WEBVTT - Becoming Poli(Sci)-Amorous: with Ettingermentum 0:00:06.680 --> 0:00:08.760 Hi, how Beauty transa. 0:00:09.920 --> 0:00:10.360 Welcome. 0:00:10.960 --> 0:00:14.640 Hi, Hey, welcome back to another episode. 0:00:14.240 --> 0:00:14.920 Of Beauty Tramp. 0:00:16.200 --> 0:00:21.079 I just I just got back from the vocal seminization surgery. 0:00:21.960 --> 0:00:25.160 Your voice cut out there for a second. That was crazy. 0:00:25.000 --> 0:00:25.760 They did a. 0:00:25.720 --> 0:00:28.280 Quick snip and was sent me on my way and 0:00:28.320 --> 0:00:30.040 she's all the better for it. 0:00:30.120 --> 0:00:31.160 Yeah, I feel great. 0:00:32.720 --> 0:00:34.880 Can you like belt us a tune really quick? 0:00:35.600 --> 0:00:40.280 I'm on too many purpose that the surgery is very, 0:00:40.440 --> 0:00:43.280 very very painful. I don't tell you that. 0:00:43.560 --> 0:00:44.839 Well, it sounds like it was. 0:00:45.479 --> 0:00:52.479 They don't tell you what it was a success. 0:00:52.479 --> 0:00:54.440 That sounds like. Yeah. 0:00:54.520 --> 0:00:57.560 The thing is, I don't have insurance, so they could 0:00:57.640 --> 0:00:59.240 they could take it back at any moment. 0:00:59.320 --> 0:01:02.000 They could come reap you, repell your vocal cords. 0:01:02.920 --> 0:01:05.840 Yeah, well what if they just burst. 0:01:09.640 --> 0:01:13.360 Open up, open up this. We're gonna we're gonna know 0:01:13.400 --> 0:01:14.040 what's happening. 0:01:16.120 --> 0:01:30.080 They talked about place they took your vocal surgery. What 0:01:30.160 --> 0:01:32.640 have they done to our girl. 0:01:34.040 --> 0:01:34.360 Worse? 0:01:34.880 --> 0:01:37.319 Yeah, they said we're gonna actually make it worse this time. 0:01:38.600 --> 0:01:41.000 No, I think I think this was kind of just 0:01:41.000 --> 0:01:44.000 how I sounded before. I think so too. 0:01:44.520 --> 0:01:47.840 Well, Jamie, I'm really excited about today's episode we're going 0:01:47.880 --> 0:01:52.400 to be discussing electoral politics in the United States, particularly 0:01:52.480 --> 0:01:54.200 the Southern United States. 0:01:55.160 --> 0:02:01.000 Let me clear my let me clear my throat. Okay, sorry, 0:02:01.120 --> 0:02:03.840 I had a hair ball. Handball. 0:02:04.240 --> 0:02:07.640 Yeah, the show, the actual show that we're here for. 0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:10.160 So yeah, I mean, today we're we have on the 0:02:10.200 --> 0:02:15.800 pod a friend of Janey's. We're discussing the American electoral politics. 0:02:15.960 --> 0:02:18.440 Wait, you gotta say the thing, Harmon, You got to 0:02:18.440 --> 0:02:20.760 say friend of the show, a friend of the show, 0:02:21.080 --> 0:02:23.360 not just not just a friend of me, a friend 0:02:23.400 --> 0:02:23.919 of the show. 0:02:24.000 --> 0:02:25.640 It's true. He is a friend of the show. 0:02:25.880 --> 0:02:31.280 And he is quite cute too, you know, I will say, Okay, John, 0:02:31.280 --> 0:02:33.880 all right, we thought you were you were cute, So 0:02:34.360 --> 0:02:35.720 all right, let's. 0:02:35.440 --> 0:02:39.280 Go, let's go, let's go play. Yeah. I like that. 0:02:39.520 --> 0:02:42.160 I like that we should comment on our guests our 0:02:42.440 --> 0:02:43.400 looks more often. 0:02:43.480 --> 0:02:46.000 I think we should. We really should. No, I think 0:02:46.000 --> 0:02:48.600 we should call them ugly when they're okay, yeah, we should. 0:02:48.639 --> 0:02:52.160 We should start doing that dirty horror. Today we have 0:02:52.200 --> 0:02:53.640 an ugly guest on the pod. 0:02:54.080 --> 0:02:56.120 Today, we have an ugly horror on the show to 0:02:56.200 --> 0:02:58.160 talk about what it's like to be an ugly. 0:02:57.960 --> 0:03:02.840 Horror and the difficulties that come along with that. But no, 0:03:03.200 --> 0:03:05.920 Josh is not just cute, he's also very very smart. 0:03:06.919 --> 0:03:09.799 You know him by editger Mintim iner Mintum on. 0:03:10.600 --> 0:03:12.919 All of the things, that's inermentum. I know, it's very 0:03:12.919 --> 0:03:13.959 hard for as inermental. 0:03:14.040 --> 0:03:14.920 It's in mintm. 0:03:15.440 --> 0:03:16.360 That's inermental. 0:03:16.520 --> 0:03:19.200 They need to put that in the Kim Gordon bye 0:03:19.200 --> 0:03:23.400 by side. And I can't tell if it's at ensurementum. 0:03:24.320 --> 0:03:27.680 That just sounds like phonetically you guys, let me say 0:03:27.720 --> 0:03:32.600 something about mentum. Uh, he's a guy, he's a he's 0:03:32.639 --> 0:03:34.880 a man. Yeah, he's a man. We got a man 0:03:34.960 --> 0:03:35.960 on the show today, a. 0:03:36.040 --> 0:03:38.680 SIS man on the pod today. Yeah, we got it. 0:03:38.800 --> 0:03:43.120 Yeah. So for our listeners that are the kind to 0:03:43.320 --> 0:03:47.000 like spray paint bathrooms with like SIS people, go home, 0:03:48.480 --> 0:03:52.080 hold your hold your gay little horses for one second. 0:03:54.160 --> 0:03:56.920 Ed Insermentum is a man who's done a lot of 0:03:57.160 --> 0:04:04.160 very good writing about uh trans politics and is someone 0:04:04.280 --> 0:04:05.960 that I wanted to have on the show to give 0:04:06.040 --> 0:04:11.440 us a very kind of more grounded, sober, sober eyed 0:04:11.520 --> 0:04:11.960 I like that. 0:04:12.280 --> 0:04:14.560 Yeah, very very facts over feelings. 0:04:15.920 --> 0:04:20.160 Look at we're facts of feelings here at Beauty Translator. 0:04:19.960 --> 0:04:24.960 Truly like messy, horrendous world of trans politics. And there's 0:04:25.000 --> 0:04:29.080 a lot of stuff that we've kind of avoided talking 0:04:29.120 --> 0:04:33.640 about on this show, just not not because we're scaredy 0:04:33.720 --> 0:04:37.360 cats of of political themes, but because we do want 0:04:37.360 --> 0:04:39.320 to make the show. Yeah, we want We don't want 0:04:39.360 --> 0:04:41.000 to be doomers. We want to have a fun show. 0:04:41.400 --> 0:04:45.120 I want to be fun for everyone. So this will 0:04:45.160 --> 0:04:49.000 be the show that is. And it's not it's not 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:52.680 just fun because it is fun, but it's also really 0:04:53.680 --> 0:04:58.000 really smart. And I've liked this kind of ebb and 0:04:58.120 --> 0:05:03.880 flow we've had of having, like you know, like shows, Yeah, 0:05:04.000 --> 0:05:06.600 like a two IQ episode and then a five thousand 0:05:06.760 --> 0:05:11.440 IQ episode, So so put your Yeah, this one broke 0:05:11.640 --> 0:05:16.520 the IQ thermometer. It's it's hot, it's spicy, and I'm 0:05:16.640 --> 0:05:19.640 very proud of it. It's very it's another very very 0:05:19.680 --> 0:05:22.640 good episode for you guys. So if you're got your 0:05:22.800 --> 0:05:28.000 your electoral hat on, if you like, if you like graphs, 0:05:28.600 --> 0:05:34.480 you like data data, yeah, yeah, if you Yeah, we 0:05:34.720 --> 0:05:36.600 have with us Daddy data. 0:05:36.800 --> 0:05:40.880 Daddy Data is here to lay down the law, to. 0:05:41.080 --> 0:05:44.480 Tell us, So what's going up, what's going down, who's in, 0:05:44.720 --> 0:05:45.240 who's out? 0:05:45.880 --> 0:05:47.719 And yeah, it's good. It's a good combo. 0:05:47.920 --> 0:05:48.400 So it is. 0:05:48.440 --> 0:05:50.200 And I will say, Janey, I don't know if you 0:05:50.279 --> 0:05:54.040 felt this way. I mean I left this interview with 0:05:54.200 --> 0:05:59.840 Josh feeling a lot more hopeful about the prospect of 0:06:00.520 --> 0:06:02.720 trans politics. At least of course, we still have a 0:06:03.040 --> 0:06:04.839 huge problem with rising fascism in the. 0:06:04.920 --> 0:06:09.479 United States, but yeah, I would agree. So get ready to. 0:06:10.760 --> 0:06:13.440 Listen to our interview with Josh at Indermentum, the guy 0:06:13.560 --> 0:06:18.920 who correctly predicted the twenty twenty two election results. So yeah, 0:06:19.720 --> 0:06:20.440 let's get into it. 0:06:25.480 --> 0:06:27.800 I feel like this is like opposite day to our 0:06:27.839 --> 0:06:30.360 episode with Hesse, where we had like a fun day 0:06:30.520 --> 0:06:34.960 talking about investigation, key weird trans stuff and transvestigation, and 0:06:35.080 --> 0:06:38.760 now we're having a somber day where we reflect on 0:06:39.560 --> 0:06:42.880 where we're at as a society. Yeah, and we're doing 0:06:42.960 --> 0:06:45.800 that with our friends of the show at Injerumentum, who 0:06:45.960 --> 0:06:51.040 is a subsidis Josh twitch streamer, podcaster. I think I've 0:06:51.080 --> 0:06:53.080 got all those things, unless there's something else you want 0:06:53.120 --> 0:06:53.760 to have On. 0:06:53.760 --> 0:06:55.640 Twit like a year, but I'm going to go back 0:06:55.720 --> 0:06:57.000 once I have more time. 0:06:57.560 --> 0:06:58.559 Cool Cool. 0:06:58.880 --> 0:07:01.640 We wanted to catch up with you because you have 0:07:01.760 --> 0:07:07.960 written some excellent stuff on substack about trans legislation and stuff, 0:07:08.040 --> 0:07:09.720 And I want to just say at the top that 0:07:09.920 --> 0:07:14.240 like this is something that we don't touch on a 0:07:14.400 --> 0:07:18.200 lot specifically because like last season, like when Carmen would 0:07:18.200 --> 0:07:19.640 have me on like as a guest and we would 0:07:19.640 --> 0:07:21.960 like try to talk about this stuff, like it just 0:07:22.040 --> 0:07:25.960 became very like heavy and very like, I don't know, 0:07:26.040 --> 0:07:28.160 we want to mostly like make this like a fun show. 0:07:28.240 --> 0:07:30.920 And I still think this episode will be fun, but 0:07:31.120 --> 0:07:35.160 like I just find myself not having too much to 0:07:35.360 --> 0:07:37.480 say about it, Like I only want to touch on 0:07:37.560 --> 0:07:39.960 this stuff if there's like something tangible that we can 0:07:40.160 --> 0:07:42.560 do or if there's something funny. 0:07:42.760 --> 0:07:45.480 I absolutely agree. Yeah, I only write about it after 0:07:45.560 --> 0:07:47.480 there had been like a set of notable results. I 0:07:47.520 --> 0:07:50.160 don't like kind of dwelling on it or repeating myself. 0:07:51.000 --> 0:07:51.240 Yeah. 0:07:51.640 --> 0:07:54.160 Yeah, And that's that's one thing I appreciate about your 0:07:54.200 --> 0:07:54.920 writing is that. 0:07:55.200 --> 0:07:58.880 It feels I don't know, like it's it's just it's 0:07:58.960 --> 0:08:01.600 so doomor like it's such a doom Leyden kind of 0:08:01.800 --> 0:08:08.240 like atmosphere. We talked about how like last Pride month 0:08:08.440 --> 0:08:11.280 was like the most depressing Pride month ever. You know, 0:08:11.520 --> 0:08:17.120 you had like fucking like face tattoo trappers, like like 0:08:17.400 --> 0:08:21.480 making like harassment campaigns against like targets, and like there 0:08:21.560 --> 0:08:22.840 was just the bud light stuff. 0:08:22.840 --> 0:08:23.400 There was just like a. 0:08:23.400 --> 0:08:27.320 Headline after headline of like shitty things like going on 0:08:27.600 --> 0:08:29.560 with transit people in gay people. 0:08:29.880 --> 0:08:30.080 Yeah. 0:08:30.600 --> 0:08:33.520 Yeah, And I feel like with with your writing, you 0:08:33.800 --> 0:08:38.559 you provide some necessary contexts that, like, I mean, in 0:08:38.640 --> 0:08:41.559 particular the one that you made last year about how 0:08:41.800 --> 0:08:44.520 this is a very like losing strategy and you're one 0:08:44.520 --> 0:08:46.320 of the few people to kind of sound the alarm 0:08:46.440 --> 0:08:51.840 that this is not a viable, like political strategy, even 0:08:51.880 --> 0:08:55.240 if it does stoke up some fervor in the like 0:08:55.640 --> 0:08:56.360 right wing base. 0:08:56.600 --> 0:08:58.679 Yeah, that's kind of the main thesis I have it. 0:08:58.880 --> 0:09:01.160 Like there's two parts of it. What is this is 0:09:01.200 --> 0:09:04.960 an elite project. It's not like some mass public response 0:09:05.040 --> 0:09:06.920 to this. This is really being cooked up by a 0:09:06.960 --> 0:09:10.439 sort of class of media figures and political kind of 0:09:11.080 --> 0:09:13.959 consultants and think tanks, and it has been kind of 0:09:14.120 --> 0:09:18.920 transposed from on top to the bottom, which is I 0:09:19.040 --> 0:09:22.920 think that's an important distinction, because people I think can 0:09:23.000 --> 0:09:25.360 be scared of this is some kind of natural reaction. 0:09:25.840 --> 0:09:28.559 There's obviously a constituency for it people are bigoted, a 0:09:28.640 --> 0:09:32.160 homophobics and transfers. But this wasn't like a natural public 0:09:32.240 --> 0:09:34.839 response to like anything that was going on. It was 0:09:35.000 --> 0:09:37.480 you can track this just going into like the first 0:09:37.600 --> 0:09:40.920 article that I wrote, you can track it very clearly 0:09:41.520 --> 0:09:45.199 to the end of gay marriage is a political wedge issue, 0:09:45.760 --> 0:09:48.760 very like the decade from like the mid twentusands to 0:09:48.880 --> 0:09:52.199 mid twenty tens when gay marriage went from being pretty 0:09:52.280 --> 0:09:55.319 unpopular to a super majority position that everybody agreed with, 0:09:55.920 --> 0:10:00.400 and that left the right without like a very necessary 0:10:00.520 --> 0:10:04.959 tool for them to kind of divide people and get 0:10:05.000 --> 0:10:07.040 them on their side, like they did in elections of 0:10:07.040 --> 0:10:11.080 the early two thousands. So they go to trans stuff, 0:10:11.480 --> 0:10:16.520 like in transphobia, not because there's some huge public backlash, 0:10:16.640 --> 0:10:19.480 not because there's anything that trans people are necessarily doing, 0:10:20.040 --> 0:10:22.200 but because it's like they see it as the next 0:10:22.320 --> 0:10:25.480 best option. It's kind of like a tactical retreat and 0:10:25.559 --> 0:10:28.120 finding a new enemy to go after. But it's not 0:10:28.320 --> 0:10:32.280 nearly as well considered as the anti gay stuff. It's 0:10:32.960 --> 0:10:35.760 very hasty, and you see time and time again that 0:10:35.960 --> 0:10:40.559 like it doesn't like convince people, and it like it's 0:10:42.000 --> 0:10:44.280 another big point that I think is important to make 0:10:44.400 --> 0:10:45.720 is that I don't want to say that people are 0:10:45.840 --> 0:10:50.960 necessarily very like anti transphobic or necessarily pro trands. It's 0:10:51.000 --> 0:10:53.360 just an issue they don't really think about all that often, 0:10:54.000 --> 0:10:55.560 So they're not going to go out of their way 0:10:55.800 --> 0:10:58.480 to be anti trans. They're probably not going to go 0:10:58.520 --> 0:11:00.640 out of their way to be really pro and either. 0:11:01.360 --> 0:11:03.160 It's just that they're going to be alienated by the 0:11:03.200 --> 0:11:05.079 side that talks about it the most instead of the 0:11:05.120 --> 0:11:08.000 issues that they actually care about. So you can correlate 0:11:08.160 --> 0:11:11.280 this obsession with the issue to a very poor electoral 0:11:11.400 --> 0:11:11.959 track record. 0:11:12.480 --> 0:11:17.960 For sure, it's fake and in other words, yeah, yeah, 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:18.280 I know. 0:11:18.640 --> 0:11:22.280 That's that's been a longstanding beauty translated truth is that 0:11:22.559 --> 0:11:26.199 like most people are just indifference. Like most people, like 0:11:26.720 --> 0:11:29.199 if you ask like a stranger on the street, like 0:11:30.280 --> 0:11:33.560 they're just indifferent. They don't particularly they might like at worse, 0:11:33.720 --> 0:11:36.240 like think like it's kind of weird or they don't 0:11:36.360 --> 0:11:39.319 understand it. And to be honest, I think that's fine. 0:11:39.360 --> 0:11:41.439 I don't give a shit. I don't need people to 0:11:41.600 --> 0:11:45.480 like understand the ins and outs of how a trans 0:11:45.600 --> 0:11:46.440 person feels. 0:11:46.520 --> 0:11:48.640 I don't need to explain like, oh, it's. 0:11:48.640 --> 0:11:51.079 Born in the wrong body, like I don't care, Like 0:11:51.400 --> 0:11:55.040 I would much rather have someone just be like, I 0:11:55.120 --> 0:11:58.640 don't know, the the Berita that I see every morning 0:11:59.160 --> 0:12:01.959 has weird hair and the and the pen that says 0:12:02.080 --> 0:12:04.640 she hers, So I guess she's nice. 0:12:04.760 --> 0:12:06.040 She makes a good Americano. 0:12:06.440 --> 0:12:09.199 Yeah, I mean, I'm like as assist straight person, I 0:12:09.280 --> 0:12:11.800 can't say, like, I understand that's why I'm not trans, 0:12:11.920 --> 0:12:15.760 but like it's not like my thing. But that's kind 0:12:15.760 --> 0:12:16.360 of where I'm at. 0:12:17.120 --> 0:12:20.280 Some I think that you do you yeah, yeah, but no, 0:12:20.440 --> 0:12:23.280 I mean it's and I think that's part of the 0:12:23.360 --> 0:12:27.120 reason why it becomes well for me, I in my mind, 0:12:27.720 --> 0:12:31.200 why we we become the next easiest target because people 0:12:31.240 --> 0:12:34.160 are so ambivalent in the sense like they could like 0:12:34.320 --> 0:12:38.480 most people really don't know that many trans people or care. 0:12:39.200 --> 0:12:41.840 I mean, obviously now more people know trans people than 0:12:41.880 --> 0:12:47.560 they did before, but most people aren't thinking about these things. 0:12:48.040 --> 0:12:51.920 Yeah. Yeah, I think that's also absolutely a thing that like, 0:12:54.120 --> 0:12:57.120 I don't know really like hurts. The like anti trans 0:12:57.280 --> 0:13:01.920 like movement is that nowadays most people I don't know 0:13:01.960 --> 0:13:04.200 about most people, but a lot of people at least 0:13:04.520 --> 0:13:07.920 know a trans person. They have someone in their life 0:13:08.040 --> 0:13:10.160 and their family at their work, you know, like I 0:13:10.320 --> 0:13:12.640 work in public, like I work in like restaurants and 0:13:12.720 --> 0:13:16.880 shot and I've had a lot of people like say 0:13:16.960 --> 0:13:20.360 to me that, like they I'm like the first transperson 0:13:20.400 --> 0:13:20.920 they've worked with. 0:13:21.200 --> 0:13:22.920 And I'd say, I don't know. 0:13:23.080 --> 0:13:25.559 I just think it's interesting because like it's good for 0:13:25.679 --> 0:13:27.920 it's it's good for me, and it's good for all 0:13:28.000 --> 0:13:30.280 of us because I'm like really really cool. So like 0:13:30.400 --> 0:13:33.080 if I'm the first trans person that they know, then 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:35.520 they're gonna think all trans people are really dope. 0:13:35.400 --> 0:13:36.120 Really really cool. 0:13:36.240 --> 0:13:38.760 Yeah, absolutely, really really dope with a lot of flag 0:13:38.840 --> 0:13:41.520 and cool. Yeah, this is a very old poll, but 0:13:41.679 --> 0:13:44.560 like one of the more striking results that I found 0:13:44.600 --> 0:13:46.959 when I was doing this, the first thing that I 0:13:47.040 --> 0:13:49.120 talked about in my first article that is, I think 0:13:49.160 --> 0:13:51.000 you could say as a genesis for like this whole 0:13:51.000 --> 0:13:55.320 political saga was the twenty sixteen North Carolina governor's race. 0:13:55.400 --> 0:13:58.200 So just north of us, those losers out there, there 0:13:58.280 --> 0:14:02.120 was one who first started this and tar heels. 0:14:02.160 --> 0:14:07.160 What the is that? Yeah, it's like if you clean 0:14:07.240 --> 0:14:10.440 your clean your boots, they got tar all over them. 0:14:10.480 --> 0:14:14.040 That's yeah, And it's like a racist name shoes, anything 0:14:14.120 --> 0:14:15.000 going on it's. 0:14:15.120 --> 0:14:15.320 Yeah. 0:14:15.440 --> 0:14:17.760 I don't even know the etymology of that, but it's 0:14:18.160 --> 0:14:18.880 it's always. 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:21.880 The anemology is actually from the Civil War there was 0:14:21.920 --> 0:14:24.920 a North Carolina like regiment that was commanded by General 0:14:25.040 --> 0:14:27.960 Stonewall Jackson, and they did not retreat during a battle. 0:14:28.280 --> 0:14:32.800 They said, oh, they have tar heels. So yeah, so 0:14:32.920 --> 0:14:35.480 it's it's a racist background thought with. 0:14:35.560 --> 0:14:38.320 The Native American tribes that like use that as like 0:14:38.440 --> 0:14:39.240 early shoes. 0:14:40.400 --> 0:14:41.880 It's so stupid. 0:14:42.440 --> 0:14:50.240 Yeah, actually, no, they would use they would use like 0:14:50.720 --> 0:14:52.120 they would cover their feet and. 0:14:53.600 --> 0:14:54.400 The bottoms are there. 0:14:55.280 --> 0:14:57.640 Actually you actually I was wrong. 0:14:57.680 --> 0:15:00.960 Oh my god, all right, we can't cut that out 0:15:01.000 --> 0:15:03.440 now because he's right. I feel like that would get 0:15:03.440 --> 0:15:04.200 Really this is like. 0:15:04.200 --> 0:15:07.480 We're at trivia and like and like we had submitted 0:15:07.800 --> 0:15:10.480 Josh's answer and then my answer was the right answer. 0:15:10.760 --> 0:15:14.200 Yeah, then the most insane person at the table's the 0:15:14.320 --> 0:15:14.880 right answer. 0:15:15.000 --> 0:15:18.480 Yeah. It was it was related to like or people 0:15:18.600 --> 0:15:21.880 having actual like tar or rast on their yes. 0:15:22.120 --> 0:15:23.120 So that's awesome. 0:15:23.320 --> 0:15:25.320 Well, I love I love that the gay people got 0:15:25.360 --> 0:15:27.120 it right because it has to deal with fashion. 0:15:28.320 --> 0:15:30.280 Fashion, and now we have LIBERTONI. 0:15:31.560 --> 0:15:35.880 Yeah, so you were saying, uh, Carolina, Yeah, what the 0:15:36.080 --> 0:15:37.480 fuck happened in North Carolina. 0:15:37.560 --> 0:15:41.040 So North Carolina became like so after twenty ten. In 0:15:41.120 --> 0:15:44.200 the twenty ten elections, Republicans had a lot of victories 0:15:44.240 --> 0:15:46.720 in a lot of states, and they used the very 0:15:46.800 --> 0:15:49.400 kind of loose electoralized in a lot of these states 0:15:49.440 --> 0:15:53.400 to basically establish themselves in power forever. Like this happened 0:15:53.400 --> 0:15:57.280 in Wisconsin and North Carolina and Kansas, so they basically 0:15:57.360 --> 0:16:00.360 were totally immune from any voter backs. Lastly, apps were 0:16:00.520 --> 0:16:03.560 raun guarantee that they would have state legislative majorities like 0:16:03.640 --> 0:16:05.720 no matter what, no matter what the electric results were. 0:16:06.440 --> 0:16:10.000 So they started looking at certain states as a laboratory 0:16:10.200 --> 0:16:14.520 like laboratories for right wing policies, and they used different 0:16:14.640 --> 0:16:18.440 kinds of policy regimes in different states. Like in Kansas, 0:16:18.560 --> 0:16:22.080 they greatly lowered the tax rates and it became like 0:16:22.120 --> 0:16:25.720 their laboratory for low taxes. It was a complete disaster. 0:16:25.840 --> 0:16:28.240 Actually it has Democrat governor now because of it. It 0:16:28.440 --> 0:16:31.920 like really damaged their party there. But North Carolina was 0:16:32.000 --> 0:16:35.960 their state for social policies. So when the Republicans took 0:16:35.960 --> 0:16:39.240 a trifecta gi trifectas when you have the governorship and 0:16:39.320 --> 0:16:42.560 both houses of the state legislator, you have total power 0:16:42.640 --> 0:16:47.320 in the state. They started like passing really draconian right 0:16:47.360 --> 0:16:51.840 wing social policies. They did voting restrictions, they were puilt 0:16:51.880 --> 0:16:55.280 civil rights laws, they did voter It was like this 0:16:55.480 --> 0:16:58.280 was where they were doing it. So the local municipality 0:16:58.400 --> 0:17:01.280 is in North Carolina, which are more bar and left wing, 0:17:01.760 --> 0:17:04.000 started like saying, Okay, we got to check what these 0:17:04.040 --> 0:17:05.760 guys are going to do next. We have to prepare 0:17:05.840 --> 0:17:09.000 for this. And the Charlotte City Council decided that they 0:17:09.040 --> 0:17:12.159 would pass an ordnance that would protect gender identity in 0:17:12.440 --> 0:17:16.119 Mecklenberg County or the city of Charlotte. And this I 0:17:16.119 --> 0:17:18.040 don't think that had actually changed anythink it was just 0:17:18.119 --> 0:17:21.240 like a preemptive kind of maneuver. But it took a 0:17:21.440 --> 0:17:24.000 rose the sailing to the issue to the North Carolina 0:17:24.080 --> 0:17:27.400 legislator and they totally freaked out and they overreacted by 0:17:27.480 --> 0:17:31.000 saying that like like those types of not only could 0:17:31.040 --> 0:17:34.800 those types of protections not be passed, but every county 0:17:34.840 --> 0:17:37.040 in the state had to follow by a new right 0:17:37.080 --> 0:17:40.600 wing policy where trans people couldn't go to the bathrooms 0:17:40.680 --> 0:17:44.800 that assign that matched with their gender identity. This was 0:17:44.880 --> 0:17:48.520 the first bathroom bill, and it became a huge issue 0:17:48.560 --> 0:17:51.399 in North Carolina in twenty sixteen because this was very 0:17:51.440 --> 0:17:54.000 early on and people looked at this and they just 0:17:54.080 --> 0:17:57.080 saw it his blatant discrimination, like it was just going 0:17:57.160 --> 0:18:01.000 after like they couldn't understand it. And companies, many of 0:18:01.160 --> 0:18:04.280 whom had transgender employees, were looking at they were like, well, 0:18:04.320 --> 0:18:07.960 we can't send our employees to this state. We can't 0:18:08.000 --> 0:18:10.800 do that. It discriminates against them. So a lot of 0:18:10.880 --> 0:18:15.000 companies in twenty sixteen started canceling projects in North Carolina 0:18:15.960 --> 0:18:19.560 because it was totally new and it costs North Carolina 0:18:19.720 --> 0:18:23.159 four billion dollars. And that's just the projects we know 0:18:23.240 --> 0:18:25.320 were canceled. There are probably a lot that were considered 0:18:25.359 --> 0:18:28.560 but weren't done in the state because of that. So 0:18:28.720 --> 0:18:32.400 this bill becomes incredibly unpopular because it's seen as discriminatory 0:18:32.440 --> 0:18:35.600 because it has a huge economic impact. And in May 0:18:35.760 --> 0:18:39.840 twenty sixteen, CNN had a national poll and they found 0:18:39.880 --> 0:18:43.560 that sixty percent of people nationally opposed the North Carolina 0:18:43.600 --> 0:18:46.159 bathroom bills, where they forced trans people to go to 0:18:46.200 --> 0:18:50.000 the bathrooms that didn't match with their identities. And this 0:18:50.280 --> 0:18:52.840 was despite eighty five percent of people on the survey 0:18:52.880 --> 0:18:55.440 said they had never met a transgender person before, which 0:18:55.560 --> 0:18:58.119 really surprised people involved in this because they assumed that 0:18:58.440 --> 0:19:02.120 people had to know people. Hey, marriage, sir. 0:19:02.920 --> 0:19:05.119 I mean, I feel like it's easier to discriminate against 0:19:05.119 --> 0:19:08.120 someone if you've if you're never met of someone else. 0:19:08.200 --> 0:19:10.160 Yeah, you know background. 0:19:10.320 --> 0:19:14.560 Yeah. But this policy was inpopular despite that, Like people 0:19:14.800 --> 0:19:18.000 just saw the discrimination and they disapproved of it. So 0:19:18.160 --> 0:19:20.600 what happens in North Carolina is that this becomes sort 0:19:20.640 --> 0:19:22.960 of an albatross around the neck of the governor there, 0:19:23.280 --> 0:19:25.840 who in twenty twelve was elected in a landslide victory, 0:19:26.119 --> 0:19:28.680 Pat McCrory. He's the former mayor of Charlotte. Seems this 0:19:28.840 --> 0:19:32.240 mot already was very popular, but he faces a challenge 0:19:32.359 --> 0:19:35.879 from the state attorney general there, Roy Cooper, and Cooper 0:19:36.000 --> 0:19:39.480 makes the bathroom building a huge deal. He says like 0:19:39.560 --> 0:19:42.480 he won't enforce the law in his capacity as attorney general, 0:19:42.520 --> 0:19:44.800 which is a huge kind of like taking a big 0:19:44.880 --> 0:19:48.480 stand on that. He says that he'll repeal it, and Cooper, 0:19:48.680 --> 0:19:50.480 as a result of this, goes from trailing in the 0:19:50.560 --> 0:19:53.359 polls to leading in nearly every single survey. And what 0:19:53.520 --> 0:19:55.960 happens at the end of twenty sixteen is that Trump 0:19:56.040 --> 0:19:59.320 ends up winning North Carolina solidly, the Republican centator there 0:19:59.400 --> 0:20:02.800 ends up winning even more, but Cooper ends up winning 0:20:02.880 --> 0:20:06.200 his race as a Democrat by a very small margin. 0:20:06.720 --> 0:20:09.080 So there were tens of thousands of Trump voters who 0:20:09.119 --> 0:20:12.040 wanted against their own party in the governor's race over 0:20:12.200 --> 0:20:15.920 trans issues. And this is an immediate sign that people 0:20:16.040 --> 0:20:19.480 are not like fucking with this kind of attack, and 0:20:20.320 --> 0:20:23.040 like that's kind of the first kind of confrontation of this, 0:20:23.440 --> 0:20:25.560 and at least Republicans that back off the issue for 0:20:25.640 --> 0:20:28.400 a number of years and they only like there's kind 0:20:28.440 --> 0:20:31.600 of a quiet like from twenty seventeen to about twenty nineteen, 0:20:32.000 --> 0:20:34.440 and they only really start getting like crazy about it 0:20:34.480 --> 0:20:35.560 again around twenty twenty. 0:20:35.560 --> 0:20:38.560 It's about kids and or that's the kind of the 0:20:38.640 --> 0:20:43.040 way in on these issues is about kids in twenty twenty. 0:20:43.320 --> 0:20:47.080 Yeah, Yeah, this was something we me and you talked 0:20:47.119 --> 0:20:50.800 about a long time ago, also about how it seems 0:20:50.960 --> 0:20:55.280 very like difficult to like fight against because like I 0:20:55.359 --> 0:20:58.160 don't know, like like protecting the children, like it's something 0:20:58.359 --> 0:21:01.080 very like personal to people, Like it's kind of like 0:21:01.160 --> 0:21:04.520 shifting the framework because it's like no we're not being 0:21:04.680 --> 0:21:09.320 bigoted against you. You are enforcing this thing on our 0:21:09.480 --> 0:21:12.640 kids and you're mutilating them and and doctrinating them. 0:21:12.760 --> 0:21:14.639 And yeah, it makes sense, you know, it feels like 0:21:14.720 --> 0:21:17.840 it would be compelling. But what's remarkable is that, like 0:21:17.960 --> 0:21:21.040 I actually tracked this, you can find when they shift 0:21:21.080 --> 0:21:23.479 the messaging and they explicitly say in the articles at 0:21:23.520 --> 0:21:25.240 the time that this is a change in messaging on 0:21:25.320 --> 0:21:27.680