{"id":25801,"date":"2025-09-19T16:16:28","date_gmt":"2025-09-19T23:16:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/?p=25801"},"modified":"2025-10-08T16:23:29","modified_gmt":"2025-10-08T23:23:29","slug":"how-transgenders-trigger-conservatives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2025\/09\/19\/how-transgenders-trigger-conservatives\/","title":{"rendered":"How Transgenders Trigger Conservatives"},"content":{"rendered":"<ul>\n<li>Two truths of Trumpists: nothing is ever their fault, their obsession with contamination;<\/li>\n<li>Heritage wants to designate trans people as terrorists;<\/li>\n<li>Republicans seem to have no principles except protecting the tribe: once they defended free speech, now, not so much;<\/li>\n<li>Heather Cox Richardson on how Trump defines anyone he doesn&#8217;t like as &#8220;Democrats&#8221;;<\/li>\n<li>Ted Cruz worries about FCC&#8217;s threats against ABC, but still approves of Jimmy Kimmel getting fired;<\/li>\n<li>How Trump seems more concerned about his new ballroom than the death of Charlie Kirk.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<div align=\"center\">&#8211; &#8211; &#8211;<\/div>\n<p>Some psychological traits are considered to be conservative, others progressive, even though the individual traits themselves don&#8217;t necessarily have much to do with one another.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/09\/20\/multimedia\/19polgreen-01-kmpj\/19polgreen-01-kmpj-superJumbo.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp\" width=\"250\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>NY Times, opinion by Lydia Polgreen, 19 Sept 2025<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/09\/19\/opinion\/kirk-killing-trans-trump.html?unlocked_article_code=1.nE8.4tkE.WOM0dzvxh8GN&amp;smid=url-share\">The Fallout From Charlie Kirk\u2019s Killing Reveals Two Truths of Trumpism<\/a> [gift link]<\/p>\n<p>This is about Charlie Kirk&#8217;s killing, the right&#8217;s hysteria about transgender people, and how these two things have come together.<br \/>\n<!--more--><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>This fixation on finding a transgender connection to Kirk\u2019s horrific murder is as awful as it is dangerous. But it does reveal two psychological truths about Trumpism.<\/p>\n<p>First, for all of MAGA\u2019s reverence for masculine self-determination, one of its central tenets is the blamelessness of its adherents. Whatever is going wrong in this country, it is not their fault.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>With a list of things MAGA blames for their problems: immigrants, foreign countries, &#8220;greedy pharmaceutical companies and scheming scientists,&#8221; and transgender people.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The insistence that something President Trump and his supporters call \u201ctransgender ideology\u201d was behind the killing lays bare another core belief of theirs: They are obsessed with contamination and contagion, seeing it as the site of despicable difference. Again and again they deploy metaphors of disease and disfigurement.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>With examples of immigrants, vaccines, the &#8220;woke mind virus,&#8221; and so on. The article goes on to explain how these two reflexes come together in their blaming transgender people for things they can&#8217;t otherwise explain. Ending by noting how similar Kirk and Robinson were.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The divergence of their natural paths as young, white American men requires some explanation. For Trumpists, the only acceptable one is the intercession of some alien intervention \u2014 contamination, pollution, infestation. In this fantasy, Robinson is a blameless dupe deserving our prayers and the diabolical agent can be only a trans person, who seeded and steered a heinous crime. Except, of course, it wasn\u2019t.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\\<\/p>\n<p>Related, from <strong>JMG:<\/strong> <a href=\"https:\/\/www.joemygod.com\/2025\/09\/heritage-fbi-must-designate-trans-people-as-terrorists\/\">Heritage: FBI Must Designate Trans People As Terrorists<\/a>. Their point isn&#8217;t that transgender people should automatically be designated terrorists, but that being transgender makes one more prone to violence (for which I&#8217;m certain they have no evidence), and that this tendency is behind &#8220;the majority of mass shootings at schools,&#8221; which I don&#8217;t believe for a moment. They&#8217;re paranoid.<\/p>\n<p>\\\\\\<\/p>\n<p>Once again, it seems that Republicans have no actual principles, aside from protecting their tribe from perceived threats, never mind the Constitution.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/static01.nyt.com\/images\/2025\/09\/18\/multimedia\/CANCEL-CULTURE-sub-zwjq\/CANCEL-CULTURE-sub-zwjq-superJumbo.jpg?quality=75&amp;auto=webp\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>NY Times, media memo by Jim Rutenberg, 18 Sept 2025<\/strong> (on today&#8217;s front page): <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2025\/09\/18\/business\/media\/trump-kimmel-cancel-culture-free-speech.html\">Trump Administration Wields Its Full Toolbox to Bring Media to Heel<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;ABC\u2019s decision to &#8216;indefinitely&#8217; suspend Jimmy Kimmel\u2019s late-night talk show illuminates the administration\u2019s efficacy so far.&#8221;<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>President Trump received thunderous applause during his second inaugural address in January when he vowed to \u201cimmediately stop all government censorship and bring back free speech to America.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>It was in keeping with the popular free-speech refrain of his long march out of the political wilderness and his first-term broadsides against \u201ccancel culture,\u201d which he had called \u201cthe very definition of totalitarianism.\u201d His message had particular resonance with his supporters. After all, major social media companies banished him and others from their services in the days and weeks after the Jan. 6, 2021, riots.<\/p>\n<p>Yet he is now conducting the most punishing government crackdown against major American media institutions in modern times, using what seems like every tool at his disposal to eradicate reporting and commentary with which he disagrees.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>There are similar pieces today about FCC chairman Brendan Carr (here&#8217;s one <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2025\/09\/19\/politics\/fcc-chair-carr-kimmel-free-speech-kfile\">at CNN<\/a>), and other top officials. There was a &#8220;that was then, this is now&#8221; spread citing Vance, Rubio, and the other usual suspects, and how their current statements contradict what they said years ago, but I didn&#8217;t note the link.<\/p>\n<p>\\\\\\<\/p>\n<p><strong>Heather Cox Richardson<\/strong>&#8216;s perspective today is how Trump defines anyone he doesn&#8217;t like, including nominal Republicans, as &#8220;Democrats&#8221;: <a href=\"https:\/\/heathercoxrichardson.substack.com\/p\/september-18-2025\">September 18, 2025<\/a><\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Since he took office in 2017, President Donald J. Trump has worked hard to convince Americans that they are divided into two partisan camps: Republicans, whom he defines as those people loyal to him, and Democrats, a group made up of everyone else. In his first term, when actual Republicans, some of whom he appointed himself, challenged him, he simply redefined them as Democrats. In his telling, major figures in the investigation of the 2016 Trump campaign\u2019s association with Russian operatives, including special counsel Robert Mueller and his staff, FBI director James Comey, and deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein, were all Democrats.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>And he insisted that those people were organized as &#8220;Antifa,&#8221; despite advice that antifa is an ideology, not an organization.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Dividing a population into friends and enemies is a tool of authoritarians, clearly articulated by Nazi political theorist Carl Schmitt, who is enjoying a burst of popularity right now in the American right wing. MAGA figures have pushed the idea that the murder of right-wing activist Charlie Kirk last week, apparently by a lone gunman, could be blamed on \u201cDemocrats\u201d or \u201cTHEM.\u201d Last night, after news broke that ABC was suspending comedian Jimmy Kimmel\u2019s television show, the Trump administration announced it was putting the teeth of the government into this division of the world.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Amazingly, some Republican traditionalists are pushing back. Heather notes:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Yesterday, Republican political strategist Karl Rove, who was a key member of President George W. Bush\u2019s administration, pushed back against the friends and enemies distinction in the <em>Wall Street Journal<\/em>. \u201cNo,\u201d he wrote. \u201cCharlie Kirk wasn\u2019t killed by \u2018them.\u2019 \u2018They\u2019 didn\u2019t pull the trigger. One person did, apparently a young man driven by impulse and a terrible hate. If there were a \u2018they\u2019 involved, law enforcement would find \u2018them\u2019 and the justice system would hold \u2018them\u2019 accountable. But \u2018he\u2019 and \u2018him\u2019 are the correct pronouns for this horrendous act\u2026. Using Charlie\u2019s murder to justify retaliation against political rivals is wrong and dangerous. It will further divide and embitter our country. No good thing will come of it.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>\\<\/p>\n<p>And today, right now, on CNN.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/media.cnn.com\/api\/v1\/images\/stellar\/prod\/gettyimages-2235239731.jpg?c=original&amp;q=w_860,c_fill\/f_avif\" width=\"300\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>CNN, 19 Sept 2025<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cnn.com\/2025\/09\/19\/politics\/ted-cruz-fcc-abc-mob\">\u2018Dangerous as hell\u2019: Ted Cruz compares FCC chair\u2019s threats against ABC to mob tactics<\/a><\/p>\n<p>He still approves of Jimmy Kimmel getting fired.<\/p>\n<p>\\\\\\<\/p>\n<p>One more.<\/p>\n<p align=\"center\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/www.salon.com\/app\/uploads\/2025\/09\/Jimmy-Kimmel-Set.jpg\" width=\"400\" \/><\/p>\n<p><strong>Salon, Melanie McFarland, 19 Sept 2025<\/strong>: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.salon.com\/2025\/09\/19\/jimmy-kimmel-and-the-strongmans-fear-of-comedians\/\">Jimmy Kimmel and the strongman\u2019s fear of comedians<\/a>, subtitled &#8220;ABC&#8217;s latest sacrifice to Trump comes straight out of a playbook followed by other authoritarian governments&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Beginning with an example of Putin and a 1994 comedy show that mocked him.<\/p>\n<p>And it suggests that maybe it was something else Kimmel said that drew Brendan Carr&#8217;s wrath. A reporter asked Trump how he was hold up, in the wake of Kirk&#8217;s killing.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>Trump responds, \u201cI think very good. And by the way, right there, you see all the trucks? They just started construction of the new ballroom for the White House, which is something they\u2019ve been trying to get, as you know, for about 150 years, and it\u2019s gonna be a beauty.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>\u201cYes,\u201d Kimmel deadpans, \u201che\u2019s at the fourth stage of grief: construction.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Trump was more interested in bragging about his ballroom, than saying anything about Charlie Kirk.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Two truths of Trumpists: nothing is ever their fault, their obsession with contamination; Heritage wants to designate trans people as terrorists; Republicans seem to have no principles except protecting the tribe: once they defended free speech, now, not so much; &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/2025\/09\/19\/how-transgenders-trigger-conservatives\/\">Continue reading <span class=\"meta-nav\">&rarr;<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[90,54,20],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-25801","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservatives","category-politics","category-psychology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25801","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25801"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25801\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25928,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25801\/revisions\/25928"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25801"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25801"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.markrkelly.com\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25801"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}