Thursday, February 25, 2021

How to disqualify yourself from talking about that which you're correct about

 There's a fair chance you've seen the short video of Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene putting a large sign reading "There Are Two Genders: Male And Female. Trust The Science" on the hallway wall right outside her office door. It must have adhesive backing; she smoothes it out and it clings to the wall. She then wipes her hands that's-that style and gives the camera a quick glimpse of a self-satisfied smirk. 

She did this explicitly because Rep. Marie Newman (D-IL) has her office directly across the hall and won't fail to see it whenever she steps into the hallway. Newman has publicly stated her intention to vote for the Equality Act making its way through Congress.

Adam Kinzinger, in his tweet about the matter, provides a bit of backstory concerning that:

Adam Kinzinger


@RepKinzinger


This is sad and I’m sorry this happened.  Rep. Newmans daughter is transgender, and this video and tweet represents the hate and fame driven politics of self-promotion at all evil costs. This garbage must end, in order to #RestoreOurGOP

There's more backstory, though. Newman had raised the transgender flag (whatever that looks like; I wasn't aware transgenderism had a flag) outside her office after House debate on the bill.

Some thoughts:

1.) Marjorie Taylor Greene is a terrible person who is primarily interested in obscene grandstanding such as her Facebook campaign post juxtaposing a photo of herself holding an automatic rifle with a collage of photos of Representatives Omar, Ocasio-Cortez and Tlaib (each and all of whom - and I'll keep this digression brief - have likewise demonstrated that ideologically charged grandstanding is more important than legislating to them) with the caption "The Squad's Worst Nightmare." She's also the last person who should be proselytizing about any aspect of sexual morality, given her affairs with fitness trainers while her husband stood by eunuch-like.

2.) The sign, taken at face value, is indeed not wrong. There are only two genders, male and female.

3.) As noted above, Newman made the first move by putting up the flag (although that was probably in response to MTG shooting off her mouth with unnecessary invective during the debate). That seems to go beyond any kind of solidarity with her daughter (as an individual) one could infer from the gesture. Nearly everybody loves her or his daughter. It's the most basic and natural of human bonds. To place her daughter in a recently manufactured demographic category ("the transgender community") and add that to reasons for loving her is to gloss over the serious and irreversible implications of the decision the daughter has made to so identify herself.

4.) MTG is a Trumpist, although perhaps it's more accurate to use the term Neo-Trumpist, since the movement has morphed to produce a wave of major figures who will be infecting national affairs whether Donald Trump's influence continues or wanes. It's a force to contend with. Indeed, it seems to have taken over the Republican Party to the point that the likes of Kinzinger, Liz Cheney, Ben Sasse et al may have to make the hard decision to join those of us who have given up on the GOP. MTG is yet another example of a mouthpiece through which a basic truth gets uttered who is so (rightly) discredited as to blight the general public's impression of the truth being uttered. 

It seems that every day something occurs that makes the task of an actual conservative more daunting. Combatting the perception on the part of the only-casually-engaged citizen that anyone right of center is a nut, bonehead or bigot is something we will have to become more adept at.



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