In 2016, HRC said something along the lines of "My personal opinions are often different (more progressive) than my public opinions" & people acted like she'd just revealed herself to be Beelzebub. HRC wasn't alone in that approach. Dems acted w/ this separation for decades.
https://twitter.com/magi_jay/status/1987931202553082021
Joe Biden changed history on LGBTQ rights not because his opinion diverged that much from mainstream center-left Democrats *but* because he blurted out what many already believed: gay marriage was good. This worked out well for us. The time was right. 
Somewhere along the line, this approach changed. HRC's "separation" of personal from political was pilloried. Bernie & his acolytes shifted the party "left"--including, in 2019-20 on social issues that Bernie himself didn't even really care about. Everything became a purity test.
Should we change? What should we pipe down about? I don't know if I feel ready to have that convo today. I do think it's important for us to recognize this shift happened within the Dem party, as well as all the dynamics it creates. We put national candidates in a minefield.
But I will say this: it would be incorrect to say it has to be black/white, as in "pipe down about all social issues." I would reject that 100%. I do think there's an argument to be made for framing these issues correctly + identifying the correct pressure points.
I will also say this: trans rights are an issue I care deeply about. I think we did this issue a disservice in 2019 by wrapping it up w/ prison reform. We took an issue--the rights of human beings--and forced it to coexist AS POLICY w/ both 1) prison reform & 2) tax $ allocation
Rightly or wrongly, Americans don't want to think about tax money in the context of the treatment of prisoners. So we took a cause--trans rights--& wrapped it up in a forced choice about not only prisoners' rights but taxpayer $. We did real harm to trans rights by doing this.
At the end of the day, we need to more broadly be open to having conversations about "is this good politics?" w/out such extreme moral judgment. It's broadly "okay" to *consider* separating personal from political judgment. To strategically plan how to "move" the electorate.
You know who has openly embraced this approach? Barack Obama. Who presided over years of social change on both LGTBQ rights AND Black Civil Rights. Maybe he was onto something. Maybe HRC was onto something too.
I'll add: At the end of Obama's term, trans rights were an electoral liability FOR REPUBLICANS. We had come a long way. cnn.com/2016/03/23/pol…
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