but it's obvious with the outcome that a lot of people don't.

BlueCatRedCat thank you for that explanation.

Lobby hard with the Democrats. Tell them you will help them to deliver Georgia, and/or help them to keep both houses in 2022. But only if women's rights to separate spaces is sacrosanct, and that women's rights to describe themselves and their bodies by terminology they choose is not to be touched. And everything else. Women need to become a single issue lobby on this. Deliver this, and you get women's support in 2024 for your presidential run.

I don't have a voice in this but that makes complete sense to me. We also have to mean it, and convince them that we mean it.

BlueCatRedCat
Thanks for that. Hopefully this is the moment when the war can be won, it's not the time to despair

@BlueCatRedCat Georgia is a state run locally by Republicans that only accepts a change in legal gender following surgery.

I don’t understand why people don’t understand - America is mostly conservative and religious. This is not a core issue. There was just a Supreme Court case holding up a church adoption agency’s right to exclude gay couples. TWAW will not be a national policy in America in the next century.

Great post Blue!

[quote turnitonagain]@BlueCatRedCat Georgia is a state run locally by Republicans that only accepts a change in legal gender following surgery.

I don’t understand why people don’t understand - America is mostly conservative and religious. This is not a core issue. There was just a Supreme Court case holding up a church adoption agency’s right to exclude gay couples. TWAW will not be a national policy in America in the next century.[/quote]
The problem is precisely that it isn’t a core issue. If it were then people might be paying attention to it.

Can I ask those in the know...

I realise that if a president does the VP becomes default president - but for how long, the remainder of the term? Would there be another election? Obvs the U.K. is different as there can be a call for a lack of confidence that leads to a snap election.

I probably need to check the Constitution as I'm just thinking back to Bartlett getting shot at in the West Wing so my knowledge of this is based on a fictional character!

Biden quoting the Bible in the press today. Can we get an explanation from those upset by any involvement with religion. Is he going to be condemned!

He added: “It’s time to put away the harsh rhetoric, to lower the temperature, to see each other again, to listen to each other again. To make progress we have to stop treating our opponents as our enemies. They are not our enemies. They’re Americans. The Bible tells us: to everything there is a season: a time to build, a time to reap and a time to sow. And a time to heal. This is a time to heal in America.”

That's a nice quote, the only reason youd be offended by that sentiment is if you have a hair trigger reaction against Christianity in any context.

Obvs the U.K. is different as there can be a call for a lack of confidence that leads to a snap election.

Lack of confidence doesn’t always lead to a snap election. Change of prime minister doesn’t usually either but then we don’t elect a president: we elect MPs and the biggest party forms the government. The governing party decides which of the elected MPs should be prime minister and can change that person at any point.

[quote turnitonagain]@BlueCatRedCat Georgia is a state run locally by Republicans that only accepts a change in legal gender following surgery.

I don’t understand why people don’t understand - America is mostly conservative and religious. This is not a core issue. There was just a Supreme Court case holding up a church adoption agency’s right to exclude gay couples. TWAW will not be a national policy in America in the next century.[/quote]
I don't understand what you're saying here. Georgia state laws on trans surgery are not really material to the point I was making about whether women want to help or hinder the Democrats to take the senate with the Georgia senate seats. Although, as an aside, one of the places that has delivered the presidential election to the Dems in Georgia is Atlanta and - increasingly hip, young, left leaning, liberal....no laws are set in stone.

If TWAW wasn't an issue, it really would not have been talked about quite as much as I saw it talked about in liberal media. The bathroom bill issue was a big deal to liberals. You would not have had SNL laying into JK Rowling if it was a non issue. BLM wouldn't have put black trans lives right to the fore of their movement (in front of black women) if it wasn't an issue. It should be a non issue, but it really isn't. It would be very convenient, though, for women to believe it was a non issue and look the other way. The Young Turks regularly dismiss it as such, don't know why we are so obsessed with identity. We're not. We're obsessed with our rights as women. Which we have every right to treat as a massive issue.