Transgender Community* Trumped by the Arc and Bent of Autocratic Politics

My fury throughout the whole last campaign to and through the election until now has never been much about politics.

Politics in this country, while they have been expanding outward toward the wacky fringes leaving the mostly moderate radicals (the rarity of moderates these days makes us rather radical) like myself quite lonely, have always, and hopefully will continue to, arc this way and that.

Because if our politics are not forever fluid and free to flow this way and that depending upon the tides of our national temperament, then it must mean that someone must have dammed up our river of democracy.

Metaphors… sigh.

Anyway, I don’t know if you’ve read my about page but there you will see in one sentence how I feel about politics and politicians…

To me, politics is simply acting for ugly people. Pretty actors go to Hollywood; ugly actors go to Washington DC.

Consequently, as our politics arc to and fro in this country, our politicians arc right along with them…only always just slightly behind the arc as they forever fail in their efforts to try to predict its toing and froing.

No, my fury for the most part has been directed solely at Trump and his bent towards authoritarianism; which means then that the more he contorts himself into a true to life autocrat, the more he is strengthening his power at the expense of my freedoms…

For me to maintain any position on any of Trump’s politics does only one thing: it normalizes him as a politician.

Which he isn’t. He is using politics only to further an autocratic agenda. What I’m not yet exactly sure right now is…

Is it his agenda, or is it Putin’s agenda.

Either way I am committedly opposed to it.

Now, let me say that I sincerely believe Trump will never actualize fully into an autocrat.

Not because he won’t try, but because we won’t let him.

It will be tough and it will be ugly, but we will prevail in denying him his complete ascent to absolute power of the at present less than United States of America.

But we must stay relentlessly vocal and active in our protestations and resistance toward his/Putin’s agenda.

Okay, enough of the drama, as sincere to me as it may be…

The only time I remember speaking out politically, and just barely against him is when he began blathering on about making it a crime to desecrate/burn the American flag.

Like it or not, flag burning is free speech and free speech is currently protected by the First Amendment.

Someone tries to take away my freedoms, I am obliged to speak out about it.

Like today.

The news these days regarding Transgender rights regards my/your/our freedoms…which means, my Spidey senses are tingling, which means its time to don my BS-repellant superhero suit and wade into the smelly, BS-laden political arena to fight back against the freedom impinging multi-headed political monsters attacking them, with the biggest of the heads looking strikingly similar to good ol’ boy Jeff Sessions who opposes any freedoms for the LGBT Community.

I believe I’ve said pretty much all I believe I need to say regarding how I feel about all “Identity Issues” in my novel The Sea Trial of an Unfortunate Sailor. From its Dedication page:

This book is dedicated to anyone — regardless of race, ethnicity, sex, gender and all its breathless facets, sexual orientation, non-sexual orientation, sexual non-orientation, spirituality or lack thereof, religion or lack thereof, nationality or lack thereof, political affiliation or lack thereof, occupation or lack thereof, education or lack thereof, good looks or lack thereof, height, weight, shoe size, or any other ways we have identified and implemented as means to compare and contrast and separate and segregate and relegate and rank ourselves as humans — who has ever once regretted his or her or their identity.

This book, then, is for us, all of us.

And this unfortunate regret comes mainly from forces and pressures outside of our control in the forms of opinions and prejudices in an effort to demean and denounce and determine our given and/or chosen identity, which is…

An issue of freedom.

And freedom is, as you may be aware by this point, my passion.

I had hopes that we were going to be cool here regarding transgender issues because Trump originally positioned himself as maintaining the status quo… meaning he would maintain the way President Obama had expanded our freedoms.
 

 

But Trump is a long way from consolidating his autocratic power. It pays to remember it took Putin many thug acts over many thug years to attain the highly regarded (by Trump) autocratic status that he has today. And this was within a country dysfunctional and corrupt after the fall of the Soviet Union, so one would have to assume/hope it would be much harder and take much longer in a less corrupt and dysfunctional country as America.

No, Trump has a lot of work yet to do before he can claim Putin status, which means…

He has to be politic from time to time to achieve his goals.

And, as politics are always arcing to and fro with the political winds (i.e., flip flopping), so too must Trump to meet his autocratic objectives.

Which means, he had no choice but to flip flog regarding his stance toward the Transgender Community because his rabid base is fervently opposed to identity politics, which means he now must be as well.

Even established autocrats still must appease “the people” from time to time… so here we are with Trump appeasing his [de]base.

For, if he were to go against his base, a base that has proven time and time again that they are looking for nothing other than a muscular, anti-snowflake leader like Trump has positioned himself to be by overlooking all of his many faults, as well has his bootlicking bent toward Putin, then he would be doomed in his autocratic ambitions for sure.

Remember, his base is largely made up of rabid, foaming-at-the-mouth mad dog Breitbart-reading, Alex-Jones worshipping Alt-Right wingnuts who are hellbent on ensuring he, Trump, has all the support he needs to take all the power he wants.

Like bullies, like Trump, they get a rush from an intimidating, muscular power, as is evidenced by this disturbing, NSFW video.
 

 

They are way more fired up in their support for Trump right now than we are in our opposition to him.

And, it’s important to remember…

They got the guns.

These autocratic-lovin’ bullying supporters are best represented in Trump’s administration by Steve Bannon and Jeff Sessions.

So, when it comes to Transgender Issues, who is Trump going to listen to most?

Someone like Betsy DeVos, who surprisingly took, if not a complete a stand, then a slight rise against Trump making any changes to President Obama’s Transgender guidelines…

Or Jeff Sessions who, like Trump’s base (who Trump must appease), opposes anything in support of providing more freedoms to the LGBT community.

The answer is Sessions, of course.

So, of course, Obama’s guidelines were rescinded…

And now here we are as a nation with Trump’s politics arcing autocratically hard to the right and putting a hell of an Alt-Right bent of oppression into my/your/our freedoms.

And now here I am in my ridiculous-looking BS-repellant superhero suit fighting back against the autocratic oppression with the only super power I have…

Words.

 
#prayforthelgbtcommunity
#prayforourfreedoms
#prayforamerica

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*The title was changed from “Transgenders” to “Transgender Community” after a kind reader brought it to my attention that “Transgenders” is often regarded as a derogatory term toward those of the Transgender Community. For a further explanation, visit transequality.org.
 

6 thoughts on “Transgender Community* Trumped by the Arc and Bent of Autocratic Politics”

  1. I love the post. Just a little FYI regarding the title. Transgender isn’t a noun. There are no “transgenders”- a term which is often used erroneously and/or derogatorily by the alt-right crowd. Transgender people, individuals, or community would be preferable. Keep up the fight. 🙂

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