I’m sure I’m not the only person who’s mentioned this in the last few days, but it seems clear that one of the big problems Democrats face in the next few years is the fact that a large percentage of the American people are woefully uninformed, misinformed, or (in some cases) disinformed. [Disclaimer: I had actually planned a significantly different post, and will still be writing that one soon; it’s just that what I had planned as an intro took a life of its own.]
Here in Texas, there was a good two or three week span where almost every single anti-Allred ad I saw was essentially “Allred doesn’t hate trans people enough.” The worst of the ads, though, implied that schools were transitioning kids without their parents’ knowledge or consent. Yes, schools that in many cases can’t afford toilet paper are also performing sex change operations. (On the other hand, Texas is also a place where schools have $100 million football stadiums, so who knows? Maybe some well-heeled high schools having a secret surgical suite isn’t that far-fetched.)
If I had to guess what happened here, the tiny kernel of truth is that there probably are some kids in unwelcoming families who are trying to transition, and some teachers or schools have agreed to let them go by another name in school (e.g., Ava vs. Alexander). And like a demonic game of telephone, that’s become kids getting sex change operations in school. Worse, there are many people who believe that this is actually happening.
Another example of this is the debate over abortion. During the debate, Tr*mp claimed, "The problem [Democrats] have is they're radical because they will take the life of a child in the eighth month, the ninth month, and even after birth, after birth." To hear them tell it, you would think that Democrats are encouraging healthy women, the week before their due dates, to suddenly decide “F#%$ this pregnancy s$%!, I’m gonna have an abortion today.”
First off, no sane person believes that a healthy fetus that can be delivered safely and would be able to survive outside the womb should be aborted. No sane Democratic candidates believe that elective abortions should be permitted post-viability. (There might be a couple of looney-tunes fringe candidates, but that’s a rounding error, not a widespread belief.)
But abortions need to be available in the third trimester because, as Pete Buttigieg once noted, terrible things sometimes happen, or are discovered, late in pregnancies. I won’t go into the details, but these are tragedies, not spur-of-the-moment YOLO decisions. And, again, exceedingly rare: only about 1% of abortions take place after 21 weeks, and the number of doctors that perform abortions in the last 10 weeks of pregnancy nationwide is approximately five. But Republicans seem to think The Onion’s Abortionplex is real.
I’ll stop here. Part 2 of this will feature some data showing just how pernicious a problem this is. I can only hope that we don’t have a very painful next few years, but if/when we do have pain, that it finally penetrates into their ecosystem.
