Anybody whining too hard about Newsom’s policies right now is actively supporting Trump’s agenda.
When am I allowed to “whine” about his transphobia? When should I write down in my calendar as the appropriate date to “whine” that he is signaling support for conservative anti-trans talking points, like it’s going to actually win him voters? Not even touching the way he’s treated homeless residents of the state.
It doesn’t matter that Equality California, and the leader of the state senate’s LGBTQ+ caucus, and the world’s largest LGBT health center (based in California) all condemned his statements, of course. Psy-ops, all of them.
Based on the way people talk about anyone who does anything other than sing his praises I’m guessing the answer is ‘never.’ There’s always going to be some new crisis that makes trans rights too frivolous and unimportant to hold politicians to account for. I’m not fucking stupid, I remember how Democratic leadership in the 90s and 00s reacted to increasing demands for gay rights. I’ve seen this song and dance before.
And to top it off, after living here over a dozen years I have to see people talk like California isn’t both incredibly populated and with plenty of people left of center and dissatisfied with Newsom (his approval rating was hanging in the mid 40s before the Trump shenanigans). I guess they’re all astroturfers too. Fuck, if I didn’t live here I’d have breathed in a little less goddamned who knows what in the January fires.
While I get where you’re coming from, turning into a single-issue voter won’t do anything. Republicans took over on abortion, even though this is not an epidemic problem. Pick your battles.
If you aren’t voting for your own removal from society then don’t ask others to do it.
If it’s super important for queer people to all vote for one candidate, go lean on that candidate to stop fucking being transphobic instead of trying to convince every queer person that transphobia is actually okay if we really really have to win, you don’t understand, this time is different! And right after the election that we maybe win, maybe then (if conservatives all meekly fall in line), maybe then we can think about criticizing transphobia.
Oh, but not for the first year, we need unity. And not for the second year, because the midterms are coming up. And not in the third year because the midterms went badly and he can’t even do anything about it, why are you complaining? And not in the fourth year because do you want us to lose the election??!!
I am that single fucking issue. I’m not going to vote for my own demise and you’re over here like “ooo don’t forget to pick your battles” while avoiding the fucking humans standing next to you. You god-damned fair-weather liberals are literally going to get me thrown into a concentration camp just so you can protect your own fucking cis-white privilege. Decolonize your fucking mind.
Oh, to have the view that the perfect politician will eventually show up and win. It doesn’t work that way. And don’t act like you have a monopoly on being targeted by this administration.
Do you really think (assuming a 2028 election) that a Vance admin would be better for you than Newsom?
That’s my beef with single-issue voters. “Welp, no candidates support my position, so I’ll stay home.” This is what the GOP has masterfully avoided by keeping red meat on the table so they can steal the entire country.
Every single plank in the Nazi Republican platform is discriminatory and oppressive. You’re engaging in false equivalence.
Do you really think (assuming a 2028 election) that a Vance admin would be better for you than Newsom?
OK, this explains a lot…
you are living in a reality that you’ve made up in your head, where the Democratic primary for 2028 has already happened, and Newsom won it, and now we all need to unify around him in the general election.
I’m guessing you’re not even doing it consciously, it’s just a kneejerk reaction you’ve developed over the past few years where any criticism of a Democrat coming from their left can be shouted down with “don’t you realize this will help Trump win???”
meanwhile, over here in the consensus reality everyone else is experiencing, there’s 2 years before the 2028 primary even starts.
and I’m not really clear how this whole system works, maybe you can explain it to me?
according to you, criticism of Newsom isn’t allowed, because it might help get JD Vance elected. OK, does that extend to the other possible candidates on that list, besides Newsom?
and is there like, a form I’m supposed to fill out and give you, so I can get a permission slip that allows me to criticize one of them?
to quote Billy Bob from S1 of Fargo, I just want to know the policy.
Whoa. Extrapolate much? I said nothing about the acceptability of criticizing Newsom, yet you’re taking that as my thesis. This isn’t a rabbit hole I care to go down, as your entire comment is question-begging.
I said nothing about the acceptability of criticizing Newsom
ahh, maybe I misunderstood. when you say:
While I get where you’re coming from, turning into a single-issue voter won’t do anything
and
Pick your battles.
maybe you’re saying that criticizing Newsom is OK…but that we’re all obligated to vote for him anyway, regardless of any criticism we have?
here’s the thing. “I dislike this guy so much that if he’s the nominee, I won’t vote for him” is criticism. it’s criticism you don’t like, that you disagree with. but it’s a form of criticism that you’re trying to argue should be off the table.
it’s pretty much the strongest criticism you can make of a potential nominee, especially at this point in the election cycle. so I guess criticism of Newsom is allowed, according to you…but only if it’s ineffectual? maybe criticism should only be done Schumer-style, in the form of a strongly-worded letter?
here’s a thought experiment that I mentioned briefly in another comment - imagine a Democratic politician, let’s call him Navin Gewsom, who announces he doesn’t care about marriage equality, and would be fine with Obegerfell v Hodges being overturned by SCOTUS.
there’s a married gay or lesbian couple who says that as a result, they’d never vote for Navin Gewsom. would you give them the same “don’t be a single-issue voter, pick your battles” scolding? if not, what’s the difference between them and a trans person refusing to vote for Newsom?
That’s all well and good, but we’re talking about someone seemingly positioning themselves for an election that won’t happen for three years, and we have no idea who the candidates will be.
I’m well aware of Newsom’s Kirk appearance, but it doesn’t seem central to this piece. You want an LGBTQ±advocate presidential candidate who can win red states that have disproportionate electoral votes? Not going to happen.
This is just how politics work, and that’s not changing ahead of 2028. If you want to vote for the fascist instead because Newsom isn’t liberal enough to win a national election, that is of course your choice.
Politicians aren’t your friends, you don’t expect them to keep good faith or to always support you, or to agree with you about everything. If you expect to find a perfect politician to support then you will be searching forever, while making extremely self-destructive choices along the way.
Politicians are something you use while they’re convenient and then move on from when they’re not. In this case, we are absolutely talking about resisting the fascist takeover of the nation. That’s what’s on the table. Personally I think that outcome would be inconvenient. Considering what the Trump administration has already done to the trans community, the complaints about Newsom feel like misdirection.
I’m not recommending undying loyalty, I’m recommending cost-benefit analysis, in this moment, in this context.
If you expect to find a perfect politician to support then you will be searching forever, while making extremely self-destructive choices along the way.
pretty much every time there’s criticism of a Democrat like Newsom, this argument comes up - that the people doing the criticizing are holding out unrealistic hopes for a “perfect” politician.
I’m gonna guess / hope that this isn’t what you’re intending, but this argument always comes across as extremely patronizing / condescending. “not everything can be perfect” is the sort of tone you take with a 4 year old who’s having a meltdown about not being allowed to have a 2nd ice cream cone. this framing of the argument places you as the adult in the room, and the people criticizing Newsom as basically children who don’t understand how the world works and are upset that they’re not getting exactly what they want. and I dunno, if you want to have productive political debates, try not talking to people like they’re children.
the question is not “is this politician perfect?” - it’s “does this politician meet the bare minimum requirements?”
imagine a hypothetical Democratic politician who took a stance of “eh, gay marriage, we don’t actually need it” and said they’d be fine with the Supreme Court overturning Obergefell v. Hodges (like they’ve just been asked to do)
would you support that politician? would you vote for them? I certainly wouldn’t.
that’s because “support for marriage equality” is part of the bare minimum we expect from Democrats.
the people criticizing Newsom, including me, consider “support for trans rights” to be part of that bare minimum. the people defending Newsom apparently don’t. that’s the actual disagreement here. don’t hide behind this abstract talk about cost-benefit analysis. don’t talk to Newsom critics like they’re naive children. just be honest and say that “trans people should be allowed to exist” is not part of your bare minimum requirements for Democrats.
I don’t care for Newsom. But elections are at this point like “which of my ex-wives that put me into debt would I prefer around again?”
The issue is far larger than bare minimums – it’s harm reduction. Worth bearing in mind is that the DNC is a conservative party funded by the rich just as much as the GOP, hence the ambush on Sanders a couple cycles back. Their policies are slightly less shitty, but without a repeal of Citizens United, this is the system we have.
lmao. this reminds me of how conservatives have co-opted therapy language - Jan 6th insurrectionists who used to be “facts don’t care about your feelings” assholes are now filing legal briefs about how being in prison has given them Trauma, and they should be released from prison because they have Anxiety and Depression.
this is more patronizing and condescending bullshit. just once I’d like to meet a centrist/moderate Democrat who doesn’t talk to people on their left like they’re children. seriously, it’s not that hard. try it sometime.
the canonical example of harm reduction actually working is needle exchange programs to prevent the spread of HIV, hepatitis, etc.
a crucial thing about those needle exchange programs is that IV drug users wanted them. they fought for them to be established.
with actual harm reduction, you don’t need to browbeat the people who will experience the reduced harm into accepting it.
you’re trying to frame “no one is allowed to criticize Newsom for being transphobic” as somehow being “harm reduction” for trans people? give me a fucking break. trans people in this thread are trying to tell you that Newsom represents increased harm targeted at them.
if that’s not enough, and you want other examples - Katelyn Burns:
Newsom does not represent trans peoples’ interests. it’s not derangement. the options right now are not newsom vs maga/trump, it’s newsom vs the rest of the democratic party. we are allowed to criticize him for being a fucking asshole towards us.
If there’s one thing that getting yelled at all day for saying that I will not vote for Gavin Newsom in a hypothetical 2028 election has made me more sure of… it’s that I will not be voting for Gavin Newsom (or any other politician who pushes anti-trans nonsense) in 2028 or any other year.
I will never vote for Newsom even if he’s the Democratic nominee. He must never be allowed to win another election. He’s a rotten soulless husk of a human being.
and that’s just the first 3 politically active, American trans people who I thought of, and who I know are on Bluesky, where it’s very easy to search their username plus Newsom to find what they’ve said about him.
don’t delude yourself about “harm reduction”. what you’re actually doing here is the white savior complex, but with trans people instead of non-white people.
You are putting so many words in my mouth that I won’t need dinner. I’m happy to have reasoned discourse, but your starting point makes that impossible, as you’ll just accuse me of being defensive. This is not arguing in good faith.
Newsom already got the gerrymandering on the ballot, and I don’t see California voters not passing it in retribution for how Trump has treated the state. So why can’t the people he is looking to throw under the bus to get to the national stage say anything about it without being accused of being paid for it? Is your answer to when we’re allowed to criticize Newsom’s transphobia before or after the ‘26 primary?
What about any of the previous comment made you think I was looking for a friend? Do you think queer rights organizations that have operated in the state for decades (quite likely before you were born) were just too unfamiliar with state and national politics, or how to deal with politicians?
How’d that poem go? ‘First they came for the homeless and queers, and I said ‘take them, take them, just spare me!’ and everything worked out perfectly fine,’ right? I’m pretty sure that’s how it went.
When am I allowed to “whine” about his transphobia? When should I write down in my calendar as the appropriate date to “whine” that he is signaling support for conservative anti-trans talking points, like it’s going to actually win him voters? Not even touching the way he’s treated homeless residents of the state.
It doesn’t matter that Equality California, and the leader of the state senate’s LGBTQ+ caucus, and the world’s largest LGBT health center (based in California) all condemned his statements, of course. Psy-ops, all of them.
Based on the way people talk about anyone who does anything other than sing his praises I’m guessing the answer is ‘never.’ There’s always going to be some new crisis that makes trans rights too frivolous and unimportant to hold politicians to account for. I’m not fucking stupid, I remember how Democratic leadership in the 90s and 00s reacted to increasing demands for gay rights. I’ve seen this song and dance before.
And to top it off, after living here over a dozen years I have to see people talk like California isn’t both incredibly populated and with plenty of people left of center and dissatisfied with Newsom (his approval rating was hanging in the mid 40s before the Trump shenanigans). I guess they’re all astroturfers too. Fuck, if I didn’t live here I’d have breathed in a little less goddamned who knows what in the January fires.
While I get where you’re coming from, turning into a single-issue voter won’t do anything. Republicans took over on abortion, even though this is not an epidemic problem. Pick your battles.
No worries, I have. I choose trans rights, simple as.
If you aren’t voting for your own removal from society then don’t ask others to do it.
If it’s super important for queer people to all vote for one candidate, go lean on that candidate to stop fucking being transphobic instead of trying to convince every queer person that transphobia is actually okay if we really really have to win, you don’t understand, this time is different! And right after the election that we maybe win, maybe then (if conservatives all meekly fall in line), maybe then we can think about criticizing transphobia.
Oh, but not for the first year, we need unity. And not for the second year, because the midterms are coming up. And not in the third year because the midterms went badly and he can’t even do anything about it, why are you complaining? And not in the fourth year because do you want us to lose the election??!!
I am that single fucking issue. I’m not going to vote for my own demise and you’re over here like “ooo don’t forget to pick your battles” while avoiding the fucking humans standing next to you. You god-damned fair-weather liberals are literally going to get me thrown into a concentration camp just so you can protect your own fucking cis-white privilege. Decolonize your fucking mind.
If you didn’t vote against Trump in the last election, you literally voted for your own demise. Maybe literally. I hope it turns out okay for you.
Fighting for better than the Democrats is in no way whatsoever incompatible with fighting to survive in the meantime.
Oh, to have the view that the perfect politician will eventually show up and win. It doesn’t work that way. And don’t act like you have a monopoly on being targeted by this administration.
Do you really think (assuming a 2028 election) that a Vance admin would be better for you than Newsom?
That’s my beef with single-issue voters. “Welp, no candidates support my position, so I’ll stay home.” This is what the GOP has masterfully avoided by keeping red meat on the table so they can steal the entire country.
Every single plank in the
NaziRepublican platform is discriminatory and oppressive. You’re engaging in false equivalence.OK, this explains a lot…
you are living in a reality that you’ve made up in your head, where the Democratic primary for 2028 has already happened, and Newsom won it, and now we all need to unify around him in the general election.
I’m guessing you’re not even doing it consciously, it’s just a kneejerk reaction you’ve developed over the past few years where any criticism of a Democrat coming from their left can be shouted down with “don’t you realize this will help Trump win???”
meanwhile, over here in the consensus reality everyone else is experiencing, there’s 2 years before the 2028 primary even starts.
here’s the list of speculated Democratic candidates.
and I’m not really clear how this whole system works, maybe you can explain it to me?
according to you, criticism of Newsom isn’t allowed, because it might help get JD Vance elected. OK, does that extend to the other possible candidates on that list, besides Newsom?
and is there like, a form I’m supposed to fill out and give you, so I can get a permission slip that allows me to criticize one of them?
to quote Billy Bob from S1 of Fargo, I just want to know the policy.
Whoa. Extrapolate much? I said nothing about the acceptability of criticizing Newsom, yet you’re taking that as my thesis. This isn’t a rabbit hole I care to go down, as your entire comment is question-begging.
ahh, maybe I misunderstood. when you say:
and
maybe you’re saying that criticizing Newsom is OK…but that we’re all obligated to vote for him anyway, regardless of any criticism we have?
here’s the thing. “I dislike this guy so much that if he’s the nominee, I won’t vote for him” is criticism. it’s criticism you don’t like, that you disagree with. but it’s a form of criticism that you’re trying to argue should be off the table.
it’s pretty much the strongest criticism you can make of a potential nominee, especially at this point in the election cycle. so I guess criticism of Newsom is allowed, according to you…but only if it’s ineffectual? maybe criticism should only be done Schumer-style, in the form of a strongly-worded letter?
also, to not lose sight of the broader context of this thread - the “single-issue voter” you were chastising is a trans person. Newsom invited right-wing shitbag Charlie Kirk on to the first episode of his podcast, and said he agrees with Kirk completely about trans issues. I generally agree with you about “single-issue” voters being misguided, but in this case, do you really think that a trans person has an obligation to vote for a politician who does not think trans people have the right to be trans?
here’s a thought experiment that I mentioned briefly in another comment - imagine a Democratic politician, let’s call him Navin Gewsom, who announces he doesn’t care about marriage equality, and would be fine with Obegerfell v Hodges being overturned by SCOTUS.
there’s a married gay or lesbian couple who says that as a result, they’d never vote for Navin Gewsom. would you give them the same “don’t be a single-issue voter, pick your battles” scolding? if not, what’s the difference between them and a trans person refusing to vote for Newsom?
That’s all well and good, but we’re talking about someone seemingly positioning themselves for an election that won’t happen for three years, and we have no idea who the candidates will be.
I’m well aware of Newsom’s Kirk appearance, but it doesn’t seem central to this piece. You want an LGBTQ±advocate presidential candidate who can win red states that have disproportionate electoral votes? Not going to happen.
This is just how politics work, and that’s not changing ahead of 2028. If you want to vote for the fascist instead because Newsom isn’t liberal enough to win a national election, that is of course your choice.
How do I put this?..
Politicians aren’t your friends, you don’t expect them to keep good faith or to always support you, or to agree with you about everything. If you expect to find a perfect politician to support then you will be searching forever, while making extremely self-destructive choices along the way.
Politicians are something you use while they’re convenient and then move on from when they’re not. In this case, we are absolutely talking about resisting the fascist takeover of the nation. That’s what’s on the table. Personally I think that outcome would be inconvenient. Considering what the Trump administration has already done to the trans community, the complaints about Newsom feel like misdirection.
I’m not recommending undying loyalty, I’m recommending cost-benefit analysis, in this moment, in this context.
pretty much every time there’s criticism of a Democrat like Newsom, this argument comes up - that the people doing the criticizing are holding out unrealistic hopes for a “perfect” politician.
I’m gonna guess / hope that this isn’t what you’re intending, but this argument always comes across as extremely patronizing / condescending. “not everything can be perfect” is the sort of tone you take with a 4 year old who’s having a meltdown about not being allowed to have a 2nd ice cream cone. this framing of the argument places you as the adult in the room, and the people criticizing Newsom as basically children who don’t understand how the world works and are upset that they’re not getting exactly what they want. and I dunno, if you want to have productive political debates, try not talking to people like they’re children.
the question is not “is this politician perfect?” - it’s “does this politician meet the bare minimum requirements?”
imagine a hypothetical Democratic politician who took a stance of “eh, gay marriage, we don’t actually need it” and said they’d be fine with the Supreme Court overturning Obergefell v. Hodges (like they’ve just been asked to do)
would you support that politician? would you vote for them? I certainly wouldn’t.
that’s because “support for marriage equality” is part of the bare minimum we expect from Democrats.
the people criticizing Newsom, including me, consider “support for trans rights” to be part of that bare minimum. the people defending Newsom apparently don’t. that’s the actual disagreement here. don’t hide behind this abstract talk about cost-benefit analysis. don’t talk to Newsom critics like they’re naive children. just be honest and say that “trans people should be allowed to exist” is not part of your bare minimum requirements for Democrats.
I don’t care for Newsom. But elections are at this point like “which of my ex-wives that put me into debt would I prefer around again?”
The issue is far larger than bare minimums – it’s harm reduction. Worth bearing in mind is that the DNC is a conservative party funded by the rich just as much as the GOP, hence the ambush on Sanders a couple cycles back. Their policies are slightly less shitty, but without a repeal of Citizens United, this is the system we have.
lmao. this reminds me of how conservatives have co-opted therapy language - Jan 6th insurrectionists who used to be “facts don’t care about your feelings” assholes are now filing legal briefs about how being in prison has given them Trauma, and they should be released from prison because they have Anxiety and Depression.
this is more patronizing and condescending bullshit. just once I’d like to meet a centrist/moderate Democrat who doesn’t talk to people on their left like they’re children. seriously, it’s not that hard. try it sometime.
the canonical example of harm reduction actually working is needle exchange programs to prevent the spread of HIV, hepatitis, etc.
a crucial thing about those needle exchange programs is that IV drug users wanted them. they fought for them to be established.
with actual harm reduction, you don’t need to browbeat the people who will experience the reduced harm into accepting it.
you’re trying to frame “no one is allowed to criticize Newsom for being transphobic” as somehow being “harm reduction” for trans people? give me a fucking break. trans people in this thread are trying to tell you that Newsom represents increased harm targeted at them.
if that’s not enough, and you want other examples - Katelyn Burns:
Parker Molloy:
Alejandra Caraballo:
and that’s just the first 3 politically active, American trans people who I thought of, and who I know are on Bluesky, where it’s very easy to search their username plus Newsom to find what they’ve said about him.
don’t delude yourself about “harm reduction”. what you’re actually doing here is the white savior complex, but with trans people instead of non-white people.
You are putting so many words in my mouth that I won’t need dinner. I’m happy to have reasoned discourse, but your starting point makes that impossible, as you’ll just accuse me of being defensive. This is not arguing in good faith.
Newsom already got the gerrymandering on the ballot, and I don’t see California voters not passing it in retribution for how Trump has treated the state. So why can’t the people he is looking to throw under the bus to get to the national stage say anything about it without being accused of being paid for it? Is your answer to when we’re allowed to criticize Newsom’s transphobia before or after the ‘26 primary?
What about any of the previous comment made you think I was looking for a friend? Do you think queer rights organizations that have operated in the state for decades (quite likely before you were born) were just too unfamiliar with state and national politics, or how to deal with politicians?
How’d that poem go? ‘First they came for the homeless and queers, and I said ‘take them, take them, just spare me!’ and everything worked out perfectly fine,’ right? I’m pretty sure that’s how it went.