Donald Trump had recently finished a familiar riff about banning gender transition surgery for children when the former president, speaking to an audience of Evangelical voters, moved on to something new: a policy that would affect transgender adults.
“I will ban all taxpayer funding for sex or gender transitions at any age,” said Trump, receiving thunderous applause at the Faith & Freedom Coalition conference in Washington last month. The Republican leader, who moments earlier had also pledged to reinstate a ban on transgender men and women serving in the military, paused for several seconds to soak in the crowd’s adulation.
It’s the kind of moment — and the type of policy — increasingly common on the GOP presidential campaign trail this year.
The “dog caught the car” in the Supreme Court abortion ruling. The GOP can no longer use abortion as a wedge issue, because the issue is, essentially, resolved. They got what they said they wanted.
But the GOP always used abortion as a wedge issue, to drive people to polls to vote against their otherwise best interests because “Democrats will kill babies!” or similar.
The GOP is desperately looking for a new wedge issue and an enemy. And like most fascists do, they look to a marginalized group to demonize that doesn’t have the ability or numbers to fight back. They appear to have settled on trans people for the moment.
It’s not about actual trans people, it’s about making their base mad about something so they’ll vote ( R ).