How Democrats Can Defeat Republicans’ Anti-Trans Bullying
In his debate against Vice President Kamala Harris, Donald Trump debuted the turducken of dog whistles: the claim that Harris would funnel taxpayer money to surgeries for transgender immigrants in prison. Since then, Republicans have put $60 million over two weeks into airing anti-trans ads heaped atop their public speaking and social media posting efforts to center this issue.
There’s an effective rejoinder Democrats could be deploying: Call out the bullshit, explain the motivation behind it, and sandwich this between an affirmation of what nearly all of us value and must vote to protect — freedoms.
The Democratic response? Largely silence. Or worse, tacitly reaffirming the opposition’s position.
Right now, the Harris campaign and aligned Democratic groups are leaving the issue unmentioned in ads, choosing to broadcast their economic bonafides plus draw the contrast with Republicans on abortion. This response is inadequate — not just morally, but electorally.
Ignoring racist dog whistles and transphobic siren songs only makes them more potent. Xenophobia has been a staple of Trump and Republicans’ campaign pitches since he first rode down the golden escalator in 2016 to launch his race. From promises of a Mexico-funded border wall, to lies about immigrants eating cats and dogs, to threats of mass removal of long-time residents, Republicans rely on fear of some “other.” Time and tepid response, if any, from Democrats has only enabled these attacks to grow more virulent and voter sentiment about immigrants to grow more toxic. All the while, Republicans are doing their all to promote the notion of immigrants as a threat, especially in battleground states. Despite efforts among Democrats to tack right, to the dismay of many infrequent base voters they must turn out, voters on the whole still credit Republicans with superior handling of the issue.
In the last few years, Republicans have expanded the scope of their scapegoating to transgender people — with a focus on trans kids, in particular. Like the authoritarian leaders they admire, from Hungary’s Viktor Orbán to Brazil’s Jair Bolsonaro, Republicans know they must offer up new villains to keep their same tale fresh. Abroad, this means taking on “gender ideology.” Bolsonaro, for example, claimed his political opponents were handing out “gay kits” in schools and producing penis-shaped nipples for baby bottles. At home, from school board candidates running against “indoctrination” to governors signing increasingly draconian book, sports, and medical bans, transphobic fear-mongering dominates Republican campaigns. They are desperate to make the gender war happen, shoe-horning it into social media posts and attacking Harris’ running-mate, Tim Walz, as “Tampon Tim.”
The aforementioned $60 million on anti-trans ads comes from both Senate and presidential race spending. From repeating Trump’s debate claim, to lying that schools are forcibly reassigning gender, to promising to protect girls’ sports, ads on this theme feature shadowy jump cuts, ominous music, and accusations that Harris and Democrats are “for they/them” whereas “Trump is for you.”
To be sure, Democrats must attend to issues that voters prioritize — like making ends meet. But believing economic policies, sprinkled with some reproductive freedom on top, can best Republicans politics of resentment is demonstrably false. When Republican efforts at fear-mongering go uncontested, they don’t go away. Nor are they addressed by attempting to change the subject. They require exposing the authoritarian strategy of and threat posed by MAGA Republicans coming to take away our freedoms.
In January, we tested what happens when a sample of voters see a Republican anti-trans ad compared to those seeing that same ad with a Democratic response. When that Democratic rejoinder was a purely economic message, without any mention of trans people nor any rebuttal to the Republican claims, voters increased their support for Republican views. In contrast, when they viewed that opposition ad and then one employing the Race Class Gender Narrative, we neutralized the attack. What is the Race Class Gender Narrative? A carefully researched clapback that creates a bigger “we” rooted in shared values, explains the motivations behind MAGA Republican claims, and calls for solidarity across differences to deliver the economic outcomes families need. Such a message refuses to choose between making a case for equality or fighting for economic well-being, making clear how both are intimately linked.
All of this said, in this test, we were only able to hold steady on vote choice and that, of course, is insufficient. We recently went back into the field to address how we both blunt these Republican attacks and, critically, move voters toward Democrats. This time around, we looked at reactions to a Trump opposition ad making the aforementioned claim about transition surgeries in prisons.
The efficacy of this opposition ad at moving voters toward Trump varies from around one point in our test to 2.7 in others’ experiments. Fortunately, an ad we crafted with Way to Win and Gutsy Media viewed on its own moved registered voters 2.3 percent. This movement toward Harris appears especially pronounced among our most disaffected voters who initially said they would sit out the election or vote third-party.
In a combat condition, where respondents viewed the opposition ad and then ours back-to-back, our testing netted out movement of 1.6 percent toward Harris. It also appears to boost trust in Democrats to “handle lesbian, gay, and trans issues” by just over 2 points.
This effective ad kicks off by creating a big “we,” declaring: “Black, white, or brown, Native or newcomer, transgender or not, Americans will not let anyone dim our light.” It then calls out the opposition for their assaults on our freedom, “MAGA Republicans ban books and health care,” and our economic well-being, “they “rig the rules for corporations,” explaining their MO: they “try to distract us by singling people out to bully based on our races or genders.” Finally, it employs a known persuasive social proof approach, telling viewers that their response to this is: “We call BS. We show up for each other and we vote for leaders like Kamala Harris.” With this wording, we’re telling folks that people like them already believe and do the right thing here.
To his credit, Walz has consistently employed this approach to rebuff a whole host of Republican attacks: Call out the other side, explain the motivation behind their lies, and draw a contrast between what they’re peddling and what voters actually desire. Most recently, he said: “We see it now, the hate has shifted toward the trans community. If you’re watching any sporting events right now, you see that Donald Trump’s closing arguments are to demonize a group of people for being who they are. We’re out there trying to make the case that access to health care, a clean environment, manufacturing jobs and keeping your local hospital open are what people are really concerned about. They’re running millions of dollars of ads demonizing folks who are just trying to live their lives.”
Right-wing populists, both foreign and domestic, have been operating from the same playbook for generations: Select someone to rebuke and revile, cast yourself in the role of savior of the nation from the looming danger, and lambast your opponents as abetting the destruction. Every time this happens, whether the villains are “illegals,” “inner city crime,” or trans kids, Democrats commit the cardinal sin of letting attacks go unanswered or, worse yet, tacitly affirming them by presenting a lower-calorie version of being against the “other.”
For Democrats to win, we must make clear to voters that this election is about unifying the biggest possible “we”: Americans across races and places, backgrounds and genders, accents and, yes, parties, rejecting MAGA Republicans’ efforts to divide in order to control us. We win by running on and not from our values.
Anat Shenker-Osorio is a political strategist and communications researcher for progressive campaigns. Jay Marcellus is a progressive communications strategist and leader in messaging for transgender rights.
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