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Notes -
Political Quick Hits
A few scattered thoughts that don't merit separate posts:
The Nancy Mace Capitol Hill bathroom saga has come to an unceremonious close. Sarah McBride issued a public statement that she came to Washington to legislate, not to wage personal battles, and that she'd abide by whatever the House wanted. Trans activists were predictably disappointed, not only wanting a more forceful response from McBride but a unified response from House Democrats, but they weren't going to get it. The only notable public statement came from AOC, who pointed out that neither Mace nor Mike Johnson could tell you how they planned on enforcing such a rule, unless they planned on posting a guard who would check the genitals of anyone who looked suspicious. She also cynically accused Mace of trying to exploit the issue to get her name in the papers. Mace responded by calling AOC dumb and her suggestion disgusting, but she didn't offer any alternative enforcement mechanism. Johnson himself sided with Mace, but only to the extent that he believed existing rules favored her interpretation, and he never said that he'd be bringing Mace's resolution to a vote.
This whole tack seems like it's part of a new strategy for the Democratic Party. Five years ago an incident like this would have resulted in mass condemnation from the entire party, including those in leadership positions. The sum total of opposition in this case came from three people, and all three seem like they were hand-selected. Two were LGBT themselves, and the only one with any national profile was AOC, easily the most liberal member with any credibility. And even then, the comments were unusually focused. All three reps managed to hit just two themes: That the suggested rules were unenforceable, and that Mace is doing this as a publicity stunt. No long jeremiads about trans rights or anything. It's almost as if they've finally become aware that the issue is a loser, and rather than engage they'd rather let the issue quietly die while letting the least vulnerable members of the party get a few potshots in.
Meanwhile, in the wake of the Gaetz withdrawal, the center of attention among Trump's controversial cabinet picks has shifted to Pete Hesgeth. In addition to falling woefully short of the traditional qualifications for Defense Secretary, Hesgeth is taking heat for sexual misconduct allegations in his past and for comments suggesting that women shouldn't serve in combat. Once again, Democrats have been unusually silent, with the exception of Senator Tammy Duckworth, whose legs were blown off in Iraq. I suspect this whole thing is part of an exercise in time biding. There is serious doubt as to whether Hesgeth will survive the confirmation process. But a sex scandal and some controversial comments won't be enough to sink his nomination on their own. The biggest knock against Hesgeth is that he's written books where he essentially says that conservatives should aim for complete victory over liberals, whom he describes as enemies of America, and suggests that it may ultimately be appropriate to use the US military in pursuit of that goal.
If Democrats bring this up now then he gets to respond on his own terms, and by the time confirmation hearings roll around the results become predictable. On the other hand, if they start hammering him about predictably dumb shit now then he spends his energy responding to predictably dumb shit that he gets predictably hammered about during confirmation hearings, only for Democrats to change tack in the middle and start asking him about all the controversial opinions in his book. I wouldn't expect him to be caught totally off guard, but he won't have had weeks to rehearse his responses. How he responds to this kind of grilling could be the difference between whether the requisite number of Republican senators vote against him or not.
One other notable figure Democrats have been eerily silent about is RFK, Jr. I suspect this is because while rank and file Democrats hate him for his dumb woo woo opinions on vaccines and other things, actual politicians realize that he's the most liberal cabinet member they're likely to get. Hell, he's probably more liberal than anyone Kamala Harris would have appointed to the post. So Democrats won't challenge him, just lob softball questions at him asking him to expound on his opinions of abortion, single payer healthcare, dangerous chemicals, and big bad pharmaceutical companies. If the guy is going to be confirmed anyway, and is likely the best you're going to get, then why not throw your support behind him in a way that makes Republican senators squirm? Worst case scenario his nomination fails due solely to opposition from the party that nominated him.
After Hesgeth, Tulsi Gabbard seems to be the nominee that the smart people seem to think has the least likelihood of being confirmed. I don't think it behooves Democrats to back her in the way it behooves them to back RFK, but her nomination presents an interesting conundrum. A large part of Trump voters supported him, at least in part, because he was perceived as an America First isolationist who wouldn't get us into any new wars and try to get us out of existing ones. Yet Tulsi is the only cabinet nominee who seems to embody that vision. Everyone else—Rubio, Walz, Hesgeth, Ratcliffe—are all traditional conservative hawks. Her presence in the cabinet would only serve to foment the same kind of dysfunction that riddled Trump's first cabinet. As a former Democrat and tepid member of the GOP, Republicans might prefer a more united front when it comes to foreign policy and sweep her aside as the Democrats did, and for the same reasons. That being said, I've always been skeptical of Trump's supposed dovishness, as I've never met a Republican who didn't want to bomb Iran at the first opportunity. But I still think it's odd that he hasn't just gone full neocon.
Indeed this problem seems almost intractable -- I have an idea though!
What if the government were to issue some sort of document confirming the sex of an individual? A certificate or something. Obviously it wouldn't be practical to check all the time, but at least there'd be some kind of ground truth, and complaints could be quickly and easily resolved without anyone needing to check AOC or Nancy Mace's genitals.
Having government officials observe peoples' genitalia in order to produce this document in the first place, I admit has privacy implications and would be open to abuse -- but hear me out -- babies don't really care about being seen naked, and doctors see naked babies all the time. Maybe the doctor attending a baby's birth could note this information, and provide it to the government? He/she could even note as well the date and location of birth, which could be useful down the road for proving age and/or citizenship.
I think with the proper marketing this idea could really catch on -- thing is I can't think of a catchy name for such a document! Does anyone have any ideas as to what we might call it?
Yes, yes, a birth certificate, an identify document that can be altered to reflect transgender individuals’ gender identity in all but five states. So as long as a person has a birth certificate with his or her gender of choice, he should be able to use the restroom of his choosing as well?
Birth Certificate, perfect! They won't really work if people can change them all the time though -- teenagers would change them so they could buy beer, and foreigners might take advantage of the opportunity to apply for a passport or run for President. I think these Birth Certificates would need to be written in ink, on paper at or around the time of birth -- that way people wouldn't be able to use them to defraud others.
If people are issuing other sorts of certificates that muddy the waters and track 'gender' rather than 'sex' -- you should ask yourself why those people would do that, and further why they would then proceed to complain ('complain' i guess -- AOC is not actually complaining here) that it's impossible to keep track of what sex people are without subjecting them to genital inspections.
So your answer is people have to carry their birth certificate with them to prove which bathroom they can go into? I know the UK gets a bad rap for having licenses for everything, but I've never had to show one to go to the bathroom. So in the spirit of your query:
What happened to the free market solutions in the freest country in the world? Why are you jumping straight to a government solution? If you want a female (or male) only bathroom, you can pay for a subscription and the private company will demand proof (DNA perhaps, they can buy out 23andMe, I hear that is going cheap) before you get put on the access list, for their chain of male/female/unisex W.C.s across the nation.
The free market, not the government is the best way of determining what the value of a bathroom free from the opposite sex really is, by finding out what people are willing to pay. Who wants unelected government bureaucrats making these kinds of decisions? Have you heard how much the army pays for toilet seats? These birth certificates will be printed by equipment sourced from the lowest bidder, and will be easily falsifiable. No, let's let the invisible hand of the free market deal with it, that is what America is about. That way, as the amount people are willing to pay rises, companies will convert shops into toilets and perhaps the incentives will lead to exciting new developments in toilet security technology, as they will want to ensure people do not take advantage. Let's see the Russkies keep up with the unleashed might of the American bathroom dollar! If they thought Western supermarkets were startling, once the toilet boom takes off, all we will have to do is install a few American toilets in Ukrainian towns about to be overrun, and Putin will be out on his ear in no time.
I agree, the Civil Right Act is unconstitutional and unamerican and should be abolished to restore basic rights to freedom of association.
Well free association means anyone can use any bathroom, otherwise someones right of free bathroom association is being infringed, but if thats your position that is ok.
Aren't you just trolling at this point? If this is how freedom of association worked, there'd be no point in a Civil Rights Act to begin with, and there's no way you don't know this.
I'm not trolling, I am pointing out a mistake in the argument. Free association has a positive and negative right. If you have a whites only bathroom (or space in general) then a white and black friend group have their right to associate infringed. (Like pre Civil rights times) Likewise if you have a mixed bathroom a black guy who does not want to associate with white people has his right to not associate with people he does not want to infringed when he walks in and finds Bill Clinton (like post Civil rights times).
So yes prior to the Civil rights act some people had their rights to free association infringed, and afterwards a different group does. There is no way for both parties to have a universal right at the same time. They are contradictory. And this logically maps onto the trans issue here.
Just to point out, it is ok to infringe rights, we have to do it all the time. Its just as both sides have free association arguments, THAT particular reasoning can't be used as a deciding factor. You have to have some other argument. Of which there are lots of course, but thats beyond the scope of my point.
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This is certainly untrue. Under free association anyone can use any bathroom if they are authorized by the owner of the premises.
And yes I think that's a lot better than the status quo. If people want to have unisex bathrooms, strict bio separation, "no homers club" or whatever arrangement they desire, let them. It's a free country.
But public bathrooms are a thing. If you have a whites only bathroom and a blacks only, and I am black and you are white, our right to free association is infringed. Because we can't as so many women do go to the bathroom together.
Whether thats the owners choice or not is irrelevant, one way or another someones right to free association IS infringed. Either black and white friends can't use the same bathroom, or a white guy who doesn't want to associate with black people has his rights ti not associate infringed when he walks in and finds P Diddy there.
Its impossible for someones right not to be infringed because they are conflicting. Thats different as to whether that should be legal. You can certainly argue people should be able to pick whose rights they want to infringe, but they are certainly going to be infringing someones, ergo we are admitting there is no general right to free association. We're just picking and choosing. It can't be a free country in this regard. The US has roughly chosen that the positive right to free association is of greater value than the negative right for historical reasons but don't get it twisted, thete is no option that preserves everyones right to free association. Its a logical impossibility.
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Sarcastic guns n glory American exceptionalism is kind of transparent man. I liked where you took it though.
Well to be fair I was trying to make sure, people would get it, what with Poe's law and all, so i wanted it to be transparent. My first draft was more subtle!
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So it's not so much that there isn't a solution and more that some people ruined the perfectly fine solution and are now pretending that this is an intractable problem?
Lacks the same rhetorical force I fear.
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If these "birth certificates" are being altered years after the birth has happened, then it doesn't sound like that's what @jkf wants to implement. The name is catchy though, and I can see how it would mislead you into thinking it implements the idea, even though it doesn't.
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The talking point about the lack of an enforcement mechanism is silly. The enforcement mechanism is the same as the one keeping regular men out of women's bathrooms: Mostly voluntary, but the women can call security if there's a problem. If you pass well enough that nobody notices or cares, you get away with it.
That seems unworkable in practice.
It's been working in practice for generations.
Well sure. That doesn't say much about whether it would work in practice now.
In particular, "you can do it if you pass" seems almost guaranteed to lead to someone miscalculating at some point.
I meant that more in the sense that anything is legal if you don't get caught. The idea is not that people who think they pass would be encouraged to violate the rule, but that those who actually do pass would in fact get away with it, just as people often get away with violating many other laws and rules.
I'm not even commenting on whether it's a good policy, just pointing out that the idea that we'd need to have a genital-checking guard for enforcement is either stupid or in bad faith (one can never tell with Ocasio-Cortez).
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Sarah McBride passes well enough, arguably better than Nancy "manjaw" Mace. Nobody would notice or care if the Republicans weren't grandstanding about the issue. The whole point of the Congressional bathroom rule is to keep a passing transwoman who is not a threat to anyone out of the ladies' room in order to show Republican's disapproval of transgenderism.
In the absence of strong antidiscrimination laws which allow lawfare against people who don't let Jonathan Yaniv into the ladies' room, social enforcement based on presentation works a lot better than bathroom laws based on birth sex or anatomy. In the presence of strong antidiscrimination laws protecting men pretending to be women, neither social enforcement nor bathroom laws work.
The problem with this logic is that it doesn't generalize. If you allow males into women's spaces so long as they pass well enough, who is going to be the judge of who passes well enough? What rule would you propose that allows Sarah McBride in but keeps Jessica Yaniv out?
You can have a “don't ask, don't tell” policy, which is mostly how things worked before the year 2000, but once the cat is out of the bag, you have to revert to some objective rule about who is or isn't allowed.
I don't think that's the entire point. The point is also to keep men out of women's shelters and prisons, men out of women's sports and dressing rooms, and men out of women's spaces in general.
If Republicans cannot even keep men out of women's bathrooms in Washington DC, how can they expect to accomplish any of those other tasks? So even if the McBride issue is itself not important because McBride is likely harmless (with which I tend to agree), the case is important because it is at the fulcrum of a broader issue.
The non-trans public.
To the point that this is offensive to trannies, either individually or as a collective, we don't really have to care.
OK. So how many members of the public must complain before she is deemed nonpassing? Is it like a percentage of a quorum? What percentage of what quorum? Is a single complaint sufficient? In that case, how is the rule different from banning transgenders entirely, just with the caveat that you won't face penalties if you don't get caught, which is essentially how all misdemeanors work?
These are the kinds of questions that you have to answer to be fair to transgenders, not the kinds of questions you have to answer to keep the peace on the issue.
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Well that's patently not the point of a rule specifically addressing the toilets in Congress. It may be political signalling conducted with those issues in mind, but this rule obviously has no impact on prisons and sports.
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Mace has a woman's skeleton, McBride doesn't. Nance would be unlikely to get clocked as trans because of her gracile skeleton and small size. Meanwhile, McBride is one of the reasons being a big boned woman today makes you liable to be clocked as trans and insulted as such in a dispute.
In any case, people like McBride exist to pass strong antidiscrimination laws protecting men who want to pretend to be women.
Making them feel very unwelcome, is it mere grandstanding?
I'm pretty confident that if the average person met McBride they wouldn't think she was a trans woman, partly because there are so few of them that the thought just wouldn't cross most people's mind. They certainly wouldn't bat an eyelid if they saw her in the women's toilet.
Yes. There is no way anyone in Congress actually feels threatened by McBride (and if they did that would be a sufficient display of neurosis as to be disqualifying for a legislator).
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On cabinet picks. I have a conception of what a cabinet should be for Trump, and his picks don't surprise me because they line up with that conception, even if I don't have the specifics and the details down. I keep seeing news stories or people posting here that think he has cabinet picks that don't make sense, but some of those specific cabinet picks make the most sense to me.
My conception of Trump is that he picks opinionated and individually competent people to head up things. He wants them to have opinions that may not be the same as his. If they work for him and with him he will support them in their goals at a higher level. If they work against him or his directives he will fire them. How the people under him get along with each other is largely inconsequential to Trump.
Trump does not have strong ideological beliefs, but he does have strong social beliefs. By social beliefs I mean he finds friends, allies, employees, bosses, enemies, etc to be very important distinctions. He plays Tit For Tat strategy almost religiously. He would never put a political/social non-ally in his cabinet. But he doesn't care too much if you conform on some ideological spectrum. Trump is after all a bog-standard democrat from the 90's, and he just won as a republican presidential candidate.
Contrast this with Obama who was willing to make ideological or party based cabinet nominations like Hillary Clinton, even though she was absolutely not an ally of his. Or Joe Biden who picked Kamala as his VP even though I don't think anyone has ever claimed they are allies or friends.
I think you can see Trump's cabinet picks best by looking at his history with John Bolton, who was his National Security Advisor, and was ultimately fired by Trump. Bolton has been on a tour lately saying that Trump's cabinet picks can be summed up as requiring "fealty" to Trump. I think Bolton is a dirtbag, but he is correct here. But it shows a reason to like Trump, not dislike him. The president is the elected position. He is temporary King. Cabinet people are meant to serve the King and enact his will. If they don't they can be fired and replaced. No one ever elected John Bolton to National Security Adviser. Its a little crazy that Bolton thinks its ok to be picked for a specific cabinet position to advise the president, and then the correct course of action is to betray that person and work against them.
I don't know why people keep saying this. Even if Trump was a bog-standard Democrat in the 90's, which he wasn't (per Wikipedia he first registered as a Democrat in 2001 after losing the 2000 Reform primary to Pat Buchannan), people can change.
In so far as we can see which substantial policy issues Trump actually cares about beyond "Donald Trump should be President", they appear to be:
Any one of these could have got you anathematized by the 1990's Democratic party, which, if you check the date, was controlled by the Clinton machine. They would also have got you funny looks from Reagan Republicans.
Lol, I think No_one already made the point, but everything you just listed was literally part of Clinton's re-election platform. People keep saying it because it is very true- if you shut out the TDS-spawned commentary, you have to search very hard to find much difference between the policies espoused by Clinton and those favored by Trump. The parties are flipping again, 90s Dems are todays MAGA, early 2000s NeoCons are todays Dems.
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Yeah, sure. Now guess who said this. Answer under spoiler.
I remember Barack Obama saying something in a primary speech about being annoyed that his mechanic only spoke Spanish. Saying that today could literally get you fired from your job.
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"Even if Trump was a bog-standard Democrat in the 90's, which he wasn't..."
They're saying this based off of his political positions that he espouses in public, for all the world to hear, and comparing this with where the two national parties have stood over the years. Everything Trump has campaigned on was Democratic dogma in the 90s, and, having lived through that period, your insistence that a) broad-based tariffs, b) eliminating illegal immigration, c) insisting that allies pay their fair share of maintenance of the international order were, in fact, anathema to 90's Democrats is just outright gaslighting. Those were absolutely policies publicly supported by the majority of Democrats; "nobody is illegal" isn't a mantra that exists in the public conscience until the rise of Woke.
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Obama picked Hillary as Secretary of State explicitly because she wasn't on his team - it was a deal to get the Clinton machine on his side for the general election. Plus, Barack had read "Team of Rivals" recently and was enamored of trying to have a Lincolnian presidency. They certainly didn't agree on policy - it wasn't an ideological pick.
Thanks for that link btw, very interesting.
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It will be nice to finally have one party which isn’t all woke all the time.
The Republican Party will be the endless anti-wokeness party and maybe the Democrats can just grow up and stop talking about all of it like our entire culture should have a decade ago.
That's... optimistic. I don't like making predictions but I believe to some degree there will be a blowback on Trump simply because he is a cause (viz Trump Derangement Syndrome) that the far left can rally around opposing.
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I don’t think democrats are playing 5d chess, I think they’re shell shocked. Most of them probably recognize that trans is a loser of an issue but AOC isn’t exactly being strategic, and I think the sex scandals are legit juicier than spicy opinions. Democrats are responding to media stories right now, not crafting a master strategy.
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