None are so blind as those who refuse to see, eh?
It’s hard to fathom the mentality of anyone who thought Donald Trump would do anything to benefit members of the LGBT community–and it’s also hard not to react with sarcasm and scorn over the fact that some of the folks who supported Trump are shocked, shocked that he has announced a ban on transgender participation in the military:
“I don’t believe Donald Trump has an personal animus toward LGBT individuals,” said Gregory T. Angelo, president of the Log Cabin Republicans, which represents gay conservatives and allies. “This smacks of politics, pure and simple.”
Angelo, who once labeled Trump the “most pro-LGBT Republican nominee in history,” said there seems to be a political calculation that reigniting the transgender rights debate will help galvanize conservative voters in the 2018 elections and expand GOP majorities in Congress. A more conservative Congress would allow Trump to achieve more legislative victories, such as his coveted border wall with Mexico or erasing President Barack Obama’s health-care overhaul.
“If you think you’re going to repeal and replace Obamacare by using LGBT soldiers as a political football, you’ve got another thing coming,” Angelo said.
If Angelo doesn’t believe “Trump has an personal animus toward LGBT individuals,” he is deeply, deeply foolish. What pro-LGBT person would select Mike Pence as his running mate?
The very moment Trump became a hero to the right, he chose to embrace all of the right’s prejudices, including prejudices against the LGBT community. He knew that in order to maintain the right’s support, he had to hate as they hated:
In 2011, Trump told the Des Moines Register that “as of this moment,” he did not believe same-sex couples in civil unions should receive benefits equal to those of heterosexual marriages. Trump added that his “attitude was not fully formed” on the issue, even though it once was, an equivocation that echoed similarly hedged statements from politicians in both parties at the time.
Those who knew Trump challenged him about this waffling.
On a radio segment with Howard Stern in 2013, before Stern got Trump to criticize Kim Kardashian’s appearance, the shock jock confronted Trump on whether his positions on gay rights were for political gain.
“If I was alone with you, and you and I were just having a drink, I don’t think you care about same-sex marriage,” Stern said. “I think you’re all for it. I know you.”
“It’s never been an argument discussed with me very much,” Trump said. “People know it’s not my thing, one way or the other.”
As LGBT rights organizations concentrated during that time on promoting the legalization of same-sex marriage, and many politicians began to embrace the idea, Trump was moving in the other direction…
Meanwhile, gay conservatives were increasingly looking to Trump as an ally as he became more interested in politics.
Those conservatives now presumably feel like chumps. Good. They were willing to throw their LGBT brothers and sisters under the bus for a tax cut, to betray their own for thirty pieces of Trump’s silver. Now they realize what the rest of us knew: that in Trump’s world, members of the LGBT community are and will always be considered “less than.” It will never change on the right, ever.
What will these gay conservatives say if Trump’s Supreme Court justices (and, sadly, he might get another shot at contaminating the High Court) team up with the Bush 41 and Bush 43 appointees to issue a ruling overturning Obergefell v. Hodges? “Sorry, I just needed that lower rate?” There’s nothing more shameful than placing cash over civil rights–and gay conservatives who voted for Trump deserve to be shamed by those who will be victimized by their vacuous vote.
Trump long ago pledged allegiance to those who are avowed enemies of the LGBT community. No amount of gay-conservative delusion–or mainstream-media madness–can alter that truth. The 45th President has symbolically desecrated the rainbow flag with his actions–and desecrated the American flag as well.
UPDATE: Speaking of Trump’s proclamations on Twitter…
