Republicans' Talarico Trans Taunt Is A Witch Hunt In The Classic Sense
The case for a muscular Democratic response.
When soft-bodied Republicans like Stephen Miller smirk and say James Talarico is “transgender” and “transitioning into a female” they have two main objectives.
One is directed left, to anger Talarico’s supporters and eventually shake their faith. Some of them will want Talarico to come to the defense of transgender Texans. Others will want to see if he can stand up for himself. Miller et al have made a bet that he will do neither—certainly not both—and it’ll demoralize the opposition. This is important, and we’ll address it at length below.
But the other objective is directed rightward, and it marks a disturbing but important escalation in the GOP’s vile anti-trans politics.
I mean “disturbing” in MAGA-adjusted terms, because MAGA politics are broadly degenerate. There’s an obvious family resemblance here to earlier Republican anti-trans politics, which is why nobody seems particularly shocked. The GOP always goes low, we just can never be sure when if ever they’ll hit bottom.
Prior to now, though, their modus operandi has been to use bills and laws and rules as tools of abuse against trans people, in service of the same, tired culture-war pitch: trans people are weird and gross and Democrats care about them more than regular Americans. The idea, as with most of their culture war feints, is to fan the prejudices of their voters and then either divide Democrats, or unite them and portray them all as extremists and perverts.
The result has been a mass right-wing panic that endangers trans people, but not only trans people. Pass anti-trans bathroom laws or laws banning trans sports participation, and you encourage a form of vigilantism. The most proximate targets are out trans people. But the law doesn’t leave everyone else untouched. Is the tall, strong softball team star trans? Oh my god what do we do?!?! How can we be sure?! Can we force her home state to release birth records? Conduct an invasive genital inspection?
And here we reach the touchpoint with Republican lies about Talarico.