Kansas hasn’t elected a democratic senator in 94 years and hasn’t even been competitive is 50+. Now the Cook Political Report has the race as a toss up, against an incumbent Republican. Whether Hamilton wins or loses, that’s already an incredible accomplishment in itself. And he’s done it without selling out trans people and giving into fearmongering the way some other Democrats have, most notably Josh Turek in Iowa.
Obviously, running where he is he’s not going to be perfect, but from a quick glance he’s kinda killing it, tactfully shutting down culture war BS and focusing on things that actually affect people materially. And he’s not taken money from AIPAC and seems to have a decent stance on Israel (calling for cutting “offensive aid”).
As much as I shit on the Democrats and push back on “Blue no matter who” BS, when there’s a candidate that meets a reasonable baseline for being a decent human being, I say knock yourself out. This is a race that could matter a great deal, because if he can actually pull this off it could serve as strong evidence and a proof of concept that you can stand up for the rights of trans people, Palestinians, and other minorities, and still win. Making it competitive when the state went +16 for Trump is already an accomplishment.
Yes, that’s right. I, a notorious tankie shill and CCP bot, widely known to only show up just before elections to discourage voting (even though I’m here the whole time), am telling you, days before the election that, if you happen to live in Kansas, you should probably pokemon go the polls.
The guy that misgendered trans girls and advocated for their segregation a second after the comment everyone loves him for? Where the media deliberately cut off the seconds immediately following? That Adam Hamilton?
I had done a quick Google of him and didn’t see any of that mentioned. Do you have more info?
This interview from KMBC.
Fuck, that is disappointing. The editing worked on me and I got excited.
I’m not really sure what to say or where that leaves us. I am trans myself, but I don’t live in Kansas so I don’t have to make the decision myself.
I do think it’s important to push back on every point because if you give them an inch they’ll take a mile. At the same time, there is a difference between a response when directly asked, with that caveat directing attention away, vs Turek openly putting out ads about taking away trans rights. Generally, I’m against lesser-evilism, and think rather that politicians should be held to standards and red lines.
In any case I should have done more research before weighing in on the race instead of being taken in by a soundbite, so thank you for correcting me on that. I’m trying to decide whether it would be better to delete or edit the post or what, if I had seen the full clip I would have been more reserved.
I appreciate your post. I know I’ve probably argued with you before and sorry if I appear harsh or combatitive attacking the insinuation (which might not have been your directly stated position in a particular thread) that both parties are the same that it’s not worth choosing one. It might come off as me defending the real harms users like you rightfully point out from the status quo which some “lesser evil” politicians are staking out, but I think we are an agreement we want better.
Keep on shining and advocating for the policies and people that can serve us better, but I will keep reminding people of the idea that solidarity will let us accomplish more of what we want even if we are not fully in alignment on every issue or the methods.
Quick word on Mr. Hamilton and religion. I’m not religious, but I’m not against religion for the sake of it. Most Abrahamic and worldwide religions teach the concept of empathy in one way or another. Religion is just a tool than can be used to spread both good and evil, and whether people learn empathy through that, through secular education or through lived experiences, then I don’t really care how they did.
I appreciate that.
The only thing I’ll say is that in my view, solidarity goes across racial lines, gender lines, etc, but not across political lines. For example, you can have solidarity with both Jews and Palestinians, but you can’t have solidarity with both Netanyahu and Palestinians. Solidarity across political lines often just means failing to hold people accountable for supporting harmful policies. Policies can change, but immutable characteristics of a person cannot. So when there is an incompatibility between those things, we can only demand that the policy changes, if we want to achieve real solidarity.
Also, between an unreliable ally with power (a politician with bad policies) and a reliable ally without power (someone affected by those policies), I would rather have the latter. It’s like, I don’t know, Three Kingdoms shit. If you’ll excuse me the fanciful example, Dong Zhou may have all the power but everyone hates him, ally with him and when the winds shift you go down with him. The Peach Garden Oath may be between three nobodies, but they’ll stand by each other no matter what happens. Trust is earned slowly and broken easily, and if activists are expected to drop their cause at the drop of a hat, you lose them and the people they stand up for, potentially for decades to come. I don’t believe there’s any one position or seat that’s worth more than that trust.
OK, so two things. But that’s my piece. And I agree with you about his religion, it doesn’t matter so long as he keeps it separate.
Who hijacked this person’s account? /jk
Well see my game is that I am actually a CCP agent but since this guy supports trans rights and blocking aid to Israel I couldn’t find anything to plausibly criticize them for, so I’m endorsing them instead to help build my cover.
That’s right, folks. You can make the whole Chinese propaganda apparatus work for you instead of against you simply by running candidates that support basic human rights.
Please don’t run more candidates like this. I’m in enough trouble with Xi as it is. If the Democrats start running non-shitty candidates, I won’t be able to get paid and my family will starve.
Yeah, but if Josh Turek wiins and Adam Hamilton loses, all the “”“sensible”“” centrist Democrats will take this to mean they need to throw trans people under the bus to win elections.
It’s important to remember “centrists” aren’t looking for evidence, they just want an excuse
That’s exactly why I made this post and endorsed him (while I’ve also shit on Turek elsewhere), because this race could be enormously important for the future of trans rights across the country.
Ideally, Hamilton’s strategy should be considered successful just for getting this far, but of course monkey brain will just say “he lost so it didn’t work.” The best case scenario is that the reverse happens and Hamilton wins while Turek loses, making it as hard to defend the strategy of caving to the right as possible.
making it as hard to defend the strategy of caving to the right as possible.
Don’t worry, the Third Way ghouls will still find a way.
I was raised Christian but no longer consider myself to be one largely because I don’t think modern Christianity actually follows the teachings of Jesus. Based on only this clip, I know nothing more about him, Hamilton seems to be a true Christian instead of the kind that uses their religion as a weapon against those they don’t like.
If more Christians spoke like Hamilton I might never have questioned religion the way I did.
