unspoken

Jacob Dread @jdread@mastodon.social 2026-10-30 23:38:30 UTC

@mattsheffield The mistake is thinking voters care about any of this. I want to be able to afford groceries and rent. If you're talking about gender stuff you're completely lost.

Matthew Sheffield @mattsheffield@mastodon.social 2026-10-30 23:38:28 UTC

@adrianco Good for you.

As I discuss in a post lower down in the thread, YouGov found that there are a lot of people who share your reasons for departing Labour.

In the US, going to smaller party is much more difficult because it often leads to Republican wins, which are never good. In the UK, you have more freedom to choose parties, which is nice.

Adrian Cockcroft @adrianco@mastodon.social 2026-10-30 23:38:27 UTC

@mattsheffield I just quit the UK Labour Party, support Green now, and told them that Trans rights was one of the reasons along with drilling and criminalizing protests.

Matthew Sheffield @mattsheffield@mastodon.social 2026-10-30 23:38:25 UTC

🧵 US Democrats are being tempted by right-leaning consultants to waffle on trans rights. The data and the recent drop in support for the UK Labour Party tell us that standing up for equality works much better.

Join me for a deep dive into the data about why left-wing parties gain little by becoming anti-trans while risking quite a bit.

Read along for the summary or click through for the entire 4,000 word analysis:

https://plus.flux.community/p/standing-up-for-trans-people-isnt

#lgbtq #TransRights

Standing up for trans people isn’t just the right thing to do, it’s smart politics As Republicans double down on transphobia, Democrats don’t need to run away plus.flux.community

Photo credit: The Gender Spectrum Collection, an archive of photos of transgender people in regular life situations.

The image is of two people sitting on a white sofa with an orange pillow behind them. The person on the left is a smiling man with died yellow and orange hair; he is wearing a black button shirt and jacket.

On the right is a woman with long medium-brown hair that is slightly wavy. She is smiling at the camera and is wearing a fuzzy grey sweater.

Matthew Sheffield @mattsheffield@mastodon.social 2026-10-30 22:22:24 UTC

Ever since the 90s, Democrats have been dominated by a consultant and pundit class that is often more libertarian than liberal (Matt Yglesias, David Shor, Ezra Klein...) which incorrectly believes that moving rightward on some stances brings votes.

This belief is false because many voters don't choose their candidates based upon policy positions.

If the "popularist" theory were true, Republicans would never win elections because Democrats have always had more popular positions.