Mr. Priebus,
As an openly transgender lesbian woman who subscribes to the Austrian School of economic thought, I am writing to inform you that I must decline to support the current Republican Party candidate in favor of Hillary Clinton in the forthcoming election, and I will likely decline support in future elections.
I came of age in the Reagan era when supply-side theories and active strikebreaking were considered to be really good ideas. I considered myself a budding fiscal conservative then, when people of my age and orientation were supposed to find a path to the Democratic Party.
I really do not believe the overwhelming majority of Reagan conservatives then would ever support what this current crop of Republican candidates profess and advocate. While many would have argued that private matters should remain private regarding LGBTQ issues, the pursuit and attempted crushing of this community would have been deeply frowned upon if not outright opposed. Reagan conservatives feared LGBTQ people because of AIDS, not because they were harbingers of the coming Antichrist.
I am very much aware that the policies advocated by the Democratic opposition have a rather good chance of taking the American economy back to the 1970’s Stone Age, and I will be thinking of this letter as I line up for my mandatory National Health Insurance card on a cold winter’s day in the near future as joyful, Canadian-inspired volunteers attempt to cheer me on with song, slogan and respectful police presence. I will attempt to smile as I am repeatedly informed of how great the new programme is and to not visit the community clinic unless it is a real emergency ... making a four week in advance reservation first.
But I no longer care about that. I care more about the freedom required for myself, my soulmate and all others chosen to enjoy the unrequested blessing of LGBTQ-ness without fear or harm. I will no longer support any political party whose supporters dare to advocate any kind of cultural or religiously-inspired superiority over other peoples, no matter how much better their economic policies may be.
I will happily adjust my thermostat, cover myself in red ochre and chant when I get really sick, if that leads to the permanent political marginalization of the blatantly hateful, religiously-fueled, extremist, homophobic, transphobic, xenophobic, right-wing crazy people currently pitching your party’s candidate, using arguments dredged up from Fox News and Russian television and forgetting how those m-f’ers in stahlhelms and feldgrau uniforms nearly conquered the planet believing and pitching this same hateful, wrong-headed, anti-Semitic, mind-blowingly evil sh*t, killing a whole lot of innocent people before the rest of the world could get their heads out of their a**es.
Mr. Priebus, I ask you to please take a second look at what your party’s candidates say about people like me and others who are not like you. Please reflect upon their language and ask yourself if what they are saying dovetails with what you wish to actively support. I seriously doubt Mr. Lincoln would ever want to be associated with this crowd. When you listen to the nominated candidate of your party, do you hear the voice Mr. Reagan? Or someone else?
Think it over.
Yours,
Julie Chase
Photo of RNC Chairman Reince Priebus via PinkNews