What Happens When a Revolution Goes Too Fast

by John Horvat II December 16, 2024 https://www.tfp.org/what-happens-when-a-revolution-goes-too-fast/?PKG=TFPE3501

[Daję czasem atrykuły po angielsku [“amerykańsku”], bo ten język jest dla Polaków konieczny. Jak konieczny jest też rosyjski – niestety – już nie uczony w szkołach. MD]

After the elections, the transgender movement is in disarray. It is demoralized by the unpopularity of its cause. Some Democrats add to the chaos by rightly pinning part of the blame for the electoral loss on transgender radicalism.

The ensuing interliberal clash is revealing. Liberal strategists are asking that transgender radicals tone down their rhetoric so they can win elections. The radicals claim the elections were lost because their message was not radical enough. The resulting fight shows that the dispute is not about goals but only the means to get there.

Differing Politics

This struggle highlights how liberal and conservative politics differ.

To win, liberals often hide their ultimate goals, which are not attractive to the general public since they tend to overthrow the existing, familiar order. Liberals fear a full revelation will galvanize reactions against them.

On the contrary, conservatives reveal final goals openly since they do not shock people. Their positions often represent familiar traditions. Even when conservatives pursue a full return to order, they do not hide it from the public.

Pro-lifer conservatives, for example, speak openly about their final goal to ban procured abortion across the land. The pro-abortion side will hide its goal of conception-to-birth abortion behind formulas like abortion should be safe, legal and rare. Liberal politicians are often forced to moderate their rhetoric to wear down resistance and be elected.

Breaking All the Rules

The November election was a case of a revolution that went too fast and too far. The radical pro-transgender minority broke the rules of liberal politics. A long New York Times analysis showed what went wrong.

Instead of hiding their goals, trans militants demanded everything immediately. They had a confrontational attitude toward not only conservatives but even fellow liberals. Support had to be all or nothing.

Anyone who expressed reservations about males in women’s sports and locker rooms, for example, was branded “hateful” and even complicit in the “genocide of transgender youth.”

When Democratic Party Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts expressed reservations about men in women’s sports, he was compared to a Nazi “cooperator” and the group Neighbors Against Hate protested outside his office.

Push Back for Low Priority Issue

Some Democratic politicians are pushing back. Unfortunately, they still support “transgender rights,” which imposes a radical agenda on the American public. However, they moderately call for “reasonable” restrictions on women’s sports participation by biological males and other issues.

These moderate Democrats point out that the transgender issue is one of the lowest priority concerns among voters. Forcing candidates to take strong positions jeopardizes their campaigns.

Indeed, fewer Americans sympathize with the cause than two years ago. Gallup reported that of the 22 national issues it used to poll voter priorities, the transgender problem ranked last.

More than two dozen state legislatures across America have voted to restrict the mutilation and transition of minors. Others that ban the participation of men in women’s sports are gaining traction. Many voters believe the movement has gone too far, too fast.

The Coming Tyranny

Transgender militants’ brutal treatment of all who oppose them has offended many Americans. They resent the intolerant, bigoted, condescending and confrontational attitude of these activists as well as their hypocrisy since they loudly charge conservatives with these traits.

Indeed, impatient activists often infused vitriol into the debate during the campaign, especially on social media. They policed language, enforced pronoun usage and insisted upon the biological possibility of male pregnancy. They want to have the law enforce these absurd demands as “civil rights.” Such behavior made them appear unreasonable.

The activists forced the unpopular issue to the front burner when a policy of silence would have better benefited the efforts. Indeed, Kamala Harris suffered much from her past support for taxpayer-paid so-called sex-change transitions (mutilations) for prisoners.

The Trump campaign capitalized on the unpopularity of her position with ads that emphasized that “Kamala Harris is for they/them, while Donald Trump is for you.”

Impatience and Anger

The radical strategy of imposing an agenda upon voters failed miserably. The New York Times reports that some activists are reacting with anger, impatience and entitlement.

Their antics reveal an attitude of believing that the world revolves around them and their problems. They were shocked when they found voter indifference and resentment instead. Many lack the discipline to restrain their extremism.

The failed radicalism does not bode well for the movement and is reversing some of the gains of the LGBTQ movement over the years.

Looking at the Big Picture

Homosexual activists complain that the transgender ones fail to see the big picture. They point to their efforts decades ago, which ended with the Supreme Court imposing same-sex “marriage” upon the nation through its Obergefell v. Hodges decision.

The activists used deceptions like domestic partnerships and civil unions as a bridgehead to open the way to same-sex “marriage.” They say similar ruses must be adopted by the trans movement if it is to overcome its overwhelming unpopularity.

By making this proposal, they reduce everything to messages and not principles. They admit to the use of maneuvers and hidden goals as a means of reaching their goal of gaining total acceptance.

Sexual Revolution as a Process

The transgender movement is a development of the Sexual Revolution. This revolution is a process that calls for the breaking down of all restraints upon human sexuality. Its goal is the acceptance of all sexual relationships or identities. All morality must be suppressed and canceled.

The case of the trans movement during the elections is a revealing case that shows where it wants to go. It shows the disarray in the left about the means that it will try to use to get there.

Those who defend morality must oppose this agenda, whether it is presented incrementally or totally. The goal of this revolution is to reach a state of unrestrained gratification where everything is allowed, and nothing is forbidden. It is the godless world of John Lennon’s “Imagine.” Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy expressed the ideology well when he wrote, “At the heart of liberty is the right to define one’s own concept of existence, of meaning, of the universe, and of the mystery of human life.”¹

Living in such a fantasy world of untrammeled gratification is the quick path to ruin.