The liberal media never was

Welp, I wasn't expecting to do a follow up to The media has failed us so soon, but...

In one of the promised responses to reader feedback, the columnist remarked on being suprised to find that the second most common topic, after the border—on which Trump has, as always, objectively been an incompetent fuckup outside of finding ways to use the issue to stir up hate and appeal to widespread racist sentiments—was the right wing's latest manufactroversy, transgender people having human rights.

Even as the column correctly points out that the anti-trans propaganda has been at best disingenuous and dishonest—Trump's own administration agreed that inmates are entitled to medical care including gender affirming surgery, schools barely even let students have EpiPens so claiming they're handing out sex changes is absurd, the idea of anyone transitioning for a competitive advantage is preposterous, and there are only maybe ten trans athletes in the entire NCAA out of more than half a million athletes anyway—it also includes some frankly disturbing bits like this one:

On one extreme, some people don't believe trans people should even exist. On the other, some believe trans people deserve every right that the rest of us do.

Holy Overton Window, Batman! I'll heartily agree that believing an entire demographic shouldn't exist is extreme, whether attempting to violently enforce it or not, but thinking everyone should have rights? What's extreme about that?

I don't claim to know how we will resolve opposing views on this issue

But we're not talking about views, here. We're talking about people.

My point is, even when trying to correct the record and present the bare facts, even as they acknowledge that all those facts point in the same direction, they still can't resist the urge to cast doubt on the only reasonable conclusion and legitimize complete garbage. Mainstream media is, once again, striving to claim a middle ground, all while taking solidly right-wing views as the default and painting milquetoast centrism as no less extreme than the far right.

So I wrote in again, and was a bit less restrained this time:

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See, this demonstrating exactly my point about false equivalences and bothsiderism.

Right there in the middle of the column, even as you point out that the entire anti-trans argument is based on absurd exaggerations, if not outright lies, you present "trans people deserv[ing] every right that the rest of us do" as being "the other [extreme]" as an implicitly equal and opposite counterpart to "trans people should [not] even exist." And that, quite blunty, is bullshit.

Everyone deserving the same rights is far from an extreme. In an ostensibly free society, this ought to be as uncontroversial a position as anyone can take. Not believing a group of people should even exist, in contrast, is a functionally genocidal position when translated into action, as is increasingly happening across alarmingly large swaths of both the country and the world at large.

These are not the same, and should not be mentioned in the same breath as though there can be any equivalence. We're not talking about "opposing views" on an issue, but whether certain people have the right to live. And the side of the argument that we shouldn't be entertaining in the first place is all built on lies and hate.

But do go on about unremarkable centrist positions being a corresponding extreme to literal Nazi policies. Or have you forgotten which books they burned first?

The media has failed us

The local newspaper recently expressed some frustration with divisiveness and people talking past each other, and requested that readers write in, particularly regarding concrete reasons why they voted for one candidate or another. And I wouldn't normally bother, but something about the tone of it just got to me, particularly with how so much of mainstream media has, for years, consistently been bothsidesing everything and refusing to take a stand on anything, facts and consequences be damned.

I ended up toning down some of what I wanted to say and cutting out some relevant but perhaps overly verbose side rants, like noting how WaPo's billionaire owner decided to kiss up to fascism instead of allowing the actual writers to publish an endorsement of Kamala Harris, or how I wish she had been even half as much for they/them—which is a good thing to be!—as the opposing campaign claimed instead of remaining silent, or that most Democrats aren't even reliably progressive let alone leftist, or how the incoming Cabinet is composed of people who aside from general incompetence are openly hostile to the entire purpose of the departments they'll be in charge of, or...

...yeah, I think some editing was for the best. It's enough of a rant already without all that. Anyway, here's what I ended up sending them.

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It's already begun

The election is barely over, and the incoming administration is still months away from taking office, let alone taking any official action. And yet.

Already, corporations are raising prices in anticipation of the lean times to come (and with the assurance that there will be no meaningful effort to curb arbitrary price hikes).

Already, employers are canceling bonuses so they can stockpile supplies before the promised tariffs hit.

Already, girls are facing taunts of "your body, my choice".

Already, Black students are receiving messages telling them they should report to plantations for cotton picking duty.

Already, calls to crisis hotlines have spiked to many times their usual volume.

Already, hate is emboldened.

Already, the world is a darker and more dangerous place.

And there's no reason to believe it won't get worse before it gets better. If it gets better. But we need to believe that it can get better, and strive to make it possible.

Perhaps a variation on the serenity prayer is in order.

Lord, grant me the power to endure what is beyond my ability to prevent, the courage to make a difference where I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.

Feel, grieve, commiserate. But stave off despair, and never give up.

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(Yes, I threw in a Zelda reference. Things are so much simpler in video games. Where there is evil, you invariably have a clear means to fight it head-on. If you succeed, problem solved! If you fail, you can just load and try again. And if you still can't prevail, well, you can always put the game aside, no real harm done.)

On Backlash Against Taking Title IX Seriously

In April 2024, the U.S. Department of Education released a finalized version of the regulations to be followed (archived) in ensuring Title IX non-discrimination protections in education, to go into effect at the beginning of August. Major provisions include clarifying that sex discrimination includes discrimination based on sex stereotypes, sex characteristics, pregnancy or related conditions, sexual orientation, and gender identity. And from the reactions in some quarters, you'd think the world was ending.

Woes for Modern Hypocrites

"Snakes! Cold-blooded sneaks! Do you think you can worm your way out of this? Never have to pay the piper? It’s on account of people like you that I send prophets and wise guides and scholars generation after generation—and generation after generation you treat them like dirt, greeting them with lynch mobs, hounding them with abuse."

- Matthew 23:33-34 (MSG)

North Carolina Republicans learn no lessons

You might have thought the fallout from the infamous bathroom bill would have taught them something. If so, it seems you'd have thought wrong.

Although it fortunately stands little chance of becoming law as long as the state has a governor with any sense and the GOP lacks the numbers in the legislature that would be needed to override a veto, North Carolina's SB 514, introduced on April 5 by a group of three Republican state senators, has some truly disturbing provisions that eclipse even Arkansas's recently-passed HB 1570, currently the most brutal anti-trans law in the nation, though similar bills are pending in other states, including at minimum Alabama and Tennessee.

Demographics Done Wrong

The wave of pointlessly cruel discriminatory transphobic hate bills sweeping the nation wherever the party of Trump holds power (not to mention their similarly repugnant voter suppression efforts) is more than I feel up to addressing right now without descending into incoherent expletives, so I won't. Look to people like Chase Strangio or Katelyn Burns or Esther Wang, or organizations like the ACLU or the Trevor Project, or heck, even this satire by Lily Osler for more on those and why they're garbage.

Forgive if it does you good, but forget at your own peril

The Election is Settled

The 2020 elections are over here in the USA, and though it took longer than usual to project a winner in the presidential race, with all the major news outlets seemingly afraid of being the first to call Pennsylvania, there can no longer be any plausible doubt about the election's outcome. With a final electoral count expected to match Donald Trump's official victory margin in 2016 (not to mention the most votes in history for a candidate, resulting in a popular vote victory margin of over five million), Joe Biden is rightfully president elect. This was largely settled well over a week ago and has only become more certain since.

But still the fighting continues