Lady Graham is pretty offensive IMO. You can’t just take a bigoted joke and throw it at bad people. You’re still participating in homophobia. If a black republican ran for president I wouldn’t be asking to see his birth certificate, let alone be throwing racial epithets
I get where you’re coming from - I really do. In any other context I wouldn’t use such a targeted epithet.
But the pack of political shitgoblins that is the GOP have turned overtly fascist. They’re looking at Handmaid’s Tale as an aspirational goal instead of a harrowing cautionary tale about how fascism and authoritarianism rises and then entrenches itself. I will apologize to anyone who wants, and will accept any level of ridicule or ostracism that people feel I deserve due to how I target hypocritical, caustic, (small-d) anti-democratic politicians who are actively trying to destroy the advances our society has made after we build a bulwark against that bullshit. I myself am not enthusiastic about targeting people that way, but I genuinely do think that the situation warrants it.
The GOP is not following any rulebook at this point. Hamstringing effective psychological attacks against their base because it generates splash damage to some populations is something I see as a necessary evil because the GOP fully intends to do far, FAR worse to those populations if they gain and solidify their hold on American government for the foreseeable future.
So… yeah. It’s a shitty tactic. But the “critical failure” end-state of all this bullshit is “it’s illegal to be gay again” (amongst many other things), and from where I’m standing, that’s orders of magnitudes worse than having to repair any reputation and relationships I have with gay people - or even simply living with the fact that I’ve permanently offended people because used a dirty rhetorical tactic when it seemed like one of the best and most effective non-violent choices in a set of bad options.
I feel you 100%. For my own sanity, I feel like I have to draw a line in the sand and hold myself to a higher standard than the fascists. It would feel good to stoop to their level for sure, but then how do I tell myself that Im better than that? How could I claim to be? I just wish everyone had the capacity for empathy and kindness. It’s insanity that so much of our suffering is man-made through ignorance and small mindedness.
I’m sure the gays will forgive you, but please consider how a gay person would feel hearing “Lady Graham” when there are so many things otherwise wrong with him you could comment on. You’re putting an inherent negative spin on being gay - which of course is the point since Graham would happily do the same - but still.
I think hypocrisy is the key ingredient that changes people’s behavior here. By default, we should treat other humans with compassion and respect. A politician being gay/trans/minority normally shouldn’t even be a part of the conversation. However, if that politician happens to be gay, and they consistently work to harm gay people, people have the urge to call that out even if they are an ally.
Yeah, that’s more or less exactly my logic. If they actively harm a group of people that they belong to, and then expect that group and it’s allies to stand up and defend them… well, that’s gonna be a nope from me, dawg.
Hypocritical politicians like that deserve a live and very personal preview of the bigotry that they’re actively pushing for.
Lady Graham is pretty offensive IMO. You can’t just take a bigoted joke and throw it at bad people. You’re still participating in homophobia. If a black republican ran for president I wouldn’t be asking to see his birth certificate, let alone be throwing racial epithets
Two wrongs and all that.
I get where you’re coming from - I really do. In any other context I wouldn’t use such a targeted epithet.
But the pack of political shitgoblins that is the GOP have turned overtly fascist. They’re looking at Handmaid’s Tale as an aspirational goal instead of a harrowing cautionary tale about how fascism and authoritarianism rises and then entrenches itself. I will apologize to anyone who wants, and will accept any level of ridicule or ostracism that people feel I deserve due to how I target hypocritical, caustic, (small-d) anti-democratic politicians who are actively trying to destroy the advances our society has made after we build a bulwark against that bullshit. I myself am not enthusiastic about targeting people that way, but I genuinely do think that the situation warrants it.
The GOP is not following any rulebook at this point. Hamstringing effective psychological attacks against their base because it generates splash damage to some populations is something I see as a necessary evil because the GOP fully intends to do far, FAR worse to those populations if they gain and solidify their hold on American government for the foreseeable future.
So… yeah. It’s a shitty tactic. But the “critical failure” end-state of all this bullshit is “it’s illegal to be gay again” (amongst many other things), and from where I’m standing, that’s orders of magnitudes worse than having to repair any reputation and relationships I have with gay people - or even simply living with the fact that I’ve permanently offended people because used a dirty rhetorical tactic when it seemed like one of the best and most effective non-violent choices in a set of bad options.
I feel you 100%. For my own sanity, I feel like I have to draw a line in the sand and hold myself to a higher standard than the fascists. It would feel good to stoop to their level for sure, but then how do I tell myself that Im better than that? How could I claim to be? I just wish everyone had the capacity for empathy and kindness. It’s insanity that so much of our suffering is man-made through ignorance and small mindedness.
I’m sure the gays will forgive you, but please consider how a gay person would feel hearing “Lady Graham” when there are so many things otherwise wrong with him you could comment on. You’re putting an inherent negative spin on being gay - which of course is the point since Graham would happily do the same - but still.
I think hypocrisy is the key ingredient that changes people’s behavior here. By default, we should treat other humans with compassion and respect. A politician being gay/trans/minority normally shouldn’t even be a part of the conversation. However, if that politician happens to be gay, and they consistently work to harm gay people, people have the urge to call that out even if they are an ally.
Yeah, that’s more or less exactly my logic. If they actively harm a group of people that they belong to, and then expect that group and it’s allies to stand up and defend them… well, that’s gonna be a nope from me, dawg.
Hypocritical politicians like that deserve a live and very personal preview of the bigotry that they’re actively pushing for.