Is it too early for a post mortem?

[Appalonia]

So, now that America has categorically rejected transgender ideology, which I do think will affect the rest of the world, is now the time to ascertain HOW did so many institutions, including the Democratic and Labour Parties get so completely bamboozled by this ideology? Which is crazy, not based in material reality, disadvantages half of the population, has physically damaged thousands of young people, and that they didn't think that people would see through it?

I know a lot of people dislike Matt Walsh, but his documentary, What is a Woman, was jaw dropping! We must NEVER let this dangerous idiocy happen again ( and yes I know it's not over...)

I just heard the 18-minute 911 call Laken Riley made as she was fighting for her life from an illegal immigrant. You could hear hard thumps that were the rock being used to bash her head in. They aired it during her murder trial.

So yeah, getting rid of young migrant males like this will make our life better. I’m tired of people’s ‘empathy’ leading to unnecessary death. Fuck it makes me so angry

Yes absolutely this. Weaponized empathy

It DOES matter, because the success or not overall of rolling this nonsense back is ultimately going to require changing hearts and minds across the political spectrum. How do you suggest we do that? Do the same as the worst of the left do and go around calling people stupid? That's worked out well, hasn't it?

It makes it incredibly hard to convince people who genuinely imagine they're "the good guys" (including many friends, by the way - it may not bother you and the left may be "them" to you, but it has made life incredibly unpleasant and difficult for those of us broadly on the left ourselves) if they're convinced by their press and echo chambers that anti-genderism is just some mad far right Trump thing and invented "culture war" and it strings the situation out, entrenching it, continuing to make it hard to put a stop to.

Reality being labelled "far right" and still broadly pro-genderism Labour being in power is going to stall how long it takes to get rid of this. Sure, I think the tide is kind of turning, and it's good that those who are considered politically savvy (eg Wes Streeting who's not going to let it through in health) appear to be seeing the writing on the wall, but the narrative still needs unpicking, and it's not helped by the Guardian, academia et al digging their heels in.

I'm not proposing anything.

I'm saying it's too early to celebrate or to assume that this result in the US will have a positive (rather than negative) influence on the rest of the world.

I'm not celebrating, personally. I'm aware that this is a long term turn-around, but until it starts to unravel in the U.S, it has little chance to fully unravel elsewhere. Though in some respects, I do think that the British movement has been very influential, and has directly influenced the conversation in the U.S.

I don't think that fully sold genderists can be convinced...because their position doesn't rest on logic, but on articles of faith that must not be challenged. They will cling on for life.

The general public is an another matter.....They haven't signed up to the dogma - and they can see the whole business for what it is. Getting the issue into the public eye has been important. Getting the media to cover it and write about it. And of course, having parliamentarians who are able, and willing, to stand up and call it out. At the end of the day most people are not fully signed up to a political tribe...and it is their votes that will count.

Also the legal challenges that have been going on in the background are influential and important - for it is they that start to chip away at the edifice that has been constructed at the institutional level.

As for your friends, I think it will just be a matter of time.....you won't be able to convince them yourself. And BTW - I also used to consider myself to be 'of the Left', was a Labour party member, and activist in my youth........There's nothing you can do to change the mind-set of those who still identify themselves as 'progressive Left'. You'll just have to keep doing all of the other stuff and supporting others who are doing the same, and agree to differ with your friends.

It is honestly a waste of your emotional energy to get worried about being labelled as 'right wing'. And also, I do think that removing yourself from the obsessive Left/Right discourse can be helpful......You know that not all matters or policies that could be characterised as 'right wing' are necessarily bad; in fact some make sense.

Being conservative is not an automatic negative. Being radical and on the Left is not an automatic positive.

I am not convinced that Trump and his bros will see the trans issue as any sort of priority now that they have won the election, it was a useful attractor during the election campaign but of course they don't actually give a shit about it. He has made his opinion of women perfectly clear by himself and by the people he has been picking for the cabinet.

I think if there's a lot of Federal dollars being spent on it they'll notice it and go after it, because all Trump care's about is money. On the other hand if those who have a vested interest in it continuing offer him a 'deal' the chance is are he'll go for that, because he's a deal maker. So we wait and see, and keep on fighting.

I think a lot of dollars are made by the transing industry.

I disagree. I think they'll try to hit the groud running. The appointments so far give every indication of that.

I really disagree with this, simply because Elon Musk has had his son transed behind his back and has vowed to wipe out the "woke mind virus". No way will he let this drop!

Trump, very loudly, declared that transitioning children was child abuse. The audience for this was huge. Even those zealots will have to think again. Being called a child abuser has the political clout of a demolition concrete breaker. Big medical companies will already have stopped operations on young people. I am not a Trump fan, but he does know about winning.

I would guess that some in his team have read the Cass report

Vance is very knowledgeable on the issue and motivated on it in think

The MAGA campaign relied heavily upon exploiting a particular strain of anti-intellectual populism and spite; Trump presented an easily digestable package of lies that villified a vaguely defined coalition of 'other/enemy' groups as anti-American and then presented a fantasy whereby America's social and economic issues will magically disappear if people are cruel enough to minorities and marginalised people.

The internet is currently full of people who have been inspired to research the decision they just blindly made, discovered Trump's actual plans, and are now lamenting their choices. Too late!

I don't think the outcome of this election means it is the end of good sense and compassion in America, but it is certainly a reflection of the devastating power of a national-scale reactionary tantrum when weaponised.

It will take some time to recover and the marginalised groups targeted by this campaign are reaching for their oxygen masks and preparing for what is likely to be an extremely unpleasant next few years.

The Democrats assumed the awfulness of Trump would effectively blackmail enough women into voting Democrat despite knowing they were voting for the desruction of their own existence as a legal and social demographic. They assumed women would accept the argument that other problems were more important than the needs and rights of women.

They were wrong.

The question should be why were the Democrats so dogmatic on this that they threw away those women's votes?

a lot of the thinking is that 12 million of the 14 million people who didn't vote this time, didn't vote because it was, as the Germans say, a choice between the Plague and Cholera.

And some of the people who would have previously voted for the democrats, made the choice between a party whose leader might want to grab them by the pussy, and a party who might let an unregulated "medical" profession mutilate their children. Simple choice, really.

Among all the other reasons they might have had.

You cannot dismiss over half of the electorate in such a way. Trump gained votes across the board and in all demographics; and for various different types of reason. -which is why his ministerial picks represent such a diverse range of anti establishment positions.

Across the Western world there is a growing rejection of certain 'progressive' articles of faith - and open borders is one of them. People are also rejecting the politics of intersectionality, identity and grievance - in which group identities supposedly make you either privileged or oppressed. People know the difference between male and female, man and woman, and they do not like having the denial of those differences imposed; they don't appreciate being censured for 'wrong think' or 'hate crime'; they don't want boys in their daughter's changing rooms or running them down in sport.

People can appreciate that climate change is real, but also not be accepting of unrealistic targets and measures to supposedly tackle this, but which cause significant hardship to particular communities.Those U.S celebrities that are fleeing the U.S for Britain or Italy, imagining these issues do not also cause controversy in Europe too, are going to be in for a rude awakening.

I think that when people think the "grab em by the pussy" comment should be definitive, they don't realize that not everyone has interpreted that the same way.

His whole statement was along the lines of "if you are famous and rich, you can do what you want, even grab a woman by the pussy, and she'll like it."

The thing is, while it's not a 100% true statement, there is some truth to it, plenty of women are willing to get it on with rich old famous guys, or weird famous guys, or violent kinky rich guess, etc. and seem to excuse really awful behaviour including towards themselves.

And a lot of people including a lot of women know this to be true, and they see that as the point of Trump's statement.

They might not like that it's as true as it is, but they may also appreciate that he won't pretend that there isn't some truth there just to look like a stand up guy.

So it ends up being a bit of a mixed example for a lot of people.

That is hardly the only comment he has made on this subject. Even if you play apologist for every single word he has ever said, look at his actions. The appointments he is lining up. The effect he is already having on the safety of marginalised people in North America - and he hasn't even returned to office yet.

Foolish people voting for him with no grasp of the reality of what they are doing is only part of the playbook, though it is a sizeable part.

It’s always a mistake to call (more than) half the electorate foolish. There’s a reason they voted the way they did, the Republicans need to work out why that was. Gender stuff won’t be the entire story, but it sure as hell doesn’t help if you expect the level of sacrifice the TRA’s seem to expect

Illegal immigrants have raped and killed several women this year and you want to complain about their safety?

They are going to go back, and I totally voted for that.

There are plenty of reasons Americans voted the way they did.

The Murdoch media empire, Twitter and an election campaign that claimed the fact-checking of brazen lies to be unfair; well, those are only some of the reasons.

The Democrats also made plenty of foolish mistakes such as asking people not to brutalise some minorities quite so hard.

@ButterflyHatched the Trump trans ads have been shown to be persuasive in swing states. So likely had an effect.

While being quite happy to sell the female majority down the river. When men are taking over women’s sports, scholarships, spaces and services you can’t be surprised if the women call foul!

Then there’s the issues around safeguarding and child protection - you can’t just hide behind “it’s just a marginalised minority” anymore. The impacts are big and very real