Sean Casten Profile picture
Aug 7, 2020 10 tweets 4 min read Read on X
Today's @GOP: Torn between those who advocate for intolerance and hatred and those who see is purely as a wedge issue to win an election. Almost none willing to simply acknowledge #loveislove and LGBT rights are human rights. politico.com/news/magazine/…
And this ain't just "Trumpworld". Only 8 Republicans voted for the Equality Act to ensure that the LGBTQ community has equal rights under the law. That should never have been controversial in a nation dedicated to equality.
rollcall.com/2019/05/17/the…
When we passed that bill on the floor, the final @GOP amendment was to protect Title IX, on the bizarro-world theory that boys would otherwise change their gender to compete in women's sports. That's not serious policy. It's homophobic / transphobic dog-whistling.
The idea that a teenage kid is going to go through all the social stigma and mental stress that trans kids go through every day on the hope they could be a little more athletically competitive. You have to be utterly devoid of empathy to believe that.
(And, it should be noted, have never watched women's sports. After all, there isn't a single member of the House, male or female who could last a round in the ring against @RepDavids.)
But at a larger level, how do you pursue public office in a country dedicated to the proposition that that we are born with the inalienable right to pursue happiness and then see people who are struggling to be accepted for who they are and decide to punch down?
The answer is you have to yourself be a hateful person, or simply too venal to care. So single-mindedly focused on winning an election regardless of the consequences to burn down hope and love in your wake. It is mean. It is immoral. It is the opposite of leadership.
(Except, I suppose for that group of @GOP officials who are so filled with hate and intolerance that they are actively using their positions of leadership to bend public will towards their paleolithic, hateful views.)
We shouldn't accept this. Fighting for equal rights should not be partisan. Asking elected officials to call out our better angels rather than our lesser demons should be a bare minimum requirement of the job. And yet the @GOP does neither.
Anyway, with all the serious problems in the world, from pandemics to economic meltdowns to global warming it makes me angry that a once-great party wants to re-litigate the culture wars. They need to grow up before we let them eat at the big kids table again. /fin

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More from @SeanCasten

Sep 12
OK, Trump got his ass kicked by Harris this week. That’s great but it’s time to move on. Specifically, to the huge national security / malign actor interference risk that Donald John presents as early as a week from tomorrow. Thread:
1. A man who owes lots of money to lawyers and adjudicated civil fines could soon be able to start selling some or all of his 114M shares in a company that is a trainwreck as a stock but still massively overvalued. forbes.com/sites/dereksau…
2. What would you pay for a company with $3.4M in revenue, is blowing through $33M of cash per year & has negative earnings? If you said “zero” you’ll agree that #DJT is overvalued. The current $3B market cap is why it is MASSIVELY overvalued. finance.yahoo.com/quote/DJT/key-…
Read 17 tweets
Aug 29
Short thread about Arlington National Cemetery and official visits: Every year I've been in Congress, @RepCartwright has led a bipartisan trip to Arlington National Cemetery around Memorial Day.
ANC staff does a fantastic job taking us to a few graves, sharing their stories and valor. One year it was to the oldest WW1 vet and they read stories of his enlistment (he lied about his age) and secret to a long life "when you think you're about to die, don't".
This year, we visited graves of Gus Grissom, John Glenn and other early astronauts and learned about their lifetime of service to our country.
Read 8 tweets
Jul 26
Trump’s Project 2025 has some VERY creepy surveillance ideas about women’s pregnancies. Read this passage carefully (from page 455 of their plan). Image
1. “Abortion surveillance” is not a thing - but they’d like it to be. The job of the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) is not to surveil. To suggest otherwise is some serious Orwellian creepiness.
2. Remember all those people saying that Dobbs just “returned abortion to the states”? It was always BS. It was always about taking women’s rights away. Describing those states as “sanctuaries for abortion tourism” is language you use if your goal is a national abortion ban.
Read 7 tweets
Jul 24
I want to quickly highlight a completely bonkers part of Trump's Project 2025 agenda relating to your salary and faith. You have to see this stuff in text to understand the degree to which these extreme MAGA types want to control your life.
1. First, they would eliminate overtime pay. You want to work the night shift to make more money? Too bad. Do you think your boss should pay you more if they make you work longer? Too bad.
2. BUT... this runs afoul of their commitment to there being only one true religion (e.g., Christianity) which they want to impose on all Americans. You know the whole on-the-seventh-day-God-rested bit. Image
Read 13 tweets
Jul 6
Let’s talk a bit about Project 2025, the really unpopular guidebook to destroy American democracy that the Koch brothers, Leonard Leo, the Heritage Foundation and lots of Trumpified wing nuts are pushing - but Trump claims to know nothing about.
1. First, read this. Trump of course is lying. But it is a tell that even he knows this is toxic and doesn’t want you to know he’s involved. washingtonpost.com/politics/2024/…
2. For the trolls in my feed (love you all so much!) who claim Trump isn’t lying, you’ll have to explain why his SuperPAC is running a website literally called trumpproject2025. trumpproject2025.com
Read 18 tweets
Jul 5
A few brief thoughts after walking in two parades yesterday, speaking at one Independence Day kickoff, seeing some fireworks and chatting with a whole lot of patriotic friends and neighbors:
1. Americans are fundamentally good people. The media noise can distract from all that. Don't let it. The best way to be hopeful about our future always has been and will always be to go talk to a stranger.
2. Lots of them are really nervous about the future of our country right now. The divisiveness in Washington, but more the reactionary backlash. They can't understand why rights they took for granted are being taken away.
Read 12 tweets

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