The Forest for the Trees

A lot of people today who consider themselves to be liberal simply don’t qualify for that honor, at least not how this category has been defined in the past century. 

Elizabeth Warren said she was in favor of providing federal prison inmates with gender transformation surgery. Perhaps I am severely underestimating the good people of Red State America, but I doubt this bit of her platform will go over well in rural areas. I doubt it would fly in rural Denmark.

I firmly believe that Democrats should steer well clear of anything associated with gender politics in the upcoming election, that is, if they want to win. We need to look at the big picture, and transgender operations for federal inmates is definitely not the big picture. Take any of a dozen major issues: the wealth gap and raising taxes on the rich, the environment, rebuilding our declining infrastructure, the Supreme Court make up, and many more things. Democrats could run and win on any single one of these issues, but not if they are saddled with divisive topics related to gender politics.

No one is saying that these things are unimportant, it’s just that Democrats have to be in full control to do anything about them. It’s analogous to Obama striking down the military’s mealy-mouth “don’t ask, don’t tell” policy regarding gays in the military. Obama didn’t run on this issue; I don’t think that he even mentioned it in the 2008 election campaign. He simply had the power once he was in office to finally do the right thing and allow gays to openly enter the military.

Now all Democrats need is a decent candidate, one who isn’t past retirement age.