Assembly Bill 2164 authored by Assemblymember Rebecca Bauer-Kahan (D-Orinda) would have prohibited California’s governor from recognizing a request for extradition of a person related to their providing a legally protected healthcare activity in the Golden State to transgender individuals, or if they provide reproductive services. It provided certain exemptions, such as an extradition required by federal law.
Fundamentally, I agree with that. Fundamentally, I am exactly on board with everything you and they have said. And fundamentally, that is not the hand that has been dealt in that situation.
Third parties cannot win a Presidential election in the US as the system currently stands. So, voting for a third party is either a nonvote or a vote for the defacto winner. Advocating for a third party candidate because your candidate lost the primaries is loser behavior. Because you cannot have your way, you’re going home. And if that decision fucks over the very people you are pretending to protect, then you should feel just as culpable for that as anyone that did vote for that.
Fucking like it or not, trans people would be better under Newsom than any Republican. Fucking Kamala Harris did jackshit to defend trans kids, but she wouldn’t be actively trying to harm them right now as President.
It is disgusting to me to pretend that not voting or voting third party is somehow stopping genocide or protecting queer people. It just isn’t. All it does is make you feel better.
Yeah, hopefully we can do enough to change the Democratic Party so that they stop hemorrhaging voters. If we get to the 2028 presidential election and the Dem candidate is another neoliberal like Newsom, we’re probably cooked. The past decade has shown that voters have become apathetic to the threat of, “Vote Dem or else you get the Republican”, so hopefully, the Democratic Party doesn’t run that losing strategy again.