A nasty squabble among Democrats last week was a chance for Republicans to sit back with some popcorn and watch progressives devour one of their own.
State Sen. Elena Parent had the gall to vote against providing gender-affirming medical treatment, including sex-change surgeries, to transgender prisoners. A handful of other Democrats voted alongside her on the Republican bill.
Georgia’s Republicans this year crafted a gotcha bill created to make Democrats look out of touch.
Parent went on Facebook to explain her vote, talking about balancing her constituents’ views within a “large tent” of differing ideas. She remembers the GOP ad campaign with Kamala Harris nodding in agreement to taxpayer-funded sex-change surgeries for prisoners.
“It is impossible to please everyone 100% of the time,” Parent wrote. And, “we must be able to disagree civilly and respectfully and then move forward.”
More than 150 people quickly jumped on Parent’s social media site to call her a sellout and a spineless coward. They vowed to run her out of office come next primary season.
“Your most civically engaged and, yes, more extreme liberal wing should run the party, the rest will follow,” one critic wrote. “Dems will keep losing as long as they keep shutting down their activist progressive wing. … Because we are currently not going to lift a finger for this party.”
It was a sanctimonious, finger-waving tour de force of backbiting progressivism: A horde of outraged, well-to-do, educated, in-town white folks publicly performing their indignation for other well-to-do, educated, in-town white folks.
You know, the Bubble.
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
Credit: Arvin Temkar/AJC
SB 30, which bars transgender care for prisoners, had 33 Republicans voting “yes” and 15 Democrats voting ‘no.” Democratic senators Sonya Halpern, Ed Harbison, Freddie Powell Sims and Parent voted “yes” while Tonya Anderson, Jason Esteves, Randal Mangham and Nikki Merritt took a stroll rather than tap the green button.
Halpern said she supported transgender rights, “But I will not let my party be dragged into an argument that makes us look out of touch with the very people we claim to represent.”
Of the eight Democrats above, only Parent is white. Interestingly, almost all of the 150 people beating up Parent online were white. Publicly criticizing African Americans is largely taboo in white progressivism.
One veteran metro area politician who is Black told me: “This speaks to the reality that this is not a focus of Black residents. Obviously, Black people are against discrimination because we’ve been targeted for centuries. But Black people don’t embrace these progressive white issues.”
Polls show the Black community is divided on how the nation is moving on transgender issues.
John Jackson, one of the few Black people on Parent’s post, wrote: “I think this brings to the forefront a conversation we’ve been avoiding for a long time. People in liberal enclaves and upper middle class liberal bubbles don’t accept this but it’s 100% true. A LOT of the Democratic base mirrors the GOP base when it comes to transgender issues. I mean a lot.”
Jackson, a former DeKalb Democratic Party chair, told me his party has been weak in responding to Republican attacks and bad in messaging overall.
“Democrats don’t have a strong agenda for the working class,” he said, noting that Trump chipped away at just about every Democrat demographic constituency in the last election — other than educated whites.
“It’s like they care more about (trans rights) than poverty,’ Jackson said. “There are Democrats who can communicate with (working class voters), but the Democratic elites don’t want to do that.”
Parent got herself caught in this tantrum after a one-on-one Zoom call with Lena Kotler, a Decatur mother who has a 9-year-old transgender child. The call was to pin down Parent on her transgender prisoner vote.
Credit: Steve Schaefer/AJC
Credit: Steve Schaefer/AJC
The senator told the woman that the general public is largely against trans youth in sports and that surgeries for trans prisoners are even more unpopular. (California Gov. Gavin Newsom, who’s weighing a 2028 presidential run, last week came out against transgender women and girls competing in female sports).
“If your party can get no public support, it will always lose,” Parent said, explaining Politics 101. And, “I’d like to see Democrats win, so we can stop all these bills that bully transgender people.”
The woman got increasingly angry.
“I will do everything in my power to make sure you cannot walk down the street in Decatur without everybody knowing you are a hypocrite, that you are a transphobe and that you are a power-hungry white woman,” said Kotler, who is white herself.
The angry voter grew even more rude and loudly called Parent all sorts of other not nice things.
She then made her recordings public and forwarded them to the Decaturish publication.
Liberal podcaster Ron Roberts, who broadcasts “The Ron Show,” criticized Parent last week — until hearing the whole unpleasant recording. On the next day’s show, he pondered why Parent didn’t just hang up.
“It’s stressful for progressives like myself that we want ideological purity tests that no one can meet,” he told me.
Meanwhile, Donald Trump and his ilk are unmaking the world.
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