Cruelty as Tactic
Who traffics in identity politics?
One of the reasons those of us who’ve been paying attention were devastated by the results of the 2024 election is because we know not only how cruel my uncle and his supporters are, but just how cruel they intend to be. Cruelty may have been the point for Donald, but, on the right, it’s also policy.
In the last two weeks, Donald has made it clear through his cabinet picks that he—and they—intend to cause as much pain as possible to their perceived enemies and to the most vulnerable among us.
His minions and sycophants have clearly gotten the memo, as evidenced by Rep. Nancy Mace’s vile reaction to the trailblazing arrival of Representative-elect Sarah McBride (D-DE), the first transgender woman to serve in Congress.
Seeing an opportunity to get media attention while being gratuitously cruel to a new colleague, Mace crafted a resolution that would prevent McBride from using the women’s bathrooms on Capitol Hill.
Mace, who never met a camera she didn’t like, has been misgendering McBride and attacking her relentlessly while enlisting fellow-travelers, like the equally vile Marjorie Taylor Greene, to champion her cause.
This is what Mace had to say after introducing her resolution, when asked if she was going after a marginalized person:
Sara doesn’t get a say in this. This is a biological man trying to force himself into women’s spaces and I’m not going to tolerate it. You have the radical left who are trying to erase women and women’s rights.
I’m not going to allow men to erase women or women’s rights. . . .Sarah McBride doesn’t get a say. This is about women, this is about girls and our rights and being protected in our private spaces.
I don’t want to see a man in a women’s restroom. That’s not a thing and it’s not going to be a thing up here. It’s not going to be a thing anywhere across the country either.
Mace might want to remember that the party responsible taking away women’s rights—beginning with their right to bodily autonomy—is the Republican Party, but she’s never been one to let facts get between her and a microphone.
Representative-elect McBride had this to say:
Every day Americans go to work with people who have life journeys different than their own and engage with them respectfully, I hope members of Congress can muster that same kindness.
This is a blatant attempt from far right-wing extremists to distract from the fact that they have no real solutions to what Americans are facing. We should be focused on bringing down the cost of housing, health care, and child care, not manufacturing culture wars.
The website NOTUS.org reported that McBride asked her fellow House Democrats to focus on Republicans’ refusal to focus on issues relevant to the lives of all Americans. It was the act of a true public servant who understands that creating policies that will help the American people is more important than being dragged into a cheap stunt that is designed for one purpose and one purpose only—to use identity politics to attack one human being.
Mace is just another thug who has signed up to be a foot-soldier in Donald’s war on basic human decency. She, like many others, gets off on the attention and the thrill of power. They think this kind of behavior will serve them well. It’s up to the rest of us—by modeling Congresswoman McBride, by extending a helping hand, by holding fast to the idea that kindness is strength even in the face of their petty cruelties—to show them it will not.
This does not surprise me. The behavior of MAGA is deplorable (Hilary was right). It is a cult of constant gaslighting, projection and hate. I choose love, self-respect and empathy.
So Nancy mace thinks she is protecting women because she’s a feminist. She also thinks she is pro-LGBTQ. She is neither. Sarah McBride is a woman. When she enters a women’s restroom, she is not looking to harass or rape other women; she is looking to relieve herself. The argument that trans women want to rape other women is bogus. Trans women are more likely to be harassed than they are to harass. Mace is an attention seeker who is also performatively cruel.