This Elephant Didn't Make It Into The Room

Contrary to what you've heard, not all Republicans won their elections yesterday.

Of course, here in New York, Rob Astorino lost his bid to unseat incumbent Governor Andrew Cuomo.  That, really, was no surprise at all.

Perhaps the same can be said for Lauren Scott's defeat.  After all, she lost in a heavily Democratic and blue-collar district of Sparks, Nevada.  Although it's not California or New York, Nevada has many union workers, which is one reason why it "tilts" (but is by no means predominantly) Democrat.

Had she won, she would have been the first openly transgender person elected to statewide office in the United States.  She also would have been one of the most centrist or left-leaning Republicans:  Although she became disillusioned with her former party, the Democrats, she claims she still shares its professed stances on social issues and human rights.  However, she explains, she disagreed with the party on issues of taxation and business development, which led her to become "non-partisan".  Soon she realized, however, that "non-partisan candidates rarely win elections", which led to her decision to run as a Republican.

In all, the sum of her stated positions is more palatable to me than that of most other Republicans.  On the other hand, you have to wonder just how much to trust someone who joined a party just because she thought it would make her more electable.

 

What Does Eric Cantor's Defeat Mean For Us?

Over the past few days, a lot of bandwidth and newspaper column spaces has been devoted to post-mortems and analyses of Eric Cantor's defeat in the Virginia Republican primary.


It's the first time in the history of this country a reigning House Majority Leader lost a primary.  That in itself is sending shockwaves through the political world.  But it's also interesting for all sorts of other reasons, some of which directly affect the lives of LGBT people, and trans people in particular.


You see, Cantor was beaten by a hard-line "Tea Party" Republican named David Brat. (You've got to love it!)  Brat and his ilk believe that Cantor was "too soft" on issues like immigration, abortion, gun control and gay marriage--all of which the Tea Partiers vehemently oppose, on principle.


Brat's campaign has mirrored and echoed others all over the country:  The Tea Party folks raise doubts about the commitment of some establishment Republican to their causes and run him (almost all of them are male) out of office, or keep him from getting elected in the first place, as happened with Presidential candidate Mitt Romney in 2012. 


In their quest for ideological purity, Tea Party types are moving further and further to the fringe and appealing to smaller and smaller segments of the electorate.  Will they decide that Chris Christie, if he decides to run for President, isn't "conservative" enough?  What about John Kasich, Scott Walker or Jeb Bush?  Even though I have little in common, at least in my political beliefs, with them, I would hardly consider them extremists, at least by the standards of the current Republican Party?


In their effort to forge a Stepford party, they are, ironically, making it more likely that Hillary Clinton--whom nearly all of them loathe--will become President in 2016.  Heck, they could make it possible for Elizabeth Warren, whom they dislike nearly as much, to move into the White House. 


As commentators like Paul Krugman have pointed out, more and more Americans are in favor of--or, at least, not opposed to--gun control, legal access to safe abortions, immigration reform and--the bête noire of the Tea Party--same-sex marriage.  And the latter has been upheld by conservative Republican Federal judges in places like Utah!


So why does the Tea Party wing of the Republican Party become more vehement in their opposition to those changes?  I'll give you a one-word answer:  Hate.  Yes, I said it.  They hate LGBT people.  (At least most of them don't try to hide it with "Love the sinner, hate the sin" nonsense.)  They hate Hispanics, the racial/ethnic group with the most people who would benefit from immigration reform.  They hate the poor, they hate women, they hate children and anyone who happens to be on the wrong side of a firearm. 


That said, I was never any fan of Romney, Cantor, Christie, Bush or the other mainstream Republicans I mentioned.  They represent mainly corporate and other big-money interests.  (In all fairness, so do most Democrats, at least to some degree.)  But they have supported--or, at least didn't make much of a show of opposing--immigration reform and the other changes I've mentioned. (Romney voiced opposition to them, but the Tea Party, rightly, wasn't convinced.)  Of course, they supported those things for entirely different reasons from the right ones: For example, to them immigration reform means more cheap labor.  But at least they weren't appealing to the basest instincts of their constituents--which is how people like Professor Brat win primaries. 


What does that mean for us?  Well, the further to the fringe Tea Party candidates move, the more persistent and just plain vicious their attacks on us will become.  Although I believe we will ultimately win, we have to be ready for them. 

LGBT People Leave The GOP. Why Should We Be Worried?

In January, GOProud co-founder Jimmy La Salvia defected from the Republican Party.  A lot of people wondered what took him so long to figure out the party is "brain dead" on LGBT and other issues.  They even wondered how he could remain "every bit as conservative as" he "ever was", in his own words.

Although I am registered as a Democrat--mostly for the same reasons he left the Republican Party--I can understand his position, and even agree with it to some degree.

What a lot of people missed is that he wasn't upset only about the Mike Huckabees and the Tim Santorums and all of the other homophobes who cloak their bigotry with a sham of religious belief and fealty to the "framers of the Constitution".  La Salvia, in his public exit statement, also slammed "big government 'conservatives' who have taken over the party".

Now, I am not one of those people who wants no government at all or, worse, anarcho-capitalism.  However, I also think that freedom is not achieved by passing more laws or starting new agencies. I like to think of myself as at least somewhat aligned with what I call the "conservative" side of Malcolm X, who said that African-Americans will be free from the effects of racism only through creating their own culture and economic enterprises, not by petitioning for it from a white ruling class.

While I am glad that there are laws against discrimination in employment, housing and such, and that more states are legalizing marriage equality, I think that we have to do more to determine our own destinies.  After all, there are always ways around laws:  A would-be employer could claim he or she didn't hire you for a variety of non-provable reasons.  (Some have flat-out lied, to me and others.)  And marriage "equality" still leaves the authority to determine who can marry and who can't with the same people and institutions that have discriminated against us.

I am mentioning all of this after seeing an article from the Los Angeles Times describing the "rift" that is developing within the Republican Party over LGBT equality.  Truth is, that "rift" is more like a purge:  Even though people might be leaving the party (or simply not voting for its candidates) on their own accord, they are, I believe, reacting to their perception that the hard-core social conservatives don't want them in the GOP.  

Such a development might not be so disturbing if those "conservatives" weren't so disingenuous and ruthless:  They rail against "Obamacare" as an example of "intrusive" government yet support massive military and "security" spending as well as any project or agency that will give cushy jobs to their campaign supporters.   And they will use any sort of smear tactic against the Edward Snowdens, Chelsea Mannings and others who are fighting against the Surveillance State, as well as to anyone else deemed a threat in any way.

(By the way, I have--and continue to be--against "Obamacare", though for reasons entirely different from those of the "conservatives" I've described.)

So, while some might think that the "rift" will blow up the party, I wonder whether the defections will turn the GOP into a fringe party, which would be far more dangerous than having them as a center-right party that gets between 45 and 55 percent of the vote.  Fringe parties and movements, while small, can be very dangerous because they often consist mainly of the angry, the scared and the otherwise unhinged.  It doesn't take very many of such people to create hysteria over some invented bogeyman:  That, to me, is the real lesson of the McCarthy era.  (Remember that Joe Mc Carthy waved his infamous "list" in front of a Republican Women's Club at a time when his party--the Republicans--lost the previous five Presidential elections and numerous Congressional seats, governorships and local elections.)   So, while I think that, ultimately, legal same-sex marriage will eventually be the norm, if not ubiquitous, the fight will become nastier and more vicious as the right loses its LGBT allies.

Why They Defected

Although most of my votes have gone to candidates from the Democratic Party, I can't say I've ever been terribly enthusiastic about the party--or, for that matter, most of the candidates for whom I've voted.  For one thing, I think many cities--including New York--are over-regulated.  And, too often, their rhetoric about "inclusion" is simply a smokescreen.  As an example, I think Obama "supports" gay rights (and gay marriage, only after Joe Biden beat him to it) only because the finance and insurance industries employ a lot of gay men (here in New York, anyway).  And those companies are his largest campaign contributors.  

But I've voted for, if not always identified with, Democrats because right around the time I started voting, the religious zealots and hatemongers started to worm their way into the Republican Party.  And now, it seems, they are running the show.

I'm not the only one who thinks that way.  No less than Carlo R. Key says as much, with even greater depth of knowledge than I'll ever have.

Who is Mr. Key?  He's a Texas judge who decided to leave his party and join the Democrats.  That's quite a move for someone in his position.  What's even more telling, though, is his explanation for it:

 Rational Republican beliefs have given way to ideological character assassination. Pragmatism and principle have been overtaken by pettiness and bigotry. Make no mistake; I have not left the Republican Party. It left me. I cannot tolerate a Republican Party that demeans Texans based on their sexual orientation, the color of their skin, or their economic status. I will not be a member of a party in which hate speech elevates candidates for higher office rather than disqualifying them. I cannot place my name on the ballot for a political party that is proud to destroy the lives of hundreds of thousands of federal workers over the vain attempt to repeal a law that would provide healthcare to millions of people throughout our country. .. I would hope that more people of principle will follow me.

The man didn't pull any punches.   But there is also a note of sadness:  "I have not left the Republican Party.  It left me."  At least his move doesn't seem to be one of political opportunism, and even has fairness as a motive:  "I cannot tolerate a Republican Party that demeans Texans based on their sexual orientation, the color of their skin or their economic status."  Couldn't have said it any better myself.

The hate that has infested the party (and, I believe much of the political process) drove Judge Key out of the Republican Party--or, as he says, pulled it away from him--also motivated another high-profile move from the GOP to the Democrats.  In North Carolina, which has tried to suppress voter turnout, Congressional candidate Jason Thigpen announced his defection the other day:

 I simply cannot stand with a party where its most extreme element promote hate and division amongst people,” Thigpen said in a statement posted to his campaign website Thursday. “Nothing about my platform has, nor will it change. The government shutdown was simply the straw that broke the camels back. I guess being an American just isn’t good enough anymore and I refuse to be part of an extremist movement in the GOP that only appears to thrive on fear and hate mongering of anyone and everyone who doesn’t walk their line.

His switch is, perhaps, even more jarring than that of Judge Key because he spent six years in the Army, two of them deployed to Iraq as a gun-truck commander for a Convoy Security Team.  But that experience is another reason why he changed parties.  He says he "didn't go to war to defend the liberties and freedoms of one party, race or one income class of Americans".  So he simply could not abide the Republicans' attempt to make keep minorites and college students from voting.

While the Democrats are welcoming Thigpen and Judge Key with open arms, the party needs to heed a message both men voice:  that their party needs to represent everyone, not just certain segments of the population.  Simply supporting gay marriage is not enough; if the party is serious about representing the underrepresented, it needs to remember the "T" at the end of "LGBT" and all members of "minority" groups.