This is a frightening moment for our community, and I don't think most folks realize it. I wrote this op-ed, but haven't had it published:
Most fascist regimes come to power through military means, like Mussolini in Italy and Franco in Spain, but it’s a coin toss as to whether on November 5th, like with Nazi Germany, America becomes a fascist dictatorship through constitutional means. Should this happen, all minorities will suffer, but it’s clear by Trump’s campaign ads and the rhetoric coming from his white Christian nationalist base, that there is a particularly cruel agenda waiting to reverse the progress LGBT Americans have gained over fifty years.
Hitler didn’t start out killing Jews. Despite endemic Jew-Hatred, the German public in 1933 would not have stood for such barbarism. But by 1940, after years of Nazi propaganda portraying Jews as “vermin” who are “poisoning the blood” of Germany, this dehumanizing language made the disappearance of their Jewish neighbors much more attractive.
Trump’s campaign against gay and transgender people won’t start with such draconian measures as forced imprisonment of LGBT citizens. Few Americans outside of the ten percent considered white Christian nationalists would tolerate this. Trump’s anti-gay/trans crusade will begin more modestly, with nationwide bans on acknowledging the existence of gay and trans people in schools, banning Pride parades by calling them both “pornographic,” criminalizing transgender people appearing in public, and adoption of Putin’s laws making it a crime to display rainbow flags or to “promote homosexuality.”
While Hitler had his gangs of “Brownshirts” to terrorize Jews, trade unionists, homosexuals and other “undesirables,” in America Trump has his ‘Proud Boys’ “standing back and standing by.” They are eager to make life hell for gay and trans Americans beyond what Trump and Republicans do legislatively.
Violence and oppression will be hallmarks of a Trump dictatorship. He has promised that chasing down 20,000,000 undocumented children and adults will be “bloody,” and that he will imprison political opponents like Congressman Adam Schiff. As CBS is finding out, any network offending him will run the risk of having their broadcast license revoked. And if laws fail to keep gay and trans Americans invisible, Trump’s ‘Proud Boys’ street gang will be there to bash some gay heads and scare LGBT Americans back into the closet.
Many other white Christian nationalist groups stand ready to help marginalize LGBT Americans as well. A member of ‘Moms for Liberty’ Miami has suggested gay and trans students be placed in separate classrooms, “like kids with autism and Down’s syndrome.” The ‘Fairfield (Ohio) County Conservatives’ has initiated a boycott of all businesses supportive of their local LGBT Pride, echoing the April 1, 1933 boycott of Jewish-owned stores in Germany, which marked the beginning of the Nazi Party’s nationwide campaign against the entire German Jewish population.
There are those who take comfort that a second Trump presidency will only last four years, but the reality is that he won’t leave office until he dies. This became clear when Trump declared, “If we don’t win this election, I don’t think you’re going to have another election in this country,” projecting onto Democrats his own plans. Trump cannot imagine anyone giving up power once you have it. He tried holding onto power after losing in 2020, but patriotic Americans followed our Constitution and foiled his schemes. He’s already insured, in JD Vance, that this won’t happen again.
Within days America will choose whether we keep our 237 year-old ‘experiment’ as a democratic republic with Harris, or become a fascist dictatorship under Trump. We have one chance to get this right, but if we don’t, America’s LGBT population will be in peril. Our nation will become the same hellhole for our LGBT friends and loved ones as it is for gay and trans Russians, and like in Putin’s Russia, the wealthy few will be able to get out, but for everybody else, there will be no place to run.
This is a frightening moment for our community, and I don't think most folks realize it. I wrote this op-ed, but haven't had it published:
Most fascist regimes come to power through military means, like Mussolini in Italy and Franco in Spain, but it’s a coin toss as to whether on November 5th, like with Nazi Germany, America becomes a fascist dictatorship through constitutional means. Should this happen, all minorities will suffer, but it’s clear by Trump’s campaign ads and the rhetoric coming from his white Christian nationalist base, that there is a particularly cruel agenda waiting to reverse the progress LGBT Americans have gained over fifty years.
Hitler didn’t start out killing Jews. Despite endemic Jew-Hatred, the German public in 1933 would not have stood for such barbarism. But by 1940, after years of Nazi propaganda portraying Jews as “vermin” who are “poisoning the blood” of Germany, this dehumanizing language made the disappearance of their Jewish neighbors much more attractive.
Trump’s campaign against gay and transgender people won’t start with such draconian measures as forced imprisonment of LGBT citizens. Few Americans outside of the ten percent considered white Christian nationalists would tolerate this. Trump’s anti-gay/trans crusade will begin more modestly, with nationwide bans on acknowledging the existence of gay and trans people in schools, banning Pride parades by calling them both “pornographic,” criminalizing transgender people appearing in public, and adoption of Putin’s laws making it a crime to display rainbow flags or to “promote homosexuality.”
While Hitler had his gangs of “Brownshirts” to terrorize Jews, trade unionists, homosexuals and other “undesirables,” in America Trump has his ‘Proud Boys’ “standing back and standing by.” They are eager to make life hell for gay and trans Americans beyond what Trump and Republicans do legislatively.
Violence and oppression will be hallmarks of a Trump dictatorship. He has promised that chasing down 20,000,000 undocumented children and adults will be “bloody,” and that he will imprison political opponents like Congressman Adam Schiff. As CBS is finding out, any network offending him will run the risk of having their broadcast license revoked. And if laws fail to keep gay and trans Americans invisible, Trump’s ‘Proud Boys’ street gang will be there to bash some gay heads and scare LGBT Americans back into the closet.
Many other white Christian nationalist groups stand ready to help marginalize LGBT Americans as well. A member of ‘Moms for Liberty’ Miami has suggested gay and trans students be placed in separate classrooms, “like kids with autism and Down’s syndrome.” The ‘Fairfield (Ohio) County Conservatives’ has initiated a boycott of all businesses supportive of their local LGBT Pride, echoing the April 1, 1933 boycott of Jewish-owned stores in Germany, which marked the beginning of the Nazi Party’s nationwide campaign against the entire German Jewish population.
There are those who take comfort that a second Trump presidency will only last four years, but the reality is that he won’t leave office until he dies. This became clear when Trump declared, “If we don’t win this election, I don’t think you’re going to have another election in this country,” projecting onto Democrats his own plans. Trump cannot imagine anyone giving up power once you have it. He tried holding onto power after losing in 2020, but patriotic Americans followed our Constitution and foiled his schemes. He’s already insured, in JD Vance, that this won’t happen again.
Within days America will choose whether we keep our 237 year-old ‘experiment’ as a democratic republic with Harris, or become a fascist dictatorship under Trump. We have one chance to get this right, but if we don’t, America’s LGBT population will be in peril. Our nation will become the same hellhole for our LGBT friends and loved ones as it is for gay and trans Russians, and like in Putin’s Russia, the wealthy few will be able to get out, but for everybody else, there will be no place to run.