Kit Malone
It's important to understand that the widespread anti-trans hatred you see today isn't organic.
It's the result of a calculated, well-funded campaign that capitalizes on biases to galvanize political supporters to build power and wealth.
People made jokes about us in the 70s, but they didn't run campaigns. That's new. And it's a political strategy.
Every anti-trans talking point you've ever heard - including the sports shit - was dreamt up by messaging experts in a board room somewhere.
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Kit Malone
They attempted this strategy around gay marriage - that's why you started seeing marriage bans crop up in states that had never even had legal gay marriage or even a public debate about it.
Marriage backfired on them, but polling data in like 2015 found that trans people where widely viewed with suspicion so out came the bathroom bans and that had some legs and gave them a start.
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Kit Malone
They'll keep doing this. They'll keep moving down the line to whatever group is viewed with some amount of suspicion and they'll use it to campaign on, build power, get folks elected and ultimately do whatever it is they already planned to do to enrich themselves.
... most of which has nothing to do with trans people, gay people, immigrants, black people, or whatever other group they've decided the polling data will allow them to gin up a moral panic about.
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Amy Edge :toad:
@thekitmalone
It is very similar to the satanic panic in the 80s. It is tied to a certain form of religion that gains power by scaring people.
Amy Edge :toad:
@thekitmalone
It is also tied to the Russian campaign against gay people, that many Americans do not know about. Exact same playbook. It leads to people being killed and hounded out of their communities. And, as you said, there is always an "other" and they keep moving down the line
Kit Malone
@amyedge I don't think we're more easily manipulated as a whole than other cultural groups. But our political landscape and loose controls on private funding encourages the growth of "advocacy" groups with just massive funding behind them to launch and maintain literal misinformation campaigns.
Citizens United poured gasoline on this stuff. The war chests these people can accumulate are unreal.
Amy Edge :toad:
@thekitmalone
Americans are easily manipulated by propaganda. It's part of our nature. And you are right that most people don't understand it is a sophisticated campaign. I've tried pushing back by doing something as simple as how talking points work. Avg Joe does not like being told that he is being manipulated. He knows what he thinks.
Kit Malone
@amyedge It's worse (and so was that). Both were tied to fairly wealthy political interests interested in manipulating religious social conservatives to build their donor base, mobilize voters for sympathetic candidates who will then go on to do whatever it is those interests actually want (usually keep taxes low for the wealthy/corporations).
Religious conservatives are just useful idiots to them.
Amy Edge :toad:
@thekitmalone Yes. You are right. Have you read Anne Nelson's Shadow Network? I was raised Southern Baptist and was around at the beginning of the fundamentalist takeover. Those same tactics are being used to take over the country. I had an aunt who railed about Obama being the antichrist and who, of course, had the whole left behind series. And, yes, it is tied to making a certain group very wealthy.
Kit Malone
@amyedge I haven't! But I led campaigns against a number of Indiana's worst anti-trans bills, abortion restrictions, and anti immigration bills. The leaders behind them are all the literal same people, backed by all the same big nationals like the ADF. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to start noticing the playbook.
I'll def look it up, it sounds like a good read.
Amy Edge :toad:
@thekitmalone Yes, they are all CNP. You are right. Same people keep showing up over and over again whatever the issue. They have an overall goal.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Council_for_National_Policy#:~:text=The%20Council%20for%20National%20Policy,activists%20in%20the%20United%20States.
Rich Felker
@thekitmalone We really need a recalibrated version of free speech standards whereby this kind of calculated, organized hate is not protected and is handled exactly the same way baser and more direct nazi glorification is handled in Germany.
Kit Malone
@dalias that's a good rundown of why such restrictions are often unworkable. It's incredibly difficult to craft laws that can't be wormed around without applying a blunt instrument to free speech or else becoming so vague that they are unenforceable.
Do that in the US and watch how fast it gets used to shut down leftist dissent, minority protests, and anyone else corporate America's bought judicial system decides is "hateful."
Rich Felker
@thekitmalone I'm not an expert on German law or politics, but my understanding is that the failure is largely being too limited to literal 20th century nazi imagery and language rather than broad enough to cover the dehumanization patterns and weaponized hate.
Kit Malone
@dalias I appreciate that sentiment, but those measures didn't really stop the rise of the new far right in Germany.
I'd like to see the end of the Citizens United era, and meaningful reforms to donor reporting requirements for non profits so that the monied interests who are funding and profiting from this nonsense could no longer hide behind a shield of anonymity.
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