What is Riley Gaines hiding? We investigated…

[Brewdug]

This podcast appeared in my feed today via an affiliated show… I know it is naive but it’s still hard to believe how blinkered - and unbearably smug the US liberal wing is on this. This is rubbish ( from the ‘Center for Investigative Reporting’, which I now wouldn’t trust to tell me if it was raining), but still enlightening… wondered if anyone else had heard it.

A six month dig to discredit Gaines - we’re not supposed to notice that everyone they’re trying to gotcha in this won’t dignify any of it - that finds her hiding (spoiler alert) nothing?

https://podcasts.apple.com/gb/podcast/reveal/id886009669?i=1000738472306

It is, but most people don’t consider it in those terms.

Don’t be too concerned. She’s had plenty of hate too from the other side for simply having side work while she studied.

You need to check your facts. AOC started the argument. She tweeted Gaines first.

Actually, it’s the other way around. Gaines tweeted an image of AOC campaigning with Mamdani, saying “We’re being destroyed from within.” It went downhill from there.

Exposed himself. If Thomas were female then being naked around female teammates wouldn't have been a problem. But he's not, because he has a penis. Which he exposed.

You don't "sight" evidence, you cite it.

Yes she tweeted a news photo. Like all of us who are interested in current affairs and politics do on social media, every single day. Big deal. She didn't mention AOC by name.

She didn't tweet at AOC.

She as a citizen commented on a news article. If a politician is going to make personal comments about the job status of EVERY single citizen that scrutinises them, they would be very busy.

So as I said, AOC started it.

The team mates certainly sighted the evidence!

Uh huh.

Perhaps you’ve forgotten she’s a paid Republican shill. AOC was doing normal political stuff, you know, campaigning. Gaines implied that the US was being destroyed by Islam with the help of AOC and Bernie Sanders. There was nothing I’m-just-a-concerned-citizen-here about it.

paid Republican shill

We're back to this again. It is apparently bad form for her to make money from her activism.

While if she didn't make money from her activism, we'd have a lot of sneering about "tradwives" and how she is inferior to empowered career women like Sandy Cortez, who is totally not a political shill.

The basic rule of RG threads still applies: whatever she says or does, RG must be in the wrong.

Yes, that did occur to me! 😄

But In this instance, she’s hardly an innocent bystander just making a comment, is she? She’s falling into line with the rest of the Republican activists when told to make X posts against the election of Mamdani. I don’t care about tradwives nor comparisons to career women. That doesn’t interest me.

I have no issue with her sporting activism. None. The rest of it? Not as much.

Go back to my original point:

Gaines has carried out what many would argue is valuable work, namely creating a new citizen for her country. It's pretty shit for an elected representative of that country to trash talk her for not having a conventional job

It is inappropriate for an elected representative to trash talk a new mother for not having a paid job, because that mother's new baby is a new citizen of the country that the representative serves and not just a lifestyle choice for that mother. From the perspective of the country's State apparatus, which AOC has chosen to be part of, that mother has done valuable work. Those who study Marxism and the history of countries as varied as Romania, who decided that women needed to have more children, and China, who decided that women were having too many and then later changed their minds, realise this.

1. A nation's elected representative absolutely should think of it in those terms.
2. Failing to recognise that women's work bearing children is valuable to the nation state is a form of misogyny, because it devalues work that only women can do.

You assume that Gaines is acting under orders and not just posting about something that interests her. Have you never heard of things "going viral" and hitting a lot of people's consciousness at the same time?

Every single time Riley Gaines is mentioned on FWR, there will be a long string of posts on the theme of "I'm as GC as they come, and I actually agree with what Gaines says on women's sport, but here are 50 reasons why you should dislike Riley Gaines."

Those reasons vary, but they always boil down to Gaines being part of the Red Tribe and not the Blue Tribe, and because the Red Tribe is bad, she cannot be allowed to be in the right.

This contrasts with politicos like Sandy Cortez, who are all in favour of dicks in women's changing rooms, the more the merrier, but are assumed to have their hearts in the right place (and sometimes hallucinated to be secretly GC) because they belong to the Blue Tribe.

It's a bit similar to the posts from 18 months ago telling us all the reasons why Kemi Badenoch was terrible and didn't mean anything she said about genderwoo, and we should put our faith in the brilliant and principled Sir Keir Starmer KCB KC, who was totally going to sort everything out. How is that working out for those posters, I wonder?

These posters have obviously never heard of Hands Across The Aisle.

To quote KJK: "right-wing women are women". When a right-wing woman stands up for women's rights, we should stand with her.

Yeah, some evangelicals in the US can sound unintentionally weird when they talk about parenthood (the dreadful 'a father is his daughter's first love' and vice versa lines) but Gaines seems perfectly reasonable here.

The Staniland Q - exactly. Tbf if I had a son, I wouldn't want him having to change with a trans boy or trans man, even though assault risk is negligible, it would surely be embarrassing. But the stakes are much higher for girls.

I also find it hard to understand why a woman wouldn't see the danger to herself first, before having a daughter. I get the maternal instinct kicking in, but don't most women soon realise that far too many men are not to be trusted, sadly?

But as you said yourself, many of those posters do agree with Gaines' GC stance, they don't think she's in the wrong on that issue.

I agree with what you say about the dangers of tribalism. If I were in the US, I would unhappily vote Trump simply because of this issue as well as borders.

But I don't see at all what's wrong with a measured critique/wariness of Gaines' other views & associations, eg. Pro-life activism, evangelical zeal about 'spiritual warfare'.

This feels like a weaker version of the frustration I feel about reactions on here often to even mild criticism of KJK. (I've never been convinced that, moral questions aside, associating with white nationalists like Gariepy was helpful in practical terms to the GC movement).
You can acknowledge someone's heroism while thinking it's unhealthy if any criticism of them is automatically unwelcome. Lots of movements have had this weakness. Eg. After achieving their goal, Solidarity and the Indian National Congress both kept on leaders (Walesa, Nehru) who it might have been better not to, because their heroic status was such that criticism was discouraged. Or the heroism of Emmeline & Christabel Pankhurst made it hard for people to criticise their slide towards militancy.

I disagree with people who use Gaines' other views to discredit her GC activism. Same with Kemi. And who say that voting for a certain politician is taboo even if the other side is TWAW.

Legitimate criticism and measured support is different from that. Suppressing & ignoring legitimate criticism is wrong.

I've been on previous threads, and while some criticism was empty-headed like that, others acknowledged RG was brave and right about gender while criticising other aspects of her public activism.

Would you call AOC a shill? She's obviously making money from politics but I think she says what she personally believes (which is nutty most of the time). I imagine that wherever she gets her money, Gaines probably is equally sincere about her views.

Destroyed by Islam? US Muslims are much moderate than UK ones. Seems an odd thing to say.

Can you link?

AOC grew up in a leafy suburb? I thought her mother was a cleaner?

I don't like AOC personally or politically, but I think it's a bit of a generalisation to say that going to a top college & interning for a Kennedy necessarily negate growing up poor After all, there's plenty of examples in both US & UK history of people who got into a good uni etc but came from poor roots.

They are currently in much more of a minority.

But do not forget 9/11 was an attack by Muslims.

Riley isnt exploiting anyone.
So have you read Unfair play? Read Trans by Helen Joyce as well. And irreversible damage by Abigail Shrier. Then you’ll know some facts.

Not by US Muslims.

Moreover, UK Muslims tend to be from uneducated but more importantly tribal and fundamentalist areas of Pakistan

US Muslims tend to be from different countries, to be more educated, more moderate and often less religious.

Before 9/11 and increasing hostility to Musims from some Republicans, they mostly voted Republican. This swinging back with Democrats' trans & other woke stuff.

Do you then think most US Muslims supported 9/11?