Fascism Watch for 5 June 2023: the Done with Excuses edition

The big two:

1: If you missed it, Elon Musk threw anti-trans hate propaganda produced by a major anti-LGBT group in front of tens of millions of people to start Pride Month, and pledged to work towards jailing for life any therapist or doctor who helps trans children. I’ve been telling everyone for months that turning Twitter into a neofascist/alt-right propaganda and disinformation fountain was the point, and here we are. I raged over the weekend and I meant and I still mean every single word. If you’re still using Twitter after this, we are not friends.

2: Ohio Republicans have launched a special election for fucking August to make it harder for the citizens to overturn their asinine and evil anti-abortion-rights laws. The special election will have one (1) issue, which is whether to make following elections to overturn their bullshit have to pass with 60%, rather than 50%+1, of the vote. It’s called ruling from the minority and that’s what they do.

If you are in Ohio, get involved. If you aren’t in Ohio, send money, but also tell people who are in Ohio to get involved. This local shit matters, and it matters a lot.

And now, everything else.

Not suspicious at all: Showtime Pulls ‘Vice’ Episode on Ron DeSantis without explanation. You may recall testimony repeated here about his role in Bush’s torture regime.

Trans adults in Florida are scrambling in many cases to leave the state now that Republican Governor DeSantis’s new anti-LGBT bills have hit the ground, including discovering they no longer have health care and can’t get it. The Associated Press and The Hill have coverage.

The commission Marine Le Pen demanded as an investigation into allegations of Russian influence in and control over far-right parties like hers reports that Marine Le Pen’s party is hip deep in Russian influence, propaganda, and money. She’s pissed off and calling the commission she demanded a politicised witch-hunt.

Six Women Attempt to Oust a Trans Girl from Their Sorority after she was voted in by a majority of the sorority, and after their harassment campaign failed, they’re suing. “Artemis Langford has been targeted with dehumanizing, salacious stories and a right wing media frenzy, conceived of and promoted by six of her own Kappa Kappa Gamma sisters.” Rightist media have been slavering over this.

This kind of racist-as-fuck Republican property law goes back a long time and if there was such a thing as “shame” in the Republican Party, they’d be steeping in it, but there’s not. I mean, it even targets individuals with visas allowing them to live and work here long-term. It’s severely not okay.

The Progressive recognises the wave of anti-LGBT (particularly anti-trans) bills and laws as a coordinated national election strategy for 2024, and that’s certainly part of what it is. But it’s more than that; they absolutely do hate us – as one particular Florida Republican was honest enough to straight-up say so recently – and will make every single one of us illegal again if they can. But they are good enough to quote people from their leadership on the whole “trans is a wedge to break up the LGBT alliance” agenda:

At the Family Research Council’s 2017 Values Voter Summit, Meg Kilgannon of Concerned Parents and Educators of Fairfax County, Virginia, laid out a strategy for attacking LGBTQ+ rights by going after transgender people first: “The LGBT alliance is actually fragile, and the trans activists need the gay rights movement to help legitimize them,” Kilgannon said. “Gender identity on its own is just a bridge too far. If we separate the ‘T’ from the alphabet soup, we’ll have more success.” Kilgannon advised conservatives to do three things: Target health care for children first; avoid religious arguments; and avoid name-calling transgender people.

YouTube is dropping its ban on election-denialism for the 2024 elections. What could possibly go wrong? The Navy removed its Pride Month posts from their Instagram and Twitter accounts and won’t say why, but I think we all know.

Now, the states:

Arizona cops harassed and made two official visits to a Democrat for their anti-Trump signs, in a county loaded with Trumpists. Yes, this is political intimidation by police.

California media are ignoring the nature of the violent far-right protests at Saticoy Elementary School in North Hollywood. VPS Reports have video.

Republican Texas joined most other Republican states at banning youth trans health care. Obviously, this was expected, and is part of their national campaign of cruelty. Remember, like they said right above: peel one letter off at a time, split the coalition, go after us all. Straight-acting white cisgendered gay men, you are not an exception. Don’t pretend you are.

And to close, here’s “those same old psychotically evil fucktarts,” with their new hit, “why care about saving the world, since the afterlife is real?”

Posted via Solarbird{y|z|yz}, Collected.