Few Seem to Care Anymore Whether Politicians Are Gay

[DonViejo]

April 5, 2019 at 5:25 pm EDT By Taegan Goddard

The Economist: “It made for an awkward first-date conversation. Pete Buttigieg, the mayor of South Bend in Indiana, recalls that he and Chasten Glezman talked about how he would be seeking higher political office. How would his boyfriend-to-be—now husband—feel about the public scrutiny? And how might voters respond to a same-sex couple on the campaign trail?”

“Mr Buttigieg had an inkling voters would mostly shrug. He had been nervous about coming out as the incumbent mayor in 2015, but he went on to win re-election that year with 80% of the vote. In South Bend even conservatives and Catholics cared more about his efforts to revive a once-struggling industrial city or his spell soldiering in Afghanistan. Almost the only time his sexual orientation now gets mentioned, he says, is when somebody wants to tell him they are at ease with it. Attitudes to once controversial issues can flip from bold to normal with baffling speed, he says.”

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https://politicalwire.com/2019/04/05/few-seem-to-care-if-politicians-are-gay-anymore/

[Hortensis]

1. Don't believe it. Religious conservative extremists are all over DC,

infiltrated into the cabinet and every level of every government agency, into congress, idiot-whispering into Trump's ear, increasingly packing federal courts, more every month, and all over state and local governments and courts.

Sure, there has been liberalization of attitudes across the spectrum, but they've also hardened among hard-core social and religious conservatives especially. These are also international waves which ally with other giant conservative powers, like the new billionaire kleptocrat classes. The religious right and social conservative right have never been more dangerous, and they care big time.

[RKP5637]

2. Quite correct. None should get too comfortable. A good portion of humanity loves and lusts

for hatred and persecution. LGBT is one of their favorite targets.

[Hortensis]

3. Yup. Too many were foolishly complacent in 2016, and it's costing

our nation badly, but especially especially those experiencing the resurgence of hatred and persecution personally.

Let's mention the unhateful religionists who still accept and often support institutionalized persecution, even though their percentages have been decreasing substantially in the U.S. recently, because they believe it is their religious and moral duty.

[dalton99a]

4. +1. Never underestimate the Bradley effect

aka People lie to pollsters.

[Hortensis]

5. Umhm. And media interviewers. When seeing people,

especially young ones, tell interviewers they're not interested in or turned off by politics, I've pegged most of them as conservatives who don't want to admit in public that they'd vote for Trump, if they voted.

[IluvPitties]

7. Conservatives abandoned Romney because of his religion

Their heads will explode if Mayor Pete is the nominee. I honestly feel the country is close to that point of not caring, but not yet.

[Hortensis]

9. My memory is that they rallied around Romney

pretty well. I don't underestimate the power of the rejection of and antagonism toward Democrats on the right, and I do believe the "mega identity" theory. I see it all the time.

I used to be able to consider conservatives' political ideas as only one of their facets and concentrate on ones I respected and liked, but over time political identity has come to dominate, for too many even religious precepts have fallen into line with whatever political leaders say.

As for the nation not caring, maybe this is what we're once again seeing?

Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.

Thank goodness for the midterms. Passionate intensity is still rampant, but new conviction is being discovered. I hug their message to me and really do sleep better than before.

[SMC22307]

6. "...conservatives and Catholics cared more about his efforts to revive a once-struggling...

industrial city..."

"It's the economy, stupid." It's ALWAYS the economy.

[McCamy Taylor]

8. Not in the Democratic Primary. I love our party precisely because we are so inclusive.

The trick is getting all the Democrats out to vote in the general. If we could increase our voter participation in the general, the way that Obama did, we would win every election.