One of the most surprising turns of the the last several years, has been finding myself agreeing with Bill Kristal, of all people. It's been fascinating to watch him transition, against all expectations, into humanity.
That's interesting to me right now because I've been arguing with Democrats willing to throw trans people under the bus, and even gay people. Using the old "No purity test" garbage. Since when is supporting people a purity test?
If so, then he's left it out of all his writing on the subject. His reasoning is simply that trans people deserve dignity and fair treatment and the campaign against them is pointlessly cruel and obviously bigoted.
It never ceases to amaze me how easy it is to get people to agree to insanity just by making up a slogan like "no purity tests", "drill baby drill," "own the libs." Get people to repeat your BS and you own the world.
He and his Bulwark partners seem to be sincerely scared for our democracy, and leaving the Republican bubble forced them to get reacquainted with basic principles of liberalism, one of is which people deserve to live the life that makes them happy without government intrusion into private spaces.
Oddly enough, those are conservative ideals too. If conservativism is rule of law, continuation of Constitutional supremacy, and reduced interference of state in the personal freedoms of an individual, then count me as Conservative.
Wow! Never thought I’d see the day when a William F Buckley protege supported trans rights. Remember when Buckley used gay slurs in a debate with Gore Vidal?
based and woke Bill Kristol is so interesting because a lot of the Never Trumpers have been the crucible of losing all their coalition power to Trump -- they know there is no compromise or appeasement
I rarely agree with him on policy but Kristol has values and Democrats would do better to remember when they had them instead of thinking a focus group can tell them what they are.
Wow. The world has definitely turned upside down. This is Bill Kristol saying this. Never thought I would come to respect Bill Kristol. Billy Crystal yes, Bill Kristol no.
Kristol appears to be motivated by a totally sincere and base-level hatred of tyranny and that has led him to very bad places, and then, to genuinely heroic moral stands
Thinking back to Christopher Hitchens' turn on foreign policy, it was more understandable once you realize his guiding star was opposition to totalitarianism in all of its forms.
Go listen to his narration of Saddam Hussein's takeover of the Iraqi political apparatus and his loathing of the man and the ideology and his support of the liberation of Iraq makes a lot more sense.
Being an asshole contrarian to the Left does not lead one to defend trans rights, as he's doing here, or spend 8 years criticizing Trump and MAGA. Utter nonsense.
If you'd told me in 2005 that in 20 years I would think more highly of Bill Kristol than of 65% of the Democratic caucus I would have slapped you in the face
fwiw I think Kristol's true guiding star is the achieving the highest amount of American world power possible, and anyone with the most basic geopolitical understanding gets that Trump makes us weaker in every possible way
Do you remember when trump said mental illnesses would be worse than Covid-19? I remember, I just can't find it online. He's the reason. It's in our elected leadership.
He's a madman. They're unfit like he is. The G0P is enabling his every authoritarian move...
Crank "dirtbag left"/"anti idpol left" assholes will just use this as more fuel for their conspiracy theory that transgender people existing is a plot by the decadent nato bourgeoisie natsec deep state or whatever and drive themselves further into reactionary irrelevance.
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(Axelrod is not anti-trans, but keeps saying to not talk about it)
You could also get the same result if you posit his guiding star was being an asshole contrarian to the Left.
Unless Chris has resurrected.
Ironic since Gitmo is back in the news.
He's a madman. They're unfit like he is. The G0P is enabling his every authoritarian move...
If I can do alt text, you can do alt text
https://www.thebulwark.com/p/stand-with-trans-americans-donald-trump-executive-orders-discharging-service-members
Bill Kristol understands the concept of solidarity better than much of democratic leadership.
This timeline is drunk.