identity | attack
It is, admittedly, quite easy to convince oneself President Donald Trump would not be stupid enough to undertake this or that indignity, stupidity, or outright betrayal, yet two years after he declared his candidacy, and six months into his presidency, it is also, admittedly, quite easy to wonder why we were or would have been convinced at some point in the past.
Once upon a time, maybe, or maybe not, because, once upon a time
what? We are not so far removed from once upon a time; the
Washington Post↱ brings news of some congressional Republicans saying what would seem the right things according to traditional norms not necessarily in effect. We can certainly fret about the political rhetoric in Republican regard and rebuke—far too many leave quiet doors open in their rhetoric, through which they step back and
vote to support President Trump's desperate persecution. Then again, if those Republicans don't know they're dealing with a volatile and demanding market base, there won't be much anyone can do to help them. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-UT) deserves some recognition, because principled conservatism is a rare sight in the Beltway, these days. His statement in support of transgender service members is actually an exhibit for future study. "I don't think we should be discriminating against anyone," the statement says at the outset. And while this is often, in conservative lexicon, a phrase intended to assert a person's right to discriminate against others in service of personal aesthetics, what comes next is significant an defining: "Transgender people are people," Sen. Hatch declares, "and deserve the best we can do for them." This will, certainly, rattle the base; there is much speculation that President Trump's surprising twittery was intended to shore up support among his base, which is perceived as flagging under siege against Attorney General Jeff Sessions. But here's where statecraft proper comes into play: Senator Hatch has not exactly been a friend to the queer, over the years. He and his faction threw in, threw down, threw hard, and threw dirty, and they
lost. And he knows it. And saying he knows it isn't some smarmy satisfaction; it's important to recognize that he gets this part of the ritual. And this is how we used to do it in these United States: He fought; he lost; now he needs to get onboard reality in order to move forward and advance his moral and ethical values within a constitutionally faithful framework according to his own sacred oath, and quite clearly the senior U.S. Senator from the Beehive State follows through, because his entire political career is invested in and imbued with a belief that the facts of the United States of America and the Constitution thereof are supposed to mean something in this world.
Mr. Hatch is the most explicit; Colorado junior Sen. Cory Gardner (R), for instance, landed on the proper side of history with a
vague statement to reporters↱, saying, "I think anybody who wants to serve in the military should serve in the military."
It is its own contrast; Mr. Gardner seeks to move past a question he doesn't wish to discuss; others, like Sens. Joni Ernst (R-IA) and Dan Sullivan (R-AK), would seem to leave the door open to finding other ways to remove transgender from the military. Sen. Hatch, however, is making a principled stand; he doesn't have to like queers, but he fought, he lost, this is how it goes, and if his lifetime of sacred oaths unto the U.S. Constitution should mean anything, then this is how it goes.
It's rare that I get to raise a glass to Orrin Hatch, but there you go.
Meanwhile, as the WaPo analysis notes:
-- The real impetus behind Trump’s snap announcement, via Politico’s Rachael Bade and Josh Dawsey: “House Republicans were planning to pass a spending bill stacked with his campaign promises, including money to build his border wall with Mexico. But … insiders feared they might not have the votes to pass the legislation because defense hawks wanted a ban on Pentagon-funded sex reassignment operations — something GOP leaders wouldn’t give them. They turned to Trump, who didn’t hesitate. … (But) House Republicans were never debating expelling all transgender troops from the military. ‘This is like someone told the White House to light a candle on the table and the WH set the whole table on fire,’ a senior House Republican aide said in an email. The source said that although GOP leaders asked the White House for help on the taxpayer matter specifically, they weren’t expecting — and got no heads up on — Trump’s far-reaching directive.”
‡
-- A Trump administration official boasted shortly after the announcement: “This forces Democrats in Rust Belt states like Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin to take complete ownership of this issue,” the unnamed official told Axios’s Jonathan Swan. “How will the blue collar voters in these states respond when senators up for re-election in 2018 like [Michigan Sen.] Debbie Stabenow are forced to make their opposition to this a key plank of their campaigns?”
We might consider, at the very least, two general points: One is the fact of continuing conservative identity politics; the other is a more particular difference in how those identity politics work.
The first point recalls ideas posted at the beginning of this thread,
to wit↑, "Appeasers aren't actually suggesting we give them their way, right?" Because that's the thing; as much as one might argue that Democrats should eschew identity politics, those arguments to date speak nothing of the constant invocation and injection of identity politics by Republicans.
And it's one thing if a two-bit backbencher from the Texas Gulf Coast wants to stand on the House floor and use his office to insult women and homosexuals; President Donald Trump's attempt to deliver military orders via Twitter is an even more immediate question: What's that? No identity politics? Maybe if the Appeasers could explain what they mean, it wouldn't sound like they're saying Democrats should take this one on the chin and transgender should just learn to live with it. You know, because identity politics are bad, m'kay?
Except that doesn't really play queer political theatre. Sen. Stabenow (D-MI), for instance, scores a hundred percent from Human Rights Campaign; neither are Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) or Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) afraid to rally up for their transgender neighbors and constituents. Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV) is even willing to "agree with Senator McCain" in defense of transgender troops. Sen. Heidi Heitkamp (D-ND) faces her red-label electorate next year standing with transgender. The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee is ready to run on the issue. Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) might have won the argument in support by pointing out that she didn't really care if the people who saved her life in Iraq were gay, straight, transgender, or otherwise: "All that mattered was they didn't leave me behind."
Donald Trump's flip against transgender really does look like craven politics, a bungled attempt to offer up a new shiny thing in hopes of drawing attention away from the crimes of his presidential campaign and administration, and also of his family. But it also seems to miscalculate.
The fact of the continuing conservative culture war is what it is, and the President's transphobic twittery reminds in the a most spectacular and obvious manner what the critique advocating Democratic abandonment of identity politics overlooks. If history had been insufficient to make the point, Mr. Trump's shiny oblation unto the right wing is both clarifying and defining: What pitch do Democrats advocating sympathy with supremacism have left? Democrats simply cannot abandon "identity politics" unless they intend to aid and abet supremacist campaigns to institutionalize classist separation and disparate standards of justice.
The manner of these identity politics is its own consideration; Democrats will not for a moment, it seems, back down on
gender. When it comes to
sex, however, just how flexible and compromising should they be? We already know the right wing isn't going to stop.
―End Part I―
