cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/54506028

cross-posted from: https://quokk.au/c/politics/p/1270828/iowa-dem-josh-turek-releases-anti-trans-ad-calling-for-a-federal-funding-ban-on-trans-care

On Saturday, Oct. 24, Josh Turek, the Democratic candidate for U.S. Senate in Iowa, released a new ad targeting transgender people—perhaps the worst anti-transgender ad of the entire election cycle to come from a Democrat. The ad begins with Turek talking about his disability and the importance of not discriminating, before immediately turning to adopt discriminatory policies toward transgender people. One such policy is a sports ban, a position sadly becoming increasingly common among high-profile Democrats in competitive races, and one that alone would have made this yet another newsworthy anti-trans ad. But Turek then goes further, advocating for a new policy: a proposal to ban federally funded gender-affirming care in the United States, one that would impact a substantial number of transgender people and make their care difficult to impossible to receive.

  • inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world
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    7 hours ago

    Something, something how Democratic centrists aren’t Republican-lite.

    Fucking be better you shitty Democrats and stop making excuses for complete moral failings on being “the best we can do” in a asshole red state and abandoning your core voters for some Iowa Republican or “Independent” vote that, let’s be honest, never going to vote for a Democrat in any way to begin with.

  • SouthernShao@lemmus.org
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    3 hours ago

    There should be a federal funding ban on trans care.

    There should be a federal funding ban on everything.

    Over the next 50-100 years, our ultimate governmental goal should be the reduction, with the ultimate intent of abolishment, of all government systems.

  • Granbo's Holy Hotrod@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    100% he feels weird about his chub when watching peg porn - now he wants us to feel bad too. I am convinced this is always the issue with anyone who is on this side of history.

  • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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    1 day ago

    Then how is he any different from his opponent? Wow, it’s such a mystery why the Dems keep losing elections…. 🙄

  • Burn_The_Right@lemmy.today
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    1 day ago

    Hypothetically, would this DOJ even bother investigating the assassination of a Democrat? Asking for a hypothetical friend.

  • lennybird@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    I know this is Iowa. I know it’s always a stretch to court poorly educated people because appealing to ethnocentric bias and anger is always easier.

    One can hope this is a bait-and-switch thing that we often see happen in the reverse way with dipshits like Sinema or Fetterman but I seriously doubt it.

    This is honestly such an easy issue to navigate if you frame it around individual freedom and redirect the conversation to war, gas prices, cost of living etc.

  • nul9o9@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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    2 days ago

    Imagine trans rights being the thing you chose to chicken out of in an attempt to get undecided voters.

    • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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      2 days ago

      Do you think there’s a bunch of people who won’t vote republican, but will vote dem if they’re just transphobic enough?

      • QueenHawlSera@piefed.social
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        2 days ago

        They see the fight for trans rights as “Not worth fighting”, and I worry they’re right, especially with polls showing public support for trans rights is dropping and women’s rights groups view trans women with suspicion.

        • alcoholicorn@lemmy.ml
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          2 days ago

          Calling for a ban on federal funding for trans care isn’t “not fighting”.

          This is the same shit we saw in 2023 when democrats campaigned on military spending and migrant caravans. You can choose to ignore random shit the republicans are running with, you can tell voters why its fucking stupid, but if you try to triangulate your position to be closer to the republican one, you make it look like the republicans were right all along.

          This dipshit is literally campaigning for republicans at this point.

  • Kiernian@lemmy.world
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    1 day ago

    The primaries are over.

    I voted for someone other than Turek but Turek won anyway.

    So what happens now?

    Turek is horrible in this regard, but I have to vote for him anyway because he wants to TRY to ban transgender care, emphasis on TRY while the other party wants to do worse.

    Everyone needs to get this through their heads.

    Go talk to american muslims who couldn’t vote for Kamala because she supported Israel.

    Not voting perpetuates more harm than voting for the bad guy who is less bad.

    Voting third party at this point in the election cycle perpetuates more harm than voting for the bad guy who is less bad.

    THE FACTS ARE SIMPLE:

    One of two people will win this race. There is no other outcome at this point.

    This primary was decided by votes, not anti-bernie-level dnc trickery.

    You have to vote for the one who will hurt you less or it will get worse than even this.

    I hate everything about it, but this is very simple: at this point anything other than a vote for turek is a vote for escalating harm to trans people to levels even higher than what turek wants.

    That is all there is to it.

    Go vote.

    Do not let this rhetoric stop you from turning out to vote.

    That is what the people behind the machine want.

    This should be a learned lesson at this point but people like Erin are somehow still getting spun up by propaganda and failing to see the simple, shitty, crushing truth here, which is that an anti-trans democrat who only wants to ban things because his donors tell him to is still more pro-trans than any other option we have at this point in this one race.

    • inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world
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      7 hours ago

      I hope that the trans and LGBTQ community comes together and does an Abandon Harris protest movement.

      Sitting alone and not voting won’t do anything but have Democrats keep dismissing you as a shitty voter.

      Banding together and telling the Democratic party to nut the fuck up and stop voting for morally bankrupt candidates publicly and in one voice will make a difference.

      Plus this whole bullshit about vote Blue no matter who when it’s never reciprocated is not a good excuse to vote for someone, even if they call themselves a Democrat, who wants to ensure you’re a second class citizen.

      Be fucking better you shitty Democrats.

    • BigMacHole@thelemmy.club
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      8 hours ago

      We have NO Choice but to Vote for Him! Vote BLUE no Matter WHO!

      -Democrats who are Voting for Republican Mike Rogers INSTEAD of Democrat Abdul El-Sayed!

    • tmyakal@infosec.pub
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      10 hours ago

      Voting is not enough. Voting for transphobes puts transphobes in power. Call his campaign office and tell him you disagree with his stance. Go to a townhall event and call him to the carpet in front of everyone. Tell him he needs to earn your vote, and his behavior isn’t fucking cutting it.

      You can vote for him anyway, but he doesn’t need to know that. He needs to be told out loud that he’s doing the wrong thing, often and by many people.

    • SippyCup@lemmy.world
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      1 day ago

      “It’s not about supporting only your ideal candidate, it’s about picking the direction you want the country to go”

      Fucking both of these roads lead to ruin I’d like to turn around but that’s not a fucking option.

        • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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          4 hours ago

          The Republican winning is literally the less bad option, because if the Dems see this guy win they’ll realize that people who claim to support trans rights will vote for them even when they sell trans people down the river, and at that point the strategically correct move will be to abandon support for trans rights everywhere. And then there will be zero resistance whatsoever to the trans genocide. It’s better that they lose one seat than that the entire party gets a message that this is acceptable.

          Not that you should vote based on the absurd ideology of “lesser evilism” in the first place.

            • OBJECTION!@lemmy.ml
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              3 hours ago

              Trans rights are human rights. The people, united, must never be divided. We must hang together, or we will each hang separately.

              Anyone who’s tired of watching these liberals betray and sell out marginalized people, anyone who believes in solidarity, and realizes that this won’t stop until we make them stop, remember: It’s us “tankies” who actually believe in those values.

              Liberals will sell you down the river in a heartbeat, the moment it’s politically convenient. You can watch it happening here in real time, it’s as plain as day.

        • inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world
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          7 hours ago

          One wants to take your rights away, the other one wants to take your rights away.

          That’s not one less bad for the people who’s human rights are being taken away.

          • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
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            2 hours ago

            One side unanimously wants to take your rights away and have sworn unquestioning fealty to their dear leader who stokes their hatred every day.

            The other side has a few spoilers who are willing to break with the party line on a few critical issues and join the side that hates you.

            Is that what being “the same” looks like?

            • inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world
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              A candidate that wants to take your rights away compared to another candidate that wants to take your rights away is what I’m seeing here and those two candidates, on this issue, there is no difference and that’s what we’re talking about here with this particularly shitty centrist Democrat.

              We can talk about those “few spoilers” and how shitty they are but that’s a different thread and conversation.

              • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
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                58 minutes ago

                Okay but how many comments here are pointing to the democrats as a party and saying “see, we knew you were all the same as republicans”?

                Call out turek for being an out-of-touch bigot, sure. He brought it on himself.

                But when has making sweeping generalizations based on a few examples ever been the thing a rational and balanced person concludes?

              • edible_funk@lemmy.world
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                2 hours ago

                One is demonstrably less bad, and only MAGAt trash are stupid enough to think in such stupid simplistic and false paradigms.

                • inclementimmigrant@lemmy.world
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                  2 hours ago

                  You do you. I don’t give two fucks if you think one person who hates trans people is better than the other person who hates trans people is better, who am I to argue with your opinion.

                  I simply happen to think the person who hates trans people is no better than the person who hates trans people when it comes to not hating trans people as the baseline.

                  But thanks for the nice ad hominem attack, great conversation.

        • SippyCup@lemmy.world
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          8 hours ago

          If you’re in a car, and you have a fork ahead of you. The right path takes you directly off a cliff, and the left path circles around a tree before taking you off the same cliff, are you really going to stay in the car?

          • magic_smoke@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            8 hours ago

            Is it a fast car and how close is the other side.

            Like what if instead if dying in a fiery crash I just landed a sick jump?

            • wonderingwanderer@sopuli.xyz
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              2 hours ago

              So “aim for the cliff and put the pedal to the metal”? Is that your outlook?

              That’s kinda like “aim for the bushes,” innit?

          • edible_funk@lemmy.world
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            7 hours ago

            Are you leaving the country? Because that’s the only way to get out of the car. Everything else leads to one of two possibilities, regardless of your feelings about it. And one is less bad. That’s the facts

            • SippyCup@lemmy.world
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              6 hours ago

              No. One is bad now, the other is just as bad but delayed by a cycle.

              And no, leaving the country is not the only option. It’s the only option they want you to consider, but it’s not the only option.

    • jumjummy@lemmy.world
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      21 hours ago

      Well said. The number of people who seem to think that there’s some magical other option for another, more progressive candidate to pop up on the ballot is frustrating.

  • Hegar@fedia.io
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    2 days ago

    The depressing thing i fear is that polling on trans rights must be bad enough that some dems feel this is a position that benefits them. Newsom seems to think it benefits him, slimy amoral scumbag that he is.

    The dems don’t want to accept any responsiblity for the perception that they’re not meaningfully different from fascists, but they also want to throw trans people to the wolves when they’re already one of the most murdered groups in society.

    • Cherries@lemmy.world
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      It’s just consultants. The audience and constituents that are being listened to are just consultants. Most people don’t give a fuck about trans people cuz they are such a tiny minority. Neoliberal consultants have seen the success of conservative culture war narratives and have adopted the, “can’t beat 'em, join 'em” strategy because they don’t want to do the actual work beating culture war narratives would require, which is pushing progressive policies.

    • Absurdly Stupid @lemmy.world
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      I don’t know what the polls say on this issue, but if the Democrats throw trans people to the wolves, it’s because their “donors” said to; polling is only relevant if Amazon agrees.

      For example, polls show support for term limits is 83%; it doesn’t matter, because Meta doesn’t want term limits. I could list ten issues with over 80% support from all Americans; they’ve wanted these very basic no-brainer things for DECADES.

      Just like labor discovered long ago, Democrats (or Rs, bOtH sIdEs, etc) will abandon any issue for enough “donations”.

      • Hegar@fedia.io
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        There was a massive study from princeton over a decade ago showing that since the end of the civil rights era, not a single piece of public policy reflected public opinion.

        The conclusion was that there is no evidence that the US is a democracy, and it explicitly said we’ve functionally been an oligarchy since the 70s.

  • Nouvellalia@lemmy.world
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    2 days ago

    Sitting in that chair, playing someone who understands discrimination and fairness because you can’t walk or please a woman, and using the way other people perceive you to say:

    “Really it’s the trans women who are oppressing the cis women. The trans women are oppressing all of us with skyrocketing insurance rates, and by making us look at them.”

    Is disgusting, cowardly, and shows us that Josh Turek’s biggest disability, is the fetid rot of a person he is.

    • CTDummy@piefed.social
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      “Really it’s the trans women who are oppressing the cis women. The trans women are oppressing all of us with skyrocketing insurance rates, and by making us look at them.”

      “Wheel chair bound people are oppressing able bodied people with skyrocketing building cost due to mandating ramps and elevators thanks to the ADA; and by making us look at them.” Incredible someone can’t see this same warped logic applied to them.