‘Protecting Youth’ a Front for Overarching Fascist Agenda
Right wing conservatives pretend to care about morals, but it’s all about money. A deeply disturbing article in the New York Times reveals how so-called values groups don’t value the lives of real people. Instead, they deliberately seek out hot button issues to cash in.
Terry Schilling, the president of American Principles Project, explained to The New York Times the origin of recent political attacks on transgender Americans. His organization was searching for an emotionally charged topic to replace gay marriage, which has reached 70-percent approval rating:
“We knew we needed to find an issue that the candidates were comfortable talking about. And we threw everything at the wall.”
Clearly, the American Principles Project has no principles. If it did, it would not be casting out a wide net desperately searching for potent cultural themes that would bring donations. The New York Times reported:
The American Principles Project conducted polling to determine whether curbing transgender rights had resonance with voters — and, if they did, the best way for candidates to talk about it.
In 2019, the group’s research found that voters were significantly more likely to support a Republican candidate who favored a ban on transgender girls participating in school sports
Presto! Just like that, the Religious Right found the rhetorical silver bullet to extract 30 pounds of silver from their duped donors. Overnight, a lab-tested, completely manufactured transgender panic spread throughout America. More that 400 anti-LGBTQ bills were introduced, mostly focusing on punishing transgender people and persecuting drag queens.
At first those who peddled these unamerican actions hid behind protecting children by enlisting bogus parental rights front groups. Some bills sought to prevent transgender youth from accessing medical treatment recommended by medical associations.
Other authoritarian bills limited parental options and reduced free expression by falsely labeling drag shows obscene. Big Brother stepped in, particularly in Florida, threatening to fine businesses, or deny Gay Pride permits, where minors are present.
A tiny, nearly invisible minority was suddenly under siege, so soulless ideological entrepreneurs could make money off the backs off drag queens and trans children. As the Times wrote about the results of American Principles Project’s polling:
It has reinvigorated a network of conservative groups, increased fund-raising and set the agenda in school boards and state legislatures.
The American Principles Project apparently thinks it’s acceptable to degrade, demonize and dehumanize real people because they are revealed as money-making targets in their polling. The fact that these people will be bullied, berated and worse, because of their contrived political assaults, seems not to factor at all into their calculations.
It’s all good if it’s bigotry you can “bank” on.