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Comment by tyleo | Hacker News Reader

A visible example is the ACLU questionnaire which covers support for transgender medical care with state resources for detained immigrants.

Harris’s written support was turned into an ad campaign for Trump. You can agree or disagree with the policy but it isn’t a great hill to die on if you want to win elections.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/harris-gender-surgeries-ja...

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You can agree or disagree with inmates having a right to medical care? That would require going to SCOTUS, at the very least. This right is well-established in the US.

One can agree or disagree on the question of whether transgender care is medical care, but I think the sensible position for any political party (on virtually any such question) is to defer to the scientists and medical experts who spend all day working on this stuff.

AFAIK, the then-current science said that this was one of the only effective treatments for gender dysphoria, and under our Constitution inmates can't be denied medical care, even if it gives somebody the ick or would be politically inconvenient at the next election cycle.

Yes, politicians can agree or disagree with policy. That is their job. E.g., “here is a good policy we don’t have which we should enact,” and “here is a bad policy we should get rid of.”

I’m not saying I agree or disagree with this policy but the point of politicians is to advance policy one way or the other which requires agreeing/disagreeing.

Again: this is not in any "politician's" hands. It's in SCOTUS's. Inmates have a right to medical care in this country.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estelle_v._Gamble

That link refers to decisions made based the US Code and the constitution. Politicians write those. Courts have responsibility in interpreting them. It’s still a politicians job to take a stance and decide what they should be.

Correct, which as I said: "At least a SCOTUS decision," where "amend the Constitution" is a significantly higher bar to meet.

If you think we're going to amend the Constitution to ban gender affirming care for inmates you're living in outerspace, but I suppose your position is that politicians are supposed to just say shit that has the correct hate-valence and then it's as-good-as-accomplished?

Inmates received this care under Trump 1 (because USG is obligated to provide it, Constitutionally): https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/16/us/politics/trump-prisons...

They've tried stopping it in Trump 2 but have been enjoined by courts (because USG is obligated to provide it, Constitutionally): https://www.aclu.org/press-releases/federal-judge-temporaril...

> you're living in outerspace, but I suppose your position is that politicians are supposed to just say shit that has the correct hate-valence and then it's as-good-as-accomplished

Your reaction proves the point that this is a purity test.

I’m not taking a stance one way or the other but you aren't able to engage without arguing against points I didn’t make.

What?

Your argument: It is a purity test for politicians to say that transgender inmates should receive care (which Kamala passed, to the detriment of her electability)

My argument: It is actually SCOTUS who decides this (or would require a Constitutional amendment, which is obviously absurd)

Frankly it read to me more like Harris had a totally moderate response that was blown up by the right as something she is a die hard believer in. No one is dying on the hill of trans rights except for trans people as far as I see on the political stage. Republicans talk way more about trans people than democrats. Republicans pass way more laws about trans people than democrats. Republicans raise way more money on trans people than democrats. Democrats literally don’t seem to stand for anything as a unified force: government shutdowns over roe v wade overturn, start reading Epstein files into congressional record, refuse to cooperate with a single republican bill until they get some red meat for their base. I haven’t really seen anything and I’m not even particularly leftist. I just can’t imagine a single time democrats threw a massive shitfest for red meat, but I hear it nonstop in republican spaces.

I agree that she had a moderate response. I think it appeared that she was dying on the this hill because she didn’t address it in her 2024 campaign yet it received so much air time in Republican ads.

I also agree that it feels like Democrats don’t stand for anything. But I think by leaving that space open they let ads like this paint what they stand for.

Right, that’s what I’m saying. This is the opposite of a democrat dying on a hill. They cede everything and are killed for it on the spin.

My issue with what you said is the claim <some issue> is not a hill to die on. They are not dying on any hills at all.

Fair enough. It’s the appearance of dying on hills.

The people making up that appearance are actually republicans, though, and I think it is utterly bizarre to feed into that appearance as the fault of democrats. It’s the republican strategy to say and do extreme histrionic shit as red meat for their base and then blame the democrats for doing it.

I’m not sure what your point is. This still seems like a purity test. Whether democrats wanted it to be a purity test or not republicans were able to successfully paint it as one.

My point is that it is bizarre to blame democrats for making purity tests when republicans are making up purity tests. It’s like I deleted db in prod and then said how dare my co worker be pro prod db manipulation, when the co worker in question had stfu the whole time.

Do you believe that if she had gone on camera and said "I was wrong, trans people shouldn't receive this care in prison" that it would have stopped the GOP ad campaign? No chance.

To die on a hill means that you stand on the hill and get killed rather than leave it. It means having a conviction so strong that you will never walk it back. That's the polar opposite of the establishment dems right now.

Idk where you’re getting that quote from. No one would say that.

There are many things Harris could have done to improve the situation like publicly stating a balanced position. Doing nothing was dying on the hill.

What do you think she should have done?

Because it’s framed differently. The Democratic base don’t consider themselves to have thrown a “shitfest” over Keystone XL, and don’t consider Biden’s day 1 executive order killing it to be “red meat”.

Biden day 1 executive order was over 4 fucking years ago. About a week ago a bunch of Koreans were rounded up and deported out of the country. Less than 48h ago republicans were saying the Charlie Kirk killer was a trans and his body wasn’t even cold yet. Cmon bro, these are not comparable. The democrats simply don’t do red meat shitfest fight stuff.

It's not comparable because you agree with the Democrats' positions! When it comes to immigration, for example, I'm sure you'd agree with me that Trump's efforts to end various TPS designations are "red meat shitfest fight stuff" - if he succeeds, he'll get to deport quite a lot of people. But Biden's extensions of those very same TPS designations (some of which have been "temporary" for decades now) weren't "red meat", because you agree with Biden that the designations are correct and the people protected by them should not have to leave the US. The Democratic base just isn't very interested in framing politicians as brave disruptive fighters for doing the right thing.

No I don’t agree with the positions I just literally don’t see them throw shitfest red meat for their base at all. Biden is over, bro, what are the democrats doing right now it’s been over 9 months. I hear things constantly from republicans about the trans issue, immigrants, etc. Seriously, point me to the same volume of laws being passed in blue states banning Christians books from school or something the way republicans are banning woke stuff from school. Or blue states banning white people or arguing white rich people need to be rounded up in camps the way republicans are doing to poors or immigrants. Idk. NYC has a ton of finance bros, arrest a bunch of them for being racist and declare you’re eliminating racism from nyc.

Again, the problem is that this concept of "shitfest red meat" definitionally excludes anything the Democratic base actually supports. The median Democratic voter doesn't want to ban Christian books or round white people up in camps.

California, for example, is currently pursuing a lawsuit (https://oag.ca.gov/news/press-releases/attorney-general-bont...) seeking to force Catholic hospitals to perform abortions. That's a controversial position on a high-profile issue whose opponents consider it to be outrageous persecution. Would you say this is an example of "shitfest red meat"? Or do you think that it's just an ordinary lawsuit, because you're not personally outraged by it, because you think California's position is reasonable?

Yes I think this is fine red meat stuff. It’s probably less extreme of declaring the catholic hospitals to be murdering women by denying them care or whatever histrionics would be comparable but sure. Thanks. I just don’t see nearly the same sorts of things happening. Your example was from over a quarter ago back in May. Whereas I can point to stuff happening within 48h comparatively (again, calling Charlie Kirk’s killer a trans, although I think that’s the killer’s roommate now or something; either way pinning the assassinations on the trans people)

It wasn't a hill to die on. If it was she would have made support for trans rights a central part of her campaign. Trump made it a central part of his campaign.

"Never say anything that the right can play in an ad" is not my idea of effective campaign strategy.

It was a hill to die on in the sense that her campaign was getting killed and she said nothing. The ad was actively damaging her campaign so doing nothing was dying.

Why do you think she didn’t say anything?

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