Member-only story
Politics
What Would Republicans Do Without Trans People?
They are running out of scapegoats
The GOP has a problem. It needs to focus its followers’ attention on a villain to distract everyone as it does everything possible to extract wealth from the masses and concentrate it into their greedy little hands.
In the past, they had great luck with gay people, but unfortunately (for them) most people know enough gay people now to no longer care if some men love men and some women love women. Whatever.
Black people, Jewish people and Muslim people were always handy, but it’s getting harder to scapegoat them. Even if, as with Trump, your record shows your racism, you’re supposed to hold a straight face and deny what’s plain to see.
Immigrants, of course, are always eminently scapegoatable, but only when they are in the middle of crossing the border. Once they’re here and working, we all know we need them. As long as they break their bodies in our meatpacking plants and clean our hotel rooms without complaining and without demanding any rights, we are glad to have them.
This put the GOP in a bind.
Their basic message — keep women barefoot and pregnant, keep white men in charge, never change society unless it’s to move…
