Horrifying Republican response to Bishop's sermon

[JessaWoo]

These are tweets from Matt Walsh on X about Bishop Marian Budde and her sermon earlier today in Washington, attacking her womanhood and ability in a sexist and ageist tirade. It seems the clarion call has gone out to the rest of the Trump X minions, as they are all tweeting the same sentiments - including Kellie-Jay Keen and Donald Trump Jnr. Rep. Mike Collins całłed for her deportation, although she is American. Do you still support Trump after this?

“A liberal woman over the age of 50 with a lesbian haircut is guaranteed to support the most evil ideas and policies that mankind has ever conceived.”

“Just take one look at this witch and you know everything you need to know about her, even before she starts talking.”

“Of course this grotesque display is coming from a female “priest.” You will only ever hear heresy and inanity from someone whose whole existence is blasphemous.”

And another tweet from Bo Loudon: “🚨BREAKING: A bishop at the National Cathedrol just urged President Trump to protect transgender children and not deport illegal aliens because "they're not criminals."

Pure class from President Trump as he sat through this despicable politicization of the prayer service.”

Speech text:
““In the Name of our God, I ask you to have mercy upon the people in our country who are scared now,” Budde stated. “There are gay, lesbian, and transgender children in Democratic, Republican and independent families. Some who fear for their lives.

”The people who pick our crops and clean our office buildings, who labor in poultry farms and meat-packing plants, who wash the dishes after we eat in restaurants and work the night shifts in hospitals. They may not be citizens, or have the proper documentation, but the vast majority of immigrants are not criminals.”

Budde asked Trump “to have mercy” on people “in our communities whose children fear that their parents will be taken away and that you help those who are fleeing warzones and persecution in their own lands to find compassion and welcome here.

“Our God teaches us that we are to be merciful to the stranger, for we were all once strangers in this land,” she continued. “May God grant us the strength and courage to honor the dignity of every human being, to speak the truth to one another in love, and walk humbly with each other and our God.”

Earlier in her message, Budde stressed the importance of unity, of respectfully disagreeing with one another, but also expressed concern over what she called “the culture of contempt” and feared “the loss of equality” for some who lose in political debates.

What a horrible, divisive message this is! 🙄 Personally, I think Budde's message is courageous and beautiful, and clearly deeply Christian at its core.

@selffellatingouroborosofhate

See the first rule of misogyny: what men on TwiX do is somehow women's fault.

That's a bit of an oversimplification of the quoted paragraph.

even though the word 'woman' is supposedly reclaimed, women themselves are reduced to vehicles of sex, baby-carriers and homemakers. All the work feminism has done could be erased.

From the journal article I linked to:

"These distinctions also suggest that ‘one-size-fits-all’ counter approaches may be less effective than tactics and strategies that address the specific concerns and motivations of different strands."

You are leveraging our concerns as feminists about women's participation in society to try to get us to condemn Trump. This EO doesn't remove women's right to participate in society, so it's a straw man argument. Trump's team contains women; hiring women isn't the action of a man who wants us back in the home. Him committing rape doesn't extrapolate to him wanting us chained to the kitchen sink.

It's possible to accept that someone awful can do a useful and good thing.

From your OP:

These are tweets from Matt Walsh on X about Bishop Marian Budde and her sermon earlier today in Washington, attacking her womanhood and ability in a sexist and ageist tirade. It seems the clarion call has gone out to the rest of the Trump X minions, as they are all tweeting the same sentiments - including Kellie-Jay Keen and Donald Trump Jnr. Rep. Mike Collins całłed for her deportation, although she is American. Do you still support Trump after this?

Women are not responsible for what Matt Walsh, Trump Jr, or Mike Collins do. KJK is her own woman and we aren't responsible for her either.

You assume that any of us "support" Trump in the first place. "Do you still support Trump after this?" is the political equivalent of "when did you stop hitting your wife?" in that it is based on an unjustified assumption to begin with. I support my cat by paying for his food. I support my sister by helping her to move house. Do I support Trump?

• I agree with some of the EOs he's signed, but not others.
• I recognise why US voters chose him.
• I admire his commitment to actually doing what he said he'd do.
• I wouldn't want to be alone in a room with him.
• I am utterly dismayed that US politics has got to the point where he is the least-worst option for a majority of voters.
• I am terrified because he has undone the AI safety stuff that Biden put in place.
• I am really glad that he has signed the EO that gets men out of women's prisons.

Is that "support" for Trump?

Completely unrelated: are you using a Polish keyboard? You've used L with a stroke twice in the word "called".

@selffellatingouroborosofhate

Completely unrelated: are you using a Polish keyboard? You've used L with a stroke twice in the word "called".

It didn't appear like that when I typed it. I use the app. (Not the Polish keyboard.)

Just trying again - called. No?

And not when the post is displayed in the app, at least.

And the same for Chrome browser. Maybe it’s you?

@selffellatingouroborosofhate

Women are not responsible for what Matt Walsh, Trump Jr, or Mike Collins do. KJK is her own woman and we aren't responsible for her either.

No, but women can choose the messages and ideologies they support.

It’s curious to me that you say that women are not responsible for the above, but the prevailing note on this thread has been that the Left is responsible for what other people do. Isn’t this a bit odd?

So, if the Left are responsible for the odiousness of the Right and not women, why are so many women joining in with the messaging of ‘The Left is so bad’?

Why not work on whatever is wrong within the Labour/Democrats, rather than help the Right, consciously or otherwise?

@selffellatingouroborosofhate

You are leveraging our concerns as feminists about women's participation in society to try to get us to condemn Trump. This EO doesn't remove women's right to participate in society, so it's a straw man argument. Trump's team contains women; hiring women isn't the action of a man who wants us back in the home. Him committing rape doesn't extrapolate to him wanting us chained to the kitchen sink.

It's possible to accept that someone awful can do a useful and good thing.

It's not about just the EO. I'm not sure if you've read the Project 2025 document, but I'd recommend at least the Department of Health section.

Many of the key overarching actions in Project 2025 have already been realised, so Trump saying before the election it was nothing to him was just bluster.

https://static.project2025.org/2025MandateForLeadershipp_CHAPTER-14.pdf

Has anyone said that "the Left is responsible for what other people do" or "the Left are responsible for the odiousness of the Right"? I think what people here have said is that the left is responsible for its own policies which mean that some people feel unable to vote for them. In a two party state like the US that means that people vote Republican or don't vote at all.

How do you suggest that those of us who are anti-genderism "work on whatever is wrong within the Labour/Democrats"? How do you suppose we work with Labour when they have government ministers who call us "rights hoarding dinosaurs"? How do American women work with the Democrats when their presidential candidate wrote to Dylan Mulvaney praising him for his performance of womanface? (Just a couple of examples. There are hundreds more.)

Do these sound like people who would be open to discussion about the harm that genderism is doing? If you think you have a way of reaching people like that, please share it.

“Embodied life”? So life that coincides with having a body. Is there life without a body of some shape or form? Jeepers, call David Attenborough. It took a social ‘scientist’ to do Science properly. Better than the real thing.

From the pdf @JessaWoo links to:
"Goal #5: Instituting Greater Transparency, Accountability, and Over-sight.
The next Administration should guard against the regulatory capture of our
public health agencies by pharmaceutical companies, insurers, hospital conglomerates, and related economic interests that these agencies are meant to regulate. We
must erect robust firewalls to mitigate these obvious financial conflicts of interest.
All National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and Food and Drug Administration regulators should be entirely free from private biopharmaceutical funding. In this realm, “public–private partnerships” is a euphemism for agency capture, a thin veneer for corporatism. Funding for agencies and individual government researchers must come directly from the government
with robust congressional oversight.
We must shut and lock the revolving door between government and Big Pharma."
WOW, this is not what I was expecting to read.
2025 might turn out to be my year of DO NOT ASSUME.
Politics really is in a tumble dryer at the moment - the old left and right all jumble up.
ETA Most of the document is what I was expecting, socially conservative, morality emerging from Catholic and Evangelical Christianity, didn't want to give the impression it's different to that overall, just sharing what stuck out to me. Hippie nurses like me have been dreaming of reforming US big pharma for decades.

Sorry, refers to this from the Butler quote above.

It is up to us to produce a compelling counter-vision, one that would affirm the rights and freedoms of embodied life that we can, and should, protect”

@OldCrone

Has anyone said that "the Left is responsible for what other people do" or "the Left are responsible for the odiousness of the Right"? I think what people here have said is that the left is responsible for its own policies which mean that some people feel unable to vote for them. In a two party state like the US that means that people vote Republican or don't vote at all.
That's the ... exact same thing.*
*
How do you suggest that those of us who are anti-genderism "work on whatever is wrong within the Labour/Democrats"? How do you suppose we work with Labour when they have government ministers who call us "rights hoarding dinosaurs"? How do American women work with the Democrats when their presidential candidate wrote to Dylan Mulvaney praising him for his performance of womanface? (Just a couple of examples. There are hundreds more.)
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.

Do these sound like people who would be open to discussion about the harm that genderism is doing?
What do you think would happen by talking or emailing a politician?

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

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 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.

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

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.

This. 💯

Although I score low on authoritarian traits!

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?

I know few on this board will agree with me, if any, but I think the primary reason behind it is manipulation.

Some of these problems exist, but not to the levels you depict.

Any problems there are have been inflated out of all proportion to send populations into moral panic - in many countries. The source? Consider who is benefiting from such instability in the short and long term - Russia/China.

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.

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

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?

@Shortshriftandlethal

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 anythiung that is being imposed on them. This has been a grassroots movement...not a top down one.

You do not need a smartphone to read social media, and there are other forums bar Mumsnet. This isn't the only place trans was ever brought up in the last 6 years or so.

Of course people can think for themselves, but you have to remember, not everyone is like you. People with a range of ages, education, upbringing, experiences, etc. Some have been taught critical thinking, others have not so tend to believe whatever they read.

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.