Your Outrage Sucks & You Will Only Lose

In which I never claim to be a graceful winner

Celebrating political wins always feels like a foolhardy endeavor; even in the most progressive of situations, campaign promises are reneged, hopey changey becomes establishment, and Bernie Sanders ends up both sides-ing pretty clear cut issues. *sighs deeply, plaintively*

But when a series of ideas that are so wrong lose so badly, it’s okay to be a little bit of a snot. Today, I think we can have a little “fuck you, you fucking fucks” as a treat. Eliminating reproductive rights loses. Getting between parents and their children loses. Your outrage machine, about the queers coming to trans your children loses. Maybe, for the first time in a good long while, the right’s new obsession with identity politics (which used to be the cause of the left, ‘til the right wing discovered pronouns and kids books) is doing them more harm than good. Because for the most part, people want to be left alone to do their weird little things in their weird little ways.

So, here’s a couple of robust fuck yous I think we can all enjoy saying:

• Glen Youngkin in Virginia made trans rights a huge bogeyman. So it was immensely satisfying to watch his state elect Democrats and their very first trans state senator and the second transgender senator ever. So, well done there, Glen with one N. Winning strategy for the human version of an AI rendering that just had the prompt “boring white man.” Send out more stupid flyers, you creepy old man obsessed with teen girls playing sports.

• Mothers of Liberty, the far-right “parent advocacy” group who recently called the police on a library for lending out a YA fantasy book, took a lovely trouncing in school districts across Ohio, Iowa, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, making nary a dent in their elections on a school district level. Maybe demonizing a group of children is not a super strong electoral strategy? I dunno, just spitballing.

• Daniel Cameron, a candidate supported by a PAC that spent over $2m in convincing voters in the liberal state of *reads marker on palm* Kentucky that “the billion dollar” gender reassignment industry will climb through a window of your house, steal your kids, and replace them with communists who identify as kittens, somehow lost to Andy Beshear, who openly vetoed restricting gender affirming care and bathroom laws.

• A particularly poignant fuck you to anti-abortion Midwesterners: How is your Ohio bell weather now, suckers? Codifying reproductive rights in Ohio law took 57% of the vote, my dudes. That’s a crystal clear majority. This is not the fringe topic that Hillary Clinton dance delicately with in 2016, this is a campaign-defining issues. And to quote Jessica Valenti, “Fuck you, we win.”

• Marjorie Dannenfelser, president of Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, who clearly always will deserve a “fuck you” but also gets a side of Nelson pointing and laughing, for saying that Virginia’s election will serve as a bellweather for abortion rights. She noted: “What’s distinct and special about Virginia is the unity among Republicans under Youngkin’s leadership, their fearlessness and the resources they are marshaling to back their message and level the playing field. It’s the first time since the Dobbs Supreme Court decision on abortion that all of these elements will really be put to the test in a bellwether state.” Hey, let’s fucking hope you’re right, Marj. Let’s hope!

The truth is, as much as I write and think about them, identity politics don’t win elections. Democrats learned that eight years ago. And it appears Republicans are getting that taste now. They might be a hot button topic for the perpetually online who click furiously and drive traffic, letting the media think it’s race defining so it can pump the narrative that it’s race defining. But the person who comes out to vote just wants, like, affordable gas, bro. And whomever seems the least concerned about what is going on in someone’s bedroom and more focused on fiscal issues generally is better positioned to win. Waging a culture war isn’t popular, especially when (like in 2023), the people waging it are weird freaks who scream at women out of one side of their mouth and act as their avenging angels out of the other.

I mean, poor winners always make worse losers and I am sure 2024 will bring a whole host of heartache and absurdity and someone on the other side of my value-system will be able to send me this post and go “HOW’S IT FEEL NOW” and it will probably feel bad. But, like, I’ll deal with that then. For now, middle fingers up, raise your hands high, the stupid ideas lost for being stupid.