Everyone said the reverse of this when the polling failed in 2016 - that Republicans were afraid to share their political affiliation for fear of being cancelled etc
Social ostracism is more vicious from Democrats but I've known of Republicans to spread outrageous rumors about Democratic voters and in places like where I grew up, if you're a man, you'll be called gay/pedo and possibly beaten (usually not jumped, but aggressively taunted with slurs until a fight ensues from what I've seen IRL) unless you're well liked for some other reason like that you're well connected, have money, or are really masculine/served in the military.
Overall I'd say it's better to be a Republican in a Democratic area than the opposite since the looming threat of physical violence is worse than people just thinking you're a bad person.
The main reason why Republicans in Democratic areas would have to worry would be if they work in a creative industry where being known as a bigot of some kind would cause people to not like to collaborate with you but even then you're relatively safe as long is you're only bigoted against one of the less protected minority groups like trans people (probably why trans people are the culture war topic du jour).
Is this some kind of underhanded smear or did you write something other than what you were thinking?
Or did I read it wrong?
The way I read what you write that Republicans are always bigoted, the question is only about how many groups they are bigoted against.
Edit: Though maybe a more charitable reading is that whether or not the assumption is fair, you have to acknowledge that people out there do make it, and so republicans would be wise to not advertise their affiliation.
In the latest scare about this in Nashville, TN it came out that they were doing about 5 breast reductions a year on trans men who were 16-17 years old. This is a surgery that is commonly performed on cisgender boys who have gynecomastia because, surprise, boys feel awkward about having large breasts. They were only allowed to do this after counseling between them and their parents. Trans men are given these surgeries as minors from time to time because many have a habit of binding their breasts so tightly that they damage their bodies, cracking ribs etc....
Genital surgeries are not performed.
https://apnews.com/article/health-business-tennessee-nashvil...
> On average, VUMC has provided five gender affirming surgeries to minors every year since its transgender clinic opened in 2018. All were over the age of 16 and had parental consent, and none received genital procedures.
In Florida they are attempting to ban SOCIAL transition which is just someone male being able to wear girls' clothes or someone female being able to wear boys' clothes.
https://www.them.us/story/florida-trans-youth-transition-car...
In Tennessee they are attempting to classify "female and male impersonators" alongside strippers as being unfit to be seen in public. The law is vague enough that it would give police leeway to persecute anyone who is gender non-conforming including gay and lesbian people. Anti-crossdressing laws were the main way that gay and lesbian people were harassed up through the 70's FYI and were directly related to the Stonewall uprising.
https://www.advocate.com/law/2022/11/09/bills-introduced-ten...
Even mentioning the existence of transgender adults around children is being legislated against and called "grooming" -- you can't make someone trans any more than you can make them gay so the idea is ridiculous.
When Matt Walsh, a very notable conservative catholic anti transgender activist who works under Ben Shapiro, appeared on Joe Rogan last week he was fact checked after he claimed MILLIONS of kids are being put on puberty blockers. The actual figure, as pointed out on the show, is under 5000 in the past five years. Not even a thousand a year. He recently released an anti transgender film called "What is a Woman?" which leads one to believe that his wildly inaccurate figure was an attempt to enrage Joe Rogan's audience with a lie rather than inform them with the truth. That, or he somehow spent thousands of hours pouring over the topic and still managed to get a basic statistic wrong by two orders of magnitude.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N2lG7Y_8bVU
Matt Walsh has also said that his goal is for transition to be banned for everyone including adults: https://archive.ph/mi8jc
This all adds up to one obvious conclusion, which is that the talking point you just shared is a scare tactic meant to turn people against supporting the tiny minority of trans people in this country and instead treat them as a danger to themselves and others. It's cruel and misinformed and it won't work in the long run because it's based on irrational hatred, lies and half truths rather than genuine concern about people's wellbeing.
Less informed Republicans are perceived in a mix of ways but it's usually a ratio of bigot and rube (for voting against their own best economic and social interests).
Republicans conversely seem to perceive well informed Democrats as ne'er do wells who want to harm their children and destroy civilization by way of sexual immorality, increased criminality and failure to protect the nation/economy while less informed Democrats are seen as immature and naive.
It's kind of interesting how progressives come up with all this awkward phraseology (e.g. "people experiencing homelessness") to avoid labeling people in certain definitive ways, but then throw that all out the window when they want to slur people they disagree with.
It doesn't make sense to try to soften the stigma of a word like bigot. People who are bigoted enforce cruelty on others.
People who aren't able to acquire shelter for whatever reason: mental health, misfortune, disability... are not visiting cruelty on others but are themselves suffering. The reason why language around such groups changes is to try to decrease social stigma directed at those groups, because older terms may carry cultural baggage e.g. the word "homeless" may evoke imagery of a violent drug addict in the minds of some people which is counter productive to trying to advocate for the group as a whole (it's branding essentially).
Bigots could also use support in that most bigoted people are suffering from their own trauma and projecting that onto out-groups in the form of hatred, mistrust and discrimination but the act of being a bigot should continue to be branded in a negative light.
It kind of does, because otherwise you're blocking the path to redemption. Calling someone "homeless" reduces them to that thing and implies it's a permanent identity, but calling someone a "person experiencing homelessness" at least invites the possibility of seeing that experience as temporary.
Also you're talking like being a "bigot" is some kind of objective condition. However, in fact it's highly subjective and the label has been over-applied by various activists in attempts to enforce ideological conformity. If you, random internet person, call someone a bigot, I'm just going interpret it as a meaningless slur against people you disagree with, because you want it to be unacceptable to disagree with you. Any other interpretation needs far more context.
It's not unacceptable to disagree with me personally. It is unacceptable to hold bigoted positions against other people in our society though. It's like if we were roommates in a small apartment together with some other people and you were being a jerk to them so I called you out for being a jerk.... That's not you and I disagreeing, it's me calling you out for being a jerk to our roommates who we're trying to get along with while we all enjoy our lives in this tiny apartment to the best of our abilities.
You do make a good point though. If I wanted to maintain my relationship with said hypothetical roommate I would probably say that they are "being a jerk" rather than call them a jerk outright. So I guess I'll say that well informed Republicans are being bigots. I would love it if they stopped being bigots.
This is an obvious form of virtue signaling. It sends a message that you care … a tiny bit, but only in a meaningless way that distracts from the truly complicated problems facing homeless people and the pathetic attempts to help them.