The conservative “news” outlet, The Federalist, published a screed against transgender people that echoes rhetoric that German Nazis used against Jewish people in the 1930s.
The attack came in a piece entitled “We Need To Stop Calling Ourselves Conservatives,” written by John Daniel Davidson. Davidson is also the political editor for The Federalist.
Davidson’s piece refers to “the transgender question” and says, “On the transgender question, conservatives will have to repudiate utterly the cowardly position of people like David French, in whose malformed worldview Drag Queen Story Hour at a taxpayer-funded library is a ‘blessing of liberty.'”
Davidson makes a call to arms for conservatives to oppose transgender rights: “that parents who take their kids to drag shows should be arrested and charged with child abuse; that doctors who perform so-called “gender-affirming” interventions should be thrown in prison and have their medical licenses revoked; and that teachers who expose their students to sexually explicit material should not just be fired but be criminally prosecuted.”
His argument is a mirror image of the Nazi world view that Jews had to be the subject of persecution, to be regarded as non-people, and ultimately to be mass murdered in a Holocaust that killed over 6 million innocent men, women, and children.
The Holocaust Encyclopedia published by the United States Holocaust Museum notes, “Once in power, the Nazi Party began taking measures to solve the ‘Jewish Question’ in Germany. First, they initiated policies and laws that transformed German Jews into second-class citizens. Then, they expelled Jews from Germany or forced them to emigrate. During World War II, Nazi Germany and its collaborators expanded this goal. They aimed to cleanse all of Europe of Jews through their forced “resettlement” in occupied Poland, the French island of Madagascar, or later occupied Soviet territory.”
Over the last few years, the conservative movement has been involved in a heated attack on the rights of transgender people in the United States.
Most recently, congressional Republicans have introduced legislation entitled “Stop the Sexualization of Children Act of 2022” that is designed to smear transgender people and undermine their rights to a peaceful life.
The Federalist was co-founded by Ben Domenech, a conservative activist who was removed from the Washington Post for plagiarism. He is married to Meghan McCain, former co-host of The View, a columnist for the right-wing Daily Mail, and the daughter of the deceased Sen. John McCain.
One of the first political bloggers in the world, Oliver Willis has operated OliverWillis.com since 2000. Contributor at Media Matters for America and The American Independent. Follow on Twitter at @owillis. Full bio.
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