Long before “Republicans Pounce!” they had “wedge issues.” They used them to divide people and, according to an AP report, they still do. 
Today’s GOP wedge issue of choice is transgenderism – you know, the mental health problem that’s sweeping the nation? Conservatives and Republicans (and lots of other normal folks) are bewildered and revulsed by the trans craze, and so it’s coming up in GOP primaries.
AP’s Jeff McMillan and Marc Levy described this dark development:
Derision and disparagement of transgender people, and even of those perceived as their allies, are proliferating on the airwaves and in statehouses across the country as 2022 election campaigns heat up. It’s a classic strategy of finding a “wedge issue” that motivates a political base, political observers say.
Worse, these cynical troglodytes aren’t even following transgender industrial complex-approved protocols. McMillan and Levy huffed that a Missouri senate candidate’s ad called swimmer Lia Thomas “by her by her deadname and saying ‘women’s sports are for women, not men pretending to be women.’” Horrifying. Except that Lia was a mediocre men’s swimmer named Will until he started, well, pretending to be a woman.
Another campaign had the effrontery to use “inaccurate terminology to describe transgender women” when it said its candidate doesn’t believe that “biological males should compete in women’s sports.” Okay Jeff and Marc, we get it. You guys are hip to the acceptable terminology, and virtuous in your insistence on correcting others.
“The efforts to make political hay of transgender and other LGBTQ people extend well beyond just campaign ads,” the Wonder Woke Twins write. “At least 10 states have banned transgender athletes from participating in sports in a way that is consistent with their gender identity.”
Political hay, or maybe just reaction to an unprecedented and profoundly troubling development in society? Don’t be foolish. The GOP is despicable. Just ask this guy:
“They are just weaponizing the fact that most everyday Americans don’t yet realize that they know someone who is transgender,” said Rodrigo Heng-Lehtinen, executive director of the National Center for Transgender Equality. “It is easy to fall for a myth about a group of people you don’t know, and that’s just human ... It’s just really unfortunate to now see a group of politicians try to use that to their own advantage.”
Yeah, these days you can’t swing a dead cat without hitting a transgendered person. But don’t do that. It might be a hate crime.
