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Mid-Terms Post Mortem: Did Democrats “Democracy Is On The Ballot” Work?

There are many reasons to be considered for what has been a blown election for Republicans. Trump for one. Democrats pushing abortion, which plays to many women, without mentioning they want abortion up to birth. Lindsay Graham and a few other Republicans saying they want to pass a national abortion ban did not help. We can dive into all sorts of notions, but, what about

Biden’s Democracy Argument Worked

In the last two weeks of the election cycle, as the news seemed to be getting worse and worse for Democrats hoping to avoid a historic midterm election shellacking, party leaders opted to go all in on one particular theme—that democracy itself was on the ballot. Here, voters had a historic choice to make: Vote to save the republic, or squander it. Across the aisle, the GOP had marshaled an army of candidates behind election denialism and a vision of an illiberal United States. In his final campaign speech, President Joe Biden told the crowd assembled at Bowie State University in Maryland that the country was at “an inflection point.”

“We know in our bones that our democracy is at risk, and we know that this is your moment to defend it, preserve or protect it, choose it,” he said.

It was a tall order. And let’s face it, it was a little bit belated. As we’ve chronicled on these pages, Democrats haven’t always spent the past two years as democracy’s most ardent defenders. Too many senators preferred to keep the filibuster rather than get rid of it to pass the laws necessary to confront a well-organized and well-funded effort among Republicans to curb voting rights across the country. Even the Biden administration seemed dismissive at one point, referring to voting rights as just one more niche issue among many.

Obviously, this is from a far left organization, in this case, The New Republic. But, do they have a point? I think they might. Democrats, from Biden to Democrats running for office to their mouthpieces to their pet Credentialed Media, all pushed this notion, and all pushed it the same way. How much did this play into the the distribution of votes? Did they flip a lot of Independents, who were more scared of “losing their democracy” than crushing inflation, food prices, clothing prices, and a bad economy? Of growing crime? Of wackjobs teaching their kids? And so much more? Did it drive a lot of squishy Democrats who might have flipped, or just stayed home, out to vote Democrat? Did it get the muddle headed youngsters who do not usually show up to show up?

It surely not the only reason, but, it certainly has a ring of truth. I can see Democrats poll testing it, and, seeing that it had an effect, all running with it. Because they did all run with it, did they not?

In truth, you wouldn’t be thought entirely daft if you fretted that Democrats were, at the very least, talking over the heads of the electorate. Polls ahead of the midterms consistently showed that matters such as the January 6 attacks weren’t foremost on people’s minds; democracy defense seemed like a bad bet. But the exit polls told a different story. Per Axios: “National polling showed abortion and democracy turned out to be big issues with voters. Coverage in the run-up to midterms had focused heavily on pocketbook issues.” In other words, the Democrats’ plan worked, and the media whiffed badly in their read of the electorate’s mood.

Republicans never saw it coming, and why should they have? We saw all the polls on what Americans care about. That the nation was on the wrong track. That people were upset over inflation, the economy, and crime. It didn’t need to move the needle a lot, just enough to blunt the GOP on those battleground seats in the House, Senate, and even governor races. Add it with other things, and you might not even get a red puddle. At best, Walker beats Warnock, and it’s 50-50. The GOP may not even take the House. There are 11 seats that are possible for winning 6, as the GOP has 212 wins as of this time. And they blew it on 7 races they should have held.

Give Dems credit: they’re the party of Big, authoritarian government (which we witnessed during COVID, with Joe and his vaccine mandates, with Dems telling parents to piss off, with the EV push, and so much more), anathema to democracy, to freedom, and they convinced people that the party of freedom is bad.

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NY Times Is Here To Tell You How To Save Money On Your Biden Inflated Power Bills

This is what it’s come down to: the Times and so many other Credentialed Media outlets telling you how to maybe save money, rather than castigating the Government to stop being part of the problem, namely, policies that cause energy prices to go higher (paywalled Times article here)

How to Save on High Heating Bills This Winter

The cost of heating a home is expected to spike this winter as higher prices for natural gas and heating oil combine with a forecast for slightly colder weather than last winter.

But financial help is often available for paying bills as well for updating heating systems to more efficient models. There are also steps to take to conserve energy.

The average cost of heating a home is estimated to rise almost 18% from last winter, to $1,208, according to the National Energy Assistance Directors Association. The group coordinates state policy for federal grants that help low-income families pay heating and cooling bills.

The estimated seasonal bill for natural gas, which about half of Americans use to heat their homes, is $900, up 25% from last winter, according to the most recent data from the federal Energy Information Administration. Natural gas has become pricier because of factors such as greater demand for cooling during this year’s scorching summer (natural gas powers plants that produce electricity to run air conditioners) and surging exports, the administration said.

The seasonal bill for heating oil, which is common in New England, is estimated to be $2,694, up about 45% from last winter.

It’s due to Wuhan Flu and to the policies of Joe Biden and his Democratic Party comrades, who keep doing things that create problems, both before and after COVID. The U.S. really doesn’t get much from Russia, we have our own supplies.

Help with heating bills is available for low-income families. The Biden administration is distributing $4.5 billion for the federal Low Income Home-Energy Assistance Program, which provides grants to states to help residents pay their energy bills. But, Wolfe said, overall funding is lower than last year, under a pandemic relief program, and more federal money may be needed.

Well, that only helps folks making around $20K or less. What about the rest of us?

Consumers can take steps now to prepare for the winter and conserve energy. “It’s November; there’s still time to get ready,” Wolfe said. Heating contractors are typically less busy right now, he said, before temperatures plummet.

The most widely recommended step: Schedule a professional checkup of your heating system. A tuneup is advisable because dirty components reduce airflow, blunting performance and possibly damaging the system, according to ASHRAE, a professional association of heating and cooling professionals. A tuneup typically costs $200 or more, but some utilities cover the cost.

So, spend money to save a little

If your home has a lot of windows, particularly older ones, you may be losing energy through the glass. One easy fix, he said, is to stick clear plastic Bubble Wrap — the kind used to ship packages — over the windowpanes. (Spray the glass with water first so the wrap sticks.) It won’t look great, he conceded, but it will save you money.

Really? This is their idea? Bubble wrap? I feel like it’s the 1930s or something

You could consider replacing an old heating system with a more efficient model. The costs range from $4,000 to $7,000 for a gas furnace and from $5,500 to $40,000 or more for some heat pump systems, according to estimates provided by contractors in western and central New York state.

They seriously wrote $40,000. Is this with your $20K solar panels and $56K EV?

Meanwhile, here’s CNET on the perfect setting for your winter thermostat

According to the US Department of Energy, it’s best to keep your thermostat at 68 F for most of the day during the winter season. For maximum efficiency, you should also designate eight hours per day during which you turn the temperature down by between 7 and 10 degrees. By following this routine, you may again be able to reduce your yearly energy costs by up to 10%.

Who’s up for keeping your casa at 58-61?

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Brandon Flies In To COP27, Yammers About Forcing Other People To Make Progress

How’s this work again? A fossil fueled helicopter flight to the airport, then a FFd jumbo jet, followed by a backup jumbo jet, along with FFd fighter jets, then a large number of low MPG fossil fueled vehicles. Then back to the airport, and he headed of to Cambodia

Biden touts U.S. climate progress at COP27, unveils new methane plan

President Biden announced a set of small new actions by his administration to address climate change in a speech at the United Nations Climate Change Conference on Friday. The new measures include pledging more than $200 million in funding for climate change resilience and adaptation in developing countries, and a new plan to reduce emissions of methane — an especially potent greenhouse gas — from oil and gas infrastructure.

“The climate crisis is about human security, economic security, environmental security, national security and the very life of the planet,” Biden said in a speech at the conference, known as COP27 and held this year in the resort of Sharm el-Sheikh, Egypt. “So today, I’d like to share with you how the United States is meeting the climate crisis with urgency and with determination to ensure a cleaner, safer, healthier planet for all of us.”

Most of what Biden went on to share was a recapitulation of actions the administration has already taken, including significant investments in reducing U.S. greenhouse gas emissions through subsidies for clean energy sources, such as wind and solar power and electric vehicles, included in the recently passed Inflation Reduction Act. These programs are projected to help cut U.S. emissions by 40% from 2005 levels by the end of this decade.

Of course, the elites like Biden aren’t doing their “fair share”. It’s just the peasants who are being forced.

As has often been the case at recent climate change conferences, the actions of Biden’s climate-science-denying predecessor, former President Donald Trump, cast a shadow on the proceedings. Biden was interrupted by applause when he noted that his administration had “immediately rejoined the Paris [climate] agreement” upon taking office. Referring in an apparent ad lib to his predecessor’s decision to withdraw the U.S. from the climate pact, Biden said, “I apologize we ever pulled out of the agreement.”

Oh, look, Trump Derangement Syndrome. Remember, the media doesn’t take sides.

The hell?

Oh, look, Pelosi took a separate fossil fueled flight.

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Sigh: Now Trump Is Going After Virginia Gov Youngkin

If you’re not helping the mission, you’re hurting the mission. And the mission is to win the White House, Senate, and House in 2024, as well as state general assemblies and governors. This is not helping

Youngkin, like DeSantis, faces Trump’s fury

Fresh off a diatribe against Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, whom he derisively described as an “average” Republican in a Thursday social media post, former President Donald Trump on Friday morning went after another popular Republican governor — Glenn Youngkin of Virginia — in what seemed like a warning meant to dissuade him from seeking the presidency in 2024.

“Young Kin (now that’s an interesting take. Sounds Chinese, doesn’t it?) in Virginia couldn’t have won without me,” Trump wrote in a post on Truth Social, his proprietary social media network. It is not clear why he falsely insinuated that Youngkin was of Chinese ancestry (the origins of the governor’s name are Germanic), but Trump has a record of rhetoric against China and Chinese people, which during the coronavirus pandemic contributed to anti-Asian rhetoric and violence.

First, Trump did not denigrate Chinese people, he blocked them from coming over near the beginning of the Chinese coronavirus pandemic. And, if memory serves, the Democrats and their pet media called Trump a raaaaacist for that. Second, here’s what it looks like in full

A less combative and polarizing figure than DeSantis, Youngkin could hold more appeal to suburban voters, who helped him win in the northern Virginia suburbs, which have sometimes been seen as a presidential bellwether. Throughout the fall, he and DeSantis both campaigned for Republican candidates, albeit in different states.

Will he run? Will DeSantis run? How about Greg Abbott, Nikki Haley, Kristi Noem, or Doug Ducey? Regardless, we saw this show in 2016, and we do not need a reboot. It would go over as well as the reboot of Charmed. Not good. His time is past. Much of his schtick has gotten stale and old. Sure, he can fill a concert venue for a speech. But, it should not be about him anymore. It needs to be about taking back the country from the Modern Socialists. He wants to be a celebrity.

I’m moving on. I gave up on Palin back in 2011 (can’t find that post, I think I might have only written it at Right Wing News. Probably have to dig further back in the archives). In a later post here and at RWN on Palin endorsing Trump

Many of you know my feelings on the subject of Sarah Palin. She lost my support politically when she played the will she/won’t she game in regards to running for president last time around. She resigned as Governor of Alaska, supposedly to deal with all the legal issues for all the suits and things aimed her way from Liberals. Many Conservatives thought this would give her the chance to get ready to run for President, especially as she put together a PAC. Then she had her little bus tour, for which she also quit halfway through. She said she was going to do it her way, and did not compete in any debates. Then, after being asked again and again, and missing a self imposed deadline, all while raising lots of money for her PAC off the possibility, she said “no.” Interestingly, many others are coming to the same conclusion, such as Powerline’s John Hinderaker

Maybe not. Today Sarah Palin endorsed Trump, to the delight of theNew York Times. Now they get to call Trump a conservative. I was a fan of Palin, until she succumbed to the siren song of celebrity, abandoned her post as Governor of Alaska and went Hollywood. One thing Palin and Trump have in common is that they are both stars of reality TV shows. Maybe someone needs to explain to both of them that reality television is not great preparation for dealing with reality.

Trump is going too much back to celebrity, he has way too many legal issues (real or not, it matters not). He won’t change, and it’s hurting.

Too be clear, I’m speaking for me, not for The First Street Journal Editor.

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We’re Saved: Actor Changes Name To Spread Awareness Of Climate Apocalypse Or Something

I’d be more impressed if he legally changed his name. Or, if he announced that he would give up his own use of fossil fuels, make his life carbon neutral, and tell all his Hollywood Comrades to do the same

Actor who played Dwight on ‘The Office’ changes name to protest climate change

Actor Rainn Wilson, who played “Dwight Schrute” in the popular TV show “The Office,” has changed his name in an effort to bring awareness to and protest climate change.

The 56-year-old actor’s new name, which Wilson announced on Twitter in a video, is “Rainnfall Heat Wave Extreme Winter Wilson.”

The name change comes as the United Nations plans to meet in Egypt for a climate change conference this week named the ” 27th Conference of the Parties of the UNFCCC” or “COP27.”

Wilson is a board member of “Arctic Basecamp,” which is a team of scientists and experts who share their knowledge with the world at various events, and the name change is apparently part of their collective efforts.

Let me ask: how do all those people get to the Arctic? And travel around? And get power? They wouldn’t survive without fossil fuels. Solar panels and wind turbines damned sure would not keep them warm.

Wilson used a website called the “Arctic Risk Name Generator” to generate his new name, and he invited his social media followers to do the same.

So, a very silly climate cult thing. What, exactly, does this accomplish? All these cultists rushing to create their cult name (William HeatSnow Bad Weather Teach) are doing the bare minimum to make their own lives carbon neutral.

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Another Federal Judge Says Biden’s Student Loan Forgiveness Plan Is Illegal

Who wants to bet that Biden and his people ignore the rulings?

U.S. judge declares Biden’s student debt relief plan unlawful

A federal judge in Texas on Thursday ruled that President Joe Biden’s plan to cancel hundreds of billions of dollars in student loan debt was unlawful and must be vacated, delivering a victory to conservative opponents of the program.

U.S. District Judge Mark Pittman, an appointee of former Republican President Donald Trump in Fort Worth, ruled in a lawsuit backed by the Job Creators Network Foundation on behalf of two borrowers.

The debt relief plan had already been temporarily blocked by the St. Louis-based 8th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals while it considers a request by six Republican-led states to enjoin it while they appealed the dismissal of their own lawsuit.

Biden’s plan has been the subject of several lawsuits by conservative state attorneys general and legal groups, though plaintiffs before Thursday had struggled to convince courts they were harmed by it in such a way that they have standing to sue.

The plan would saddle working and middle class taxpayers with paying off loans that people legally signed for, often getting degrees that can’t bring in the money to repay the loans. And then there are people who are making $100k a year, claiming they cannot repay.

Pittman in a 26-page ruling wrote that the HEROES Act – a law that provides loan assistance to military personnel and that was relied upon by the Biden administration to enact the relief plan – did not authorize the $400 billion student loan forgiveness program.

“The Program is thus an unconstitutional exercise of Congress’s legislative power and must be vacated,” Pittman wrote.

I’m sure Biden will appeal, but, will he and his people work hard to fight? He got what he needed, lots of youths getting out and voting, minimizing the damage in the midterms. Biden may not even try to take it to the Supreme Court, because, come 2024, Biden and the Dems can promise to fight for loan forgiveness if they re-elect Biden and give him Congress.

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Brandon’s Pushing “Nature Based Solutions” For Hotcoldwetdry Or Something

It almost looks like Biden wants to turn military bases into hippy style nature preserves, making larges swathes unusable for training

Biden promises billions for ‘nature-based solutions’ to climate change

The Biden administration said it will direct billions of taxpayer dollars toward “nature-based” climate change solutions, which includes plans for “bringing the power of nature to maximize the value and resilience of military bases.”

The White House on Tuesday released its “Roadmap for Nature-Based Solutions to Fight Climate Change,” which the White House says will “put America on a path that will unlock the full potential of nature-based solutions to address climate change, nature loss, and inequity.” It said $25 billion worth of current and pending projects are already aligned toward this goal.

“Nature-based solutions” means actions to protect or restore ecosystems that are also “solutions to societal challenges,” such as the conservation of natural areas that help boost resilience to flooding or heat.

I actually don’t mind this that much: there’s nothing wrong with conserving nature and “re-naturing”, as it’s termed, areas. It’s environmentally sound, and nature is good. It’s just linking this to the idiocy of ‘climate change’ and inequality. Stop. Please. They really do not have to add the cult stuff to the environment.

One element of the roadmap calls on the Department of Defense to create a guide for “nature-based solutions for Military Installation natural resources management planning.” That guide will “provide military installation planners and managers with current and actionable information on the appropriate use of nature-based solutions; the current state of science and observed performance reliability; and other considerations regarding design, cost and benefits, implementation, and operations and maintenance.”

In other words, this is going to take a huge chunk of the military budget, turn soldiers into gardeners, interfere with training. Great plan

The plan calls for the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) to consider “nature-based solutions” as alternatives for all projects that have the potential to affect floodplains or wetlands. It said FEMA has already started to make things easier for “disadvantaged communities” to fund projects with “nature-based solutions.”

In addition to finding “nature-based solutions” for military installations, the administration said it would look for similar solutions for “energy, the economy and national security.” For example, the administration is rating Department of Energy sites for climate sustainability and wants the department to also rate sites on environmental justice and cultural resource protection.

Does anyone else see rising costs for anything the government does and the private sector does? And the need to seriously expand the federal workforce to do this? And giving lots more power to the Central Government? This could have been so easy, non-silly, non-culty, and bipartisan.

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Is Trump Done After The Red Sprinkle Election?

It bears repeating: you had

  • Unpopular president, who is checked out on inflation and cost of living increases, completely blew it on Afghanistan and Ukraine, takes the weekend off almost every weekend, is hyperpartisan, and typically in DementiaLand
  • Elected Democrats who are divorced from the working and middle class, and tell us to buy EVs and solar panels to save a little bit of money
  • High gas prices, and diesel is in short supply
  • Democrats ignoring and even causing rising crime
  • Citizens saying the country is on the wrong track and they are very unsatisfied
  • Democrats pushing abortion up to birth, CRT, and transgender madness, and replacing women with transgenders
  • The COVID tyranny, including firing citizens who would not take the vaccine, which we now find out doesn’t do all that much. And masking children

And so much more. Yet, you saw what happened. The GOP could end up with fewer Senate seats, and, should just barely have control of the House. Some Trump endorsed candidates won, too many lost. So…

Midterm election results raise DeSantis’s stock, scramble 2024 calculus for Trump

The 2022 midterm results Tuesday helped set the stage for the 2024 Republican nomination, further elevating Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis as the chief rival to former President Donald Trump, should both men formally enter the race.

But it also injected new uncertainty into a presidential race that, until Tuesday, had been viewed as Trump’s to lose, according to interviews with more than a dozen Republican operatives and others keeping tabs on the nascent 2024 battle.

DeSantis, they said, clearly saw his stock rise in a party that has grown increasingly tired of being dragged down at the ballot box by Trump. But Trump’s grip on a strong plurality of Republican voters appears firm, despite a string of losses on Tuesday by his acolytes, and Republicans are still trying to determine if DeSantis could unseat the long-reigning king of the GOP.

Longtime conservative radio host and blogger Erick Erickson wrote in his newsletter that DeSantis’s performance Tuesday night reminded him of another governor who beat expectations in a strong year for Democrats and later went on to serve two terms in the White House: George W. Bush.

Former Trump White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany urged Trump to skip campaigning for Herschel Walker in the upcoming Georgia Senate runoff, lest he cost Republicans control of the Senate a second time in a row.

The New York Post, a tabloid that’s long been one of Trump’s favorite reads, declared DeSantis “DeFUTURE” of the Republican Party in a splashy front page on Wednesday celebrating his win. And other conservative news outlets continued drifting away from Trump.

“Trump is done,” said a veteran Republican operative.

Erickson was certainly in the Trump Derangement Syndrome bleachers, though, not to the degree of those at places like The Bulwark. That said, there are plenty of people who supported Trump, not necessarily the Trump Train, who say it’s time to move on. I’ve always said that Trump needed to tone it down against everyone excluding the Media and elected Democrats, and, even then, spend more time saying what he and his admin were doing rather than battling the media. Use honey rather than vinegar with Republicans and those who could attempt to sway. He did a poor job in explaining what he and his admin were doing, what Republicans were doing, and what they were trying to do and wanted to do.

His action during COVID were mostly right: it wasn’t the federal government’s job to do most stuff, it was the job of the states. He was right to block flights from China, then Europe, just a little late on that. Instead of truly explaining it, he battled with the media. And he’s still battling too much. And battling with Republicans, like DeSantis. The ideas of fighting back against the Dems and Credentialed Media are great, and the ideas are there. He’s just not the best to push them. He showed Republicans they can fight back. They don’t have to be get along go along anymore. We don’t need bull in a china shop anymore. We need more smooth, like a DeSantis, and Abbott, a Kristy Noem, to name a few.

If DeSantis does run, it will look bad for Trump, because Ron and his team are masters of turning things around, for bringing receipts. At one point I was enthused by Palin: but, then she pulled her will she won’t she for the 2012 elections, then was forced to say she wouldn’t. And was showing she was spending zero time learning about national and international issues. I moved on (and caught a lot of crap for it), and it is time to move on from Trump. He’s not really helping.

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Missing the elephant in the room Sociology professors Kelsy Burke and Emily Kazyak manage to miss the most important datum in their attack on Republicans

Sometimes the credentialed media send out computer information which tells readers that an article is biased even before you read it. From The Washington Post:

Americans’ support for transgender rights has declined. Here’s why.

The culture war over transgender rights is part of a fight over competing notions of gender and sexuality, including issues like abortion and sex education

Analysis by Kelsy Burke and Emily Kazyak | Tuesday, November 8, 2022 | 7:00 AM EST

During the 2022 midterm election campaign, Republican public officials targeted transgender rights in what NPR and other news media have called the new front in the culture wars. Last month’s Public Religion Research Institute’s American Values Survey appears to offer confirmation, finding increased polarization on all measures of LGBTQ rights. In particular, Americans’ support for transgender rights has declined.

The article headline isn’t too terribly biased, but if you look at the tab for the page, the article title was, as first saved on the computer, “Why do Republicans attack transgender rights?” And the url for the article is https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/2022/11/08/ transgender-republican-evangelical-bathrooms/. You can get around the Post’s paywall and read the article for free on the Microsoft network, but the msn.com version does not show the tab change; that can only be seen at the Post’s original.

Clearly, an editor at the Post changed the title the authors submitted electronically from Lincoln, Nebraska.[1]Article headlines in newspapers are normally written by an editor, so this isn’t anything abnormal.

Then there is the Post’s biography of the article authors, as shown in the screen capture to the right. Let’s face it: when sensible people see that one of the authors is an “associate professor of sociology and women’s and gender studies,” their eyes roll.

Take one measure: whether laws should require transgender people to use bathrooms that correspond to their sex assigned at birth, not their current gender identity. In 2016, only 35 percent of all Americans favored these “bathroom bills,” the first of which was proposed that year in North Carolina. In 2022, after numerous other states proposed similar laws, the number of Americans supporting them rose to 52 percent.

I always laugh when I see the phrase “sex assigned at birth.” No, sex is determined at conception, by whether the sperm cell which fertilizes the egg is carrying an X or a Y chromosome. This is something we’ve known for 100 years.

People chuckled when they read that His Majesty King Henry VIII blamed his wives for having girls rather than boys, because we now know that it is the father, not the mother, who actually determines the sex of the offspring.

But today? Today the silliness of the left is that sex is somehow “assigned” at birth, rather than recognized at birth. Good heavens, think of all of the troubles good King Henry could have avoided if he’d simply “assigned” Mary and Elizabeth as boys.

While I do wonder whether the Post has a stylebook preference or mandete for “sex assigned at birth” as a phrase, it’s very obvious that the good professors who wrote the article would have used it regardless; it is used several times throughout the article, and the transgender activists prefer it, because it makes it sound as though sex is something other than biologically determined and unchangeable.

The jump was especially pronounced for White evangelicals and Republicans. In 2016, only 41 percent of White evangelicals and 44 percent of Republicans supported the requirement that transgender people use bathrooms that aligned with their sex assigned at birth. By 2022, that number doubled to 86 percent and 87 percent, respectively.

Other groups also increased their opposition to transgender rights, but the rise was less dramatic for Democrats and Americans who are unaffiliated with religion. Only 27 percent of Democrats favored bathroom bills in 2016, compared with 31 percent in 2022. Among nonreligious respondents, support for requiring transgender people to use the bathroom that aligns with their sex assigned at birth increased from 21 percent in 2016 to 34 percent in 2022.

In other words, as people became more educated on the subject, they realized the silliness of transgenderism.

These numbers suggest that transgender issues are increasingly being lived out in polarizing ways among Americans — in other words, that the “culture wars” narrative holds true. As sociologists, we have sought to dig deeper than the quantitative findings to understand why Americans hold such diverging beliefs.

The article continues with their findings based on surveys, and they tell us the obvious: being conservative, Republican and religious makes you more likely not to accept the arguments of transgenderism. I’ll omit that for this article, because I cannot simply copy-and-paste the whole thing; that would be plagiarism, and you can read it yourself. However, while they want to blame people who are “politically conservative” and “White evangelicals”, they somehow never mentioned the most obvious and glaring bit of news about transgender people that people saw: the case of University of Pennsylvania swimmer Will Thomas, a male who claimed to be a woman named “Lia”, and went from being ranked #562 when competing as a male his first three years, to #1 as a female his senior season. Mr Thomas absolutely destroyed the real female competitors at the Zippy Invitational in Akron, Ohio. While some people are surely sympathetic to Mr Thomas psychological plight — it has to be traumatic to actually believe that you should be a different sex — he also awoke people who may not have paid much attention to transgenderism that this was a male, who had been a male athlete and gone through male puberty, and was simply different from real women.

You didn’t have to listen to Republican messages to realize that something was horribly wrong with the Will Thomas story.

Their politically liberal bias — and no, I do not claim to be unbiased myself — is blatantly obvious in their concluding paragraph:

Though these findings obviously relate to transgender people, they implicate cisgender people, too. The culture war over transgender rights is part of a war over competing notions of gender and sexuality, and how those should be regulated in the social world. Thus, in 2022, we have observed simultaneous political attacks on transgender people, reproductive freedoms, and sex education. Americans are divided because we have fundamentally different vantage points over whose identities deserve protection and which experiences are to be prioritized and believed.

Yeah, we get it: this was a biased article, listed as an “analysis” rather than an OpEd piece, and the conclusion, along with the original title, was meant to attack Republicans. But leaving out the huge input of the “Lia” Thomas story pretty much invalidates the authors’ conclusions. If, as the authors began, “Republican public officials targeted transgender rights in what NPR and other news media have called the new front in the culture wars,” such ‘targeting’ bore political fruit because Mr Thomas so thoroughly fertilized the ground.

References

References
↑1 Article headlines in newspapers are normally written by an editor, so this isn’t anything abnormal.