Statistically, trans people, particularly trans people of color, are among the most vulnerable demographics. The people in the video were speaking out against the way Olympia carried out the Trans* Day of Remembrance. There's no indication the LGBTQ community of Olympia or elsewhere endorsed their statements; they're a minority within a larger minority. The thought that these three people (1) stand in for progressives broadly, and/or (2) represented a deep and dire threat to Christian conservatives baffles me. For Dreher to harp on them as he does, an in such insulting terms, seems like punching down.
I mean, I could easily come up with people claiming to be conservative Christians saying awful things in city council meetings. See here, for instance, where a city councilman in GA spoke out (at a meeting) against interracial marriage. For the record, it would be wrong to frame such instances as typical of conservatives or Christians. There's a reason such clips and quotes go viral, and it's not because they're run-of-the-mill sentiments. It's cheap to select and represent the most extreme examples of one's opponents as representative.
From my perspective, the question concerns who has power. Who has actual influence? The three trans activists, as they themselves admitted, have no power. They're a minority of a minority complaining to an unsympathetic council. Aside from providing fodder for conservatives to laugh at, they have zero influence.
The example I shared from Georgia at least came from an actual councilman. That councilman was in turn defending his mayor's statements that a candidate for city administrator should be rejected because he (the candidate) was black and that the city wasn't ready for a black city administrator. Again, I do not suggest such attitudes are broadly representative of Christian conservatives. But, I submit, that story represents an instance where culture (in this case, parochial racism) finds direct expression by elected representatives. That's power.
Dreher differs. Setting my annoyance aside, then, I remain curious about his argument that the left's cultural victories easily trumps the right's political or legislative victories. Here's Dreher (I'm bolding what I see as his biggest point):
Hear me loud and clear: I understand why the Left fears Trump in power. What is a mystery to me is why they don’t see how thoroughly they’ve conquered this culture — and, eventually, will have conquered its politics. As a religious conservative, if it were possible to trade the presidency for the cultural power the Left has, I would take that deal without thinking twice. As I explained here, power to force one of the most successful corporations in America — Chick-fil-A — to violate its brand and change corporate policy out of the “shame” of having donated a little money to the Salvation Army, of all groups — man, that is some real power. It’s malevolent, but it’s real, and it’s going to dominate American life for the foreseeable future. Some religious conservatives rally around Trump because they really believe the rhetoric that comes out of their own mouths about how he’s the best president Evangelicals have ever had, and suchlike. But others, whatever they say in public, know the truth in private: that absent some unforeseen event, Trump is the last thing holding back the forces of the Left in this culture from doing exactly what Michael Brendan Dougherty, above, says they’re going to do: punish religious believers and their institutions as hard as they can manage. We know this from history. We know from recent history, too, that the Jacobin spirit is alive and well.Most left-leaning folk I know would bark laughter at the idea that conservatives feel powerless. They control the presidency, the Senate, and--thanks to Mitch McConnell--much of the federal judiciary. They pass laws that from progressives' view actively seek to block or roll back decades of progress on racial justice, reproductive rights, LGBTQ equality, climate policy, and immigration. There are simply no one seriously advancing a policy that would target Christians as a class of people to bar them from legal marriage, lock them out of certain jobs, or gerrymander congressional districts in ways that minimize their electoral influence.
Those facts, of course, don't feel the same to conservatives I know. They, like Dreher (and like Micheal Brendan Dougherty whom he quotes), see some high-profile instances (Chick-fil-A is a favorite one of late; Brendan Eich is another) as signs of general trends. Those in certain (usually urban, often coastal) areas often feel isolated, dots of red in a sea of deep blue. They hear their neighbors and co-workers bashing Trump and know to keep their heads down. They see how younger generations are much less religious and much more aligned with progressive attitudes about sex, race, and gender than they are. And thus they see threat.
I agree with Ezra Klein (whom Dougherty cites approvingly, and who in turn name-checks Dreher) that fueling the Republican support for Trump isn't (or isn't only or primarily) endorsement but fear. It's the "flight 93" presidency (existential, all-or-nothing threat)--forever. Dougherty and Dreher would supplement Klein's argument with the idea that it's both sides--Democrats as well as Republicans--who are operating from fear and loathing of the other side.
It is not a hopeful picture.
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