cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/54506028
cross-posted from: https://quokk.au/c/politics/p/1270828/iowa-dem-josh-turek-releases-anti-trans-ad-calling-for-a-federal-funding-ban-on-trans-care
On Saturday, Oct. 24, Josh Turek, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Iowa, released a new ad targeting transgender people—perhaps the worst anti-transgender ad of the entire election cycle to come from a Democrat. The ad begins with Turek talking about his disability and the importance of not discriminating, before immediately turning to adopt discriminatory policies toward transgender people. One such policy is a sports ban, a position sadly becoming increasingly common among high-profile Democrats in competitive races, and one that alone would have made this yet another newsworthy anti-trans ad. But Turek then goes further, advocating for a new policy: a proposal to ban federally funded gender-affirming care in the United States, one that would impact a substantial number of transgender people and make their care difficult to impossible to receive.
The primaries are over.
I voted for someone other than Turek but Turek won anyway.
So what happens now?
Turek is horrible in this regard, but I have to vote for him anyway because he wants to TRY to ban transgender care, emphasis on TRY while the other party wants to do worse.
Everyone needs to get this through their heads.
Go talk to american muslims who couldn’t vote for Kamala because she supported Israel.
Not voting perpetuates more harm than voting for the bad guy who is less bad.
Voting third party at this point in the election cycle perpetuates more harm than voting for the bad guy who is less bad.
THE FACTS ARE SIMPLE:
One of two people will win this race. There is no other outcome at this point.
This primary was decided by votes, not anti-bernie-level dnc trickery.
You have to vote for the one who will hurt you less or it will get worse than even this.
I hate everything about it, but this is very simple: at this point anything other than a vote for turek is a vote for escalating harm to trans people to levels even higher than what turek wants.
That is all there is to it.
Go vote.
Do not let this rhetoric stop you from turning out to vote.
That is what the people behind the machine want.
This should be a learned lesson at this point but people like Erin are somehow still getting spun up by propaganda and failing to see the simple, shitty, crushing truth here, which is that an anti-trans democrat who only wants to ban things because his donors tell him to is still more pro-trans than any other option we have at this point in this one race.
I hope that the trans and LGBTQ community comes together and does an Abandon Harris protest movement.
Sitting alone and not voting won’t do anything but have Democrats keep dismissing you as a shitty voter.
Banding together and telling the Democratic party to nut the fuck up and stop voting for morally bankrupt candidates publicly and in one voice will make a difference.
Plus this whole bullshit about vote Blue no matter who when it’s never reciprocated is not a good excuse to vote for someone, even if they call themselves a Democrat, who wants to ensure you’re a second class citizen.
Be fucking better you shitty Democrats.
We have NO Choice but to Vote for Him! Vote BLUE no Matter WHO!
-Democrats who are Voting for Republican Mike Rogers INSTEAD of Democrat Abdul El-Sayed!
Voting is not enough. Voting for transphobes puts transphobes in power. Call his campaign office and tell him you disagree with his stance. Go to a townhall event and call him to the carpet in front of everyone. Tell him he needs to earn your vote, and his behavior isn’t fucking cutting it.
You can vote for him anyway, but he doesn’t need to know that. He needs to be told out loud that he’s doing the wrong thing, often and by many people.
“It’s not about supporting only your ideal candidate, it’s about picking the direction you want the country to go”
Fucking both of these roads lead to ruin I’d like to turn around but that’s not a fucking option.
One is less bad. That’s the facts.
The Republican winning is literally the less bad option, because if the Dems see this guy win they’ll realize that people who claim to support trans rights will vote for them even when they sell trans people down the river, and at that point the strategically correct move will be to abandon support for trans rights everywhere. And then there will be zero resistance whatsoever to the trans genocide. It’s better that they lose one seat than that the entire party gets a message that this is acceptable.
Not that you should vote based on the absurd ideology of “lesser evilism” in the first place.
Fuck off tankie.
Trans rights are human rights. The people, united, must never be divided. We must hang together, or we will each hang separately.
Anyone who’s tired of watching these liberals betray and sell out marginalized people, anyone who believes in solidarity, and realizes that this won’t stop until we make them stop, remember: It’s us “tankies” who actually believe in those values.
Liberals will sell you down the river in a heartbeat, the moment it’s politically convenient. You can watch it happening here in real time, it’s as plain as day.
One wants to take your rights away, the other one wants to take your rights away.
That’s not one less bad for the people who’s human rights are being taken away.
I’m one of those people. One is less bad.
You do you, I mean if you’re okay with it and think it’s one less bad, that’s cool by me, no skin off my back.
One is demonstrably less bad, and only MAGAt trash are stupid enough to think in such stupid simplistic and false paradigms.
If you’re in a car, and you have a fork ahead of you. The right path takes you directly off a cliff, and the left path circles around a tree before taking you off the same cliff, are you really going to stay in the car?
Is it a fast car and how close is the other side?
Like what if instead if dying in a fiery crash I just landed a sick jump?
Are you leaving the country? Because that’s the only way to get out of the car. Everything else leads to one of two possibilities, regardless of your feelings about it. And one is less bad. That’s the facts
No. One is bad now, the other is just as bad but delayed by a cycle.
And no, leaving the country is not the only option. It’s the only option they want you to consider, but it’s not the only option.
Oh go fuck yourself accelerationist. Go back to ml ya fuckin cartoon.
Bro I just want to turn the car around. You’re the one arguing for the cliff.
Vote in the fuckin primaries you asshats. But you don’t fuckin vote. Goddamn tankies on this shit platform.
How do you plan on doing that by Tuesday?
Well said. The number of people who seem to think that there’s some magical other option for another, more progressive candidate to pop up on the ballot is frustrating.