Can we be clear here? An actual attempt at genuine mass depuration would require something from Congress otherwise it'd get shut down in courts* before it got started. As in passed the filibuster act of Congress. You'd need serious money to try and mass deport. Trump is most likely going to just loudly deport slightly fewer people than Biden or Obama did and that'll suffice for his mob. Plus if his tariff nonsense tanks the economy immigration will plunge like a paralyzed falcon organically.

*This presumes that he loses in court on his current stunts as everyone presumes. If the courts actually side with him then we're in a whole different universe.

Hey far be it for me to disrespect the classically American strategy of simply repeating our position louder and slower. It hasn't worked so far but maybe if we yell loud enough all the normie voters will just finally get it. Maybe the "we're here, we're queer, we're coming for your kids." chant should become mandatory for all Pride celebrations or something. Hopefully the thermostatic reaction to trumps being a dumb fisher will do the job for us regardless. I just prefer the party take more agency in its wins and losses.

Obviously we have no way of knowing for sure but I think a core question is being overlooked. -If- my general premise is correct and dropping the left most and most controversial, say, 10% of demands on Trans issues, for the sake of argument, would allow the Dems to win elections is that actually a sacrifice that you and/or DavidTC would even countenance? I think that is the question at the heart of the matter.

I'm on board with all of that but surely we can agree that if a teacher is trying to protect their students privacy, advertising that posture for kudos from their social media circle where anyone can see is a very bad idea and can lead to some predictably bad results?

I think, DavidTC, we can recognize issues where we're, to use your example, trying to defend a trench that is on the low ground and flooded because it was dug through a marsh versus a trench that is on a defensible elevated slope.

And I can certainly see that the right isn't stopping only at their photogenic causes on Trans and are going for blanket persecution.

I respect the argument for total purity but I suspect we're eliding the issue. Even if it was established that giving ground on those issues would mean that we'd win the median voter and keep the GOP from winning overall I presume you'd say that the cost of that victory was too high yes?

That's semantics DavidTC even though I wish it weren't. I agree no minor can transition without their parents becoming aware of the matter but parents assuredly want to know about this and teachers affirmatively saying on social media they'll hide it, let that genie out of the bottle.

We deal with the media, including the right wing fisher media, we have because we have no choice DavidTC and it doesn't change the fact that the right wing clowns managed to find teachers publicly talking about how they were hiding this info from parents.

Again, I personally think trans folks should be able to transition as soon as they've sorted out that they're trans. But the vast majority of even otherwise supportive parents do not like that idea so it's an extremely bad idea for teachers to be broadcasting that- especially if they're ostensibly trying to protect their students. If you're concerned that your trans students might be outed to their parents you might, maybe, want to consider not broadcasting to everyone on social media that you actively conceal such info from the parents of your kids. Apparently the teachers self aggrandizement is more important than the kids safety.

Persuadable voters but, obviously, not anti-trans absolutists; but we were never going to get their votes anyhow.

And we should fight like hell for access to surgery for people over the age of consent and for equal treatment for trans people in government services and treatment. But, maybe, maybe, when teachers boast on social media about how they'll encourage their 5th graders to consider trans and conceal any inclinations of those same kids from their parents we should probably be on record as not supporting that. Because, setting aside the grey zone morality of this (and it's very murky grey indeed), if everyone but the very left wing most parents hear "we're gonna support teachers hiding medical info about your kids from you" they're going to nod soberly and then vote for someone (anyone) who is opposed to that. And those fishers who get elected that way will go after everything, absolutely everything, while we sit powerless on the sidelines. Pure, but powerless.

It's a classic trope when someone says a bunch of marginal positions are unpopular and marginal to try and hide behind a non-marginal and popular position and claim that's being targeted instead.

I think that an under appreciated implication of MattY's thoughts here is the corollary to his point.
I agree, sorrowfully and reluctantly that, in the glaring blaze of hindsight, it looks like Biden did a lot of harm to the Dems out of hubris, venality and senescence (in that order).

The corollary to that point, however, is that Biden is gone; his heirs- if he even had any, are no longer extant as political forces in the party which means a great deal of the trouble the Dems face may simply be fixable by having a new set of politicians go through the crucible of primaries, define what they believe in and then they will be in a strong position to compete. The amount of movement in terms of core political beliefs and principles, for instance, is not very huge. You could disavow a very small number of fringe views, be silent on a slightly larger number of slightly less fringe views and avow some sensible reforms that don't actually cut against but instead clarify left wing goals (permitting reform, educational excellence, most things YIMBY, etc) and probably have an excellent shot at major victory.
There, arguably, isn't a big group of voters that'll fight to the death against these kinds of changes. They are, instead, rooted in fashionable elites and groups. In theory, at least, that makes these changes a lot easier.

Cut myself off: Also trans issues impact on teenagers in a profound manner in a way that previous LGB issues, frankly, just didn't. So it's tough. But the Groups have done some serious political malpractice in this area not to advance Trans issues so much as to posture for each other and they're gonna need to accept that such stuff has to fishin stop.

Someone may need to let the Dems and the Groups know.

There're some policies that're net vote losers and saying you don't support them both gains you votes and de-escalates your opponents. I'm beginning to fear that most matters involving child trans issues* and zero sum issues where trans issues conflict with womens issues may be those policies currently. You could absolutely disavow those and still support every other trans rights issue and win votes. For politicians coming out of the blue staying silent on the subject probably could mostly cut it but for Harris, specifically, who went on record during the special times in 2020 as being very out to the left being silent as she was simply didn't cut the mustard.

All that said you're right that feuding with your own wingers is a dicey political proposition.

*Though it could be my old gay background making me biased, when I was a kid several gay rights activists I knew were emphatically of the opinion that gay rights orgs should generally stay the fish away from kids issues. Also trans

Yeah I have this general feeling that, coupled with the social media dynamic, the success of gay rights, the #metoo movement and BLM the "groups" have kind of gotten the bit in their teeth and flat out forgotten how to politic. This demanding fealty publicly and in advance to every group is political malpractice in the extreme. As odious as the right wing groups are they don't seem to police their politicians the same way. Part of that I think is that the main "group" the plutocrats, flat out knows their desires are unpopular and that the GOP will deliver tax cuts however they can. But even the socialcons and other less central right wing groups don't seem to do the same kind of policing. Then again, the rights politicians are just off the rails right and constantly afraid of being primaried so such language policing maybe simply isn't necessary.

It's pretty hard to primary a Dem for being insufficiently left it seems.

I think, in the cheap leftist seats, you're being pretty uncharitable. Biden did a lot of leftist stuff like industrial policy and direct intervention. Stuff Obama never would have touched. He also spent a lot more post Covid than Obama would have (and, I submit, he got a good recovery for it. People raise the subject of inflation but Germany stuck to balanced budgets, still got similar inflation and anemic economic growth as well so that complain strikes me as bogus). He also was extremely friendly to labor even by Democratic standards. Obviously Biden didn't nationalize the means of production or anything but on the centrist to left wing spectrum Biden was pretty left wing.

If it's true then it means that state level politics, especially in purple states, has gone from important to nearly the whole fishing ball game.

Not bad!

Refresh my memory, how many Scaramuccis is that?

Correct me if I'm wrong David but aren't you conflating sex and gender?

That's probably why we're getting this absolute firehose of nonsense.
A) Its an attempt to overload that gatekeepers, as if they can somehow outrun the number of people and organizations that'll file suit to stop their antics.
B) Its an attempt to rule by meme.
C) It's a distraction from the actual Republican central business as usual of cutting taxes on the wealthy while slashing programs for the poor which is slogging along in congress.

I'm not familiar with the white supremacist version of the pride flag to be honest.

I doubt there's much there that wouldn't be much more accessible (in climate and infrastructure terms) in the continental US. It's not that non-Chinese don't have those resources- it's just that the Chinese dig them up and sell them more cheaply and dirtily than others do.

Sure. But not a one of them overtly said the stuff you are saying the Dems/left have to say about DEI/Latinx. I submit that's because it's not how mass movements change course. Heck, look at SSM. W campaigned and won in '04 against it and, to this day, getting rid of it is a plank in the GOP platform but they've generally stopped talking about it; heck, a handful of them even signed on to legislation backstopping it. But you won't find any of them saying "yeah we were wrong about SSM."

Yes, so he's probably not an example of right wingers reversing themselves and saying "no we were wrong, we fished up." I mean if you want examples of outsiders saying "you were wrong, you fished up." that's common as sand on the beach. More common. Probably as common as hydrogen.