Why the hell do people hate Sarah McBride?
The Delaware congresswoman hasn't done anything objectively wrong to warrant this level of vitriol.
Its been a while. Sorry for the short break and the half-assed article I posted, I needed some time to recharge, especially after Monday. I will try to upload on time, but I might need a few days to recharge.
Anyways, lets get to it.
The junior congresswoman from Delaware has been the subject of intense scrutiny and ire, despite her only being in Congress for (as of the time of writing) 3 weeks. (See Nancy Mace and Chaya Raichik) But what has she really done to deserve this? She hasn’t done anything that would be considered objectively wrong for her to deserve this level of hatred and ire. So why?
Before I get into this, this is not a callout at all. This is not a hit piece on any trans person in particular or the community large, this is just the observations that I have made based on this point. Sorry if this section comes off as me trying to cover my ass.
Sarah McBride is a spineless coward. She's letting them walk all over her and not even putting up a fight.
There were a lot of variations to this one in particular, but this was the repeating message that I saw, that Sarah McBride isn’t doing enough for trans rights, she was letting the representatives walk all over her and just brushing it to the side, etc.
Now, I think this point in particular is valid. I feel like its a bare minimum thing to expect the first openly trans congresswoman to stand up for trans rights. However, this point was made when we didn’t have a 100% complete read on who Sarah was as a person and a congresswoman. Sure, we had a snapshot of who she was in the Delaware statehouse, but that wasn’t under as big of a microscope and scrutiny as being a member of the United States Congress is.
What do I mean by this?
For example: Imagine if the mayor of Austin, Kirk Watson (yes, I had to look that up) runs and wins a Congressional seat. Could, and should you use his record as mayor as what he might do as a member of Congress? Maybe, but I feel like that isn’t really fair. He was under the governors microscope, and while that is stressful, it isn’t half as much as holding the interests of not only your constituents, but also the entire country.
Same thing applies here. Sarah has always in a situation where in some form, she has been beholden to her constituents. Whether it has been in the Delaware statehouse, to now the house of Congress, she has always been in a situation where she has had the will of the people who voted for her in her hands.
The difference now, is that, she now not only has to deal with a Republican majority, that for all intents and purposes, does not like her, who constantly vilify her as a devil that’s messing with our children, the wills of her constituents, and the will of the country. So she was screwed from the start.
Moreover, even if she gave airtime to the attacks, it would probably reinforce the stereotype that all of us are a bunch of colored hair crybabies that will whine over everything. That would be the front page of every single conservative website for days on end. So, instead of making her situation even worse, she picked her battle, took the high road, and made them look like the idiots.
She, at least in my book, started off on the right foot, considering that not many (read: none) of her colleagues have even come to her rescue. Especially Tom Suozzi, and Seth Moulton, who said transphobic comments about “men in women sports” after the election , despite having a trans colleague that was about to sworn in in less than two months.
So why haven’t Dems come to her aid?
For a lot of reasons. It could just be flat out afraid to poke the bear on the right out of fear of ruining the virtue that they’ve been trying to send for decades, but really kicked into gear at the start of 45 part 1: We are the party of the reasonable people. We follow the rules and uphold the rule of law. They also could just flat out not care about her, in the sense that there are more Moulton’s and Suozzi’s in the party and who would rather see her get thrown to the wolves and just laugh all the merry way, but I find that unlikely.
Final thoughts and Conclusion
Sarah McBride is hated for some of the most fascinating reasons by people. Since stepping onto the steps of the Capitol, hell, even before that, she has been constantly vilified made fun of, insulted with hilariously sad AI art (looking at you, Nancy Mace) and so so much. This lady could literally go to a local bake shop, just literally ordering food, and she would be called the devil, saying that she’s indoctrinating the bake shop patrons, etc. etc. Its all very dumb, hateful, sad, and stupid. Leave the lady alone.
She did not ask to be demonized and turned into the devil incarnate.
She came to serve the United States, and the people of Delaware.
Thanks for sticking with me throughout the break. If you liked this article, a sub would be nice. Let me know what you thought of the article, as i’m still early on in this Substack thing, and am still figuring out my personal style.
> I feel like its a bare minimum thing to expect the first openly trans congresswoman to stand up for trans rights.
Except that's not really how it works, is it? Like Nixon going to China, some things are easiest to accomplish for the folks you wouldn't expect -- exactly because you wouldn't expect that of them, so the opposition can't use it to characterize the entire career and agenda of a person.
With as much anti-trans hatred as there is in the USA, if you're strident, take-no-shit, outspoken advocate for trans rights, you're simply not likely to get the votes of non-trans people. And if you want to represent an entire state, even one as small as Delaware, you're going to need a lot of cis votes. I'm not saying that this is fair in any way, but it is an important dynamic in electoral politics. The first Catholic president (JFK) had to walk carefully so as to not assist his opponents in painting his administration as a wholly owned subsidiary of the Vatican. In a similar way, McBride has to prove every day that she's not a wholly owned subsidiary of an activist trans rights movement.
It's not fair. It's not okay. But since she loses her election if her opponents are able to paint her as an extreme whack job who outsources her brain to even more extreme activists, it is literally a requirement of the job that she misses opportunities to stand up for trans people -- at least publicly, we don't know what she's doing inside the Democratic caucus -- and that she moderates her language when she does stand up for trans folks.
If she wasn't willing to do that, the voters never would have hired her.
This doesn't mean that people have to not criticize her. It's a free country and all that, go nuts. But it does mean that when you come from a community that's 1% of the population and you're trying to win the votes of 51%, you have to prove time and again that you're able to represent the whole of your constituency and not get bogged down with the issues of just 1%.
So while people criticize her, it's helpful to remember that for trans folks the choice isn't between an outspoken hell raiser and Sarah McBride. It's between continuing to have no representation at all or Sarah McBride.
Don't believe me? Fair. I'd love it if you could prove me wrong. All you have to do is run for congress as a pro-trans firebrand and win. I eagerly await the day that happens and will give you all the coverage I can manage at Wonkette and Pervert Justice throughout your campaign and your congressional career.