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I was traveling over the weekend and didn’t get to pay much attention to the news, so I’m shocked to see people still in a swivet about last week’s debate and still talking about replacing Biden, preferably with Johnny Unbeatable.

Instead of listening to the news, I listened to a podcast about California State Senator John Briggs and Proposition 6, which was Briggs’ attempt to reverse the progress of gay rights in 1978.

The short story is the that gay activists had a few wins in the early 70s with laws banning discrimination against homosexuals.  Those gains were short-lived because people like Anita Bryant worked to pass anti-gay initiated measures.  By 1978, gay activists had experienced a string of defeats, not only in Florida, but also in supposedly liberal enclaves like Eugene, Oregon.  Briggs, a total right-wing asshole, introduced Prop 6, a draconian rollback of gay rights progress, in an effort to ride the backlash and become Governor of California.  It was a long, circuitous path to the defeat of Prop 6, but there are a couple of parallels to our situation today:

1. A lot of the old-school gay rights organizations were very timid about challenging Prop 6, and when they did, they were very afraid of “gay looking” gays being at the vanguard of the fight.
2. There was a lot of disagreement between different factions of the gay community, with a more-liberal vs more-conservative split, among others.
3. Very few in the gay community expected to win, and many of the organizations opposing Prop 6 were prepared for a loss.
4. The anti-Prop 6 forces were outspent by the pro-Prop 6 forces, but the gay community and allies had just enough money to mount a true grassroots campaign encompassing the whole state.

These people were a true minority, but they won their fight.  Democrats today are not a true minority.  We’ve been maneuvered into a place where the minority protections of the Constitution have been used by a vocal, well-financed and energetic minority to get them undeserved majorities.  This minority has installed a corrupt federal judiciary that insulates them from legal consequences.  Corporations and corporate media prefer Republicans.  A group of superficial, hanger-on courtiers in that corporate media and the consultant class are constantly jockeying for position to ensure further Republican rule.

I hate to even compare our situation with the dire straits that the gay rights movement was facing in 1978, but given that the LGBTQ community, as well as women, will be some of the first victims of a Democratic loss in November, there is some truth behind the comparison.

Given all that is at stake, the fact that a large number of Democrats are willing to basically give up the fight by running away from Biden at the first hint of weakness makes us look like a party that can’t fight its way out of a paper bag.  Nobody has ideal leaders.  Harvey Milk, one of the leaders of the 1978 anti-Briggs fight, was a deeply flawed human being.  No side of a political fight has full agreement on priorities and appearances.   And a lot of fights look pretty damn grim sometimes, especially after a string of setbacks.  This is just how life works in politics.

I voted against Biden in the 2020 primaries.  But I will be god damned if a bunch of weak, overpaid, professional Democrats and their enablers are going to get me to change my mind about who should be leading the fight in 2024.  It’s Biden – an old man with a stutter who has a harder time making sense when he has a cold, but is a damn good president.  Let’s go fight.  We owe it to the memory of Harvey Milk and every other Democrat who fought against far worse odds to try to do something to better the lot of our fellow citizens.

Also, if any of you still subscribe to the god damn New York Times, I hope by now that you realize that you’re aiding and abetting the enemy for some fucking crosswords, recipes and Wordle.

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