USA Today has a “week in extremism” recurring feature, written by someone named Will Carless (I bet is says that on the vanity plate on his bicycle). Really, it should be called the “week in scary white guys.” Aside from the odd mention of Antifa, the articles read like SPLC fundraising emails. It sure ain’t journalism.
Case in point: The March 31 piece tells us there’s “More trans hatred after shooting,” and that “Rhetoric against trans community sharpens.” Oh those poor dears. You just knew this was coming: a marginalized, suffering gender saint couldn’t take it any more and murdered six people, and those right-wingers pounce!
Carless writes that “For more than a year now, perhaps the single issue that has most unified far-right extremists in America is that of rights for transgender people.” And who knows, maybe it has. But I get the feeling that “hate” for Carless is rather different from what it is to you or I.
Believing biology: not hatred. Refusing to countenance drag queens bumping and grinding on 3rd-graders: not hatred. Objecting to mentally disturbed adolescents undertaking dangerous and often irreversible medical treatments: not hatred. Calling for violence and threatening violence is hate. Shooting up a Christian school? Hatred. Murdering 9 year-olds and teachers and janitors: hatred.
But rest assured, "the anti-trans rhetoric hit new levels this week when police stated the assailant in a Nashville school shooting Monday – in which three small children and three adults died – identified as transgender."
Damn those police for identifying the murderer! It throws the whole narrative off. But it was very brave of Carless to mention the dead kids. Hope he hasn’t jeopardized his job.
So what’s the anti-trans extremism that has Carless wetting himself? Well, nothing much, really.
”Extremist influencers like Congresswoman Marjorie Taylor Greene and Fox News host Tucker Carlson both honed [sic] in on the shooter's gender identity, with Taylor Greene earning a brief suspension from Twitter for her comments." Neither he nor the article he links to bother to say what Greene tweeted. Guess we have to take his word for it.
“On Tuesday, Carlson called trans people the ‘Natural enemy’ of Christianity. Maybe a stupid thing to say, but they were still mopping up the blood inside the Covenant School.
That’s about all Carless has except for vague stuff about “right-wing personalities” “cheering on anti-trans hate” and a super-ninja, ultimate weapon “fact-check”: “Mass shootings by trans individuals are extremely rare.” BOOM!
Funny that a wrap-up of the week’s extremism doesn’t mention an event originally scheduled for this Saturday:
