The Thin Line Between Advertising and Genocide
Sensatonalist anti-trans disinformation and propaganda, which has been honed over the past years in far right media, have morphed into a GOP advertising campaign targeting Black and brown communities.
by Evan Urquhart
Unlike in the mainstream and the left, there’s no clear line between right wing media, right wing political organizing, and right wing politicians. A striking example of this lack of distance is a multimillion dollar ad campaign, currently targeting Black and Spanish-speaking communities with false claims about the dangers of gender affirming care and similar smears. The source is research conducted by Human Rights Campaign, whose report captures the situation nicely:
It’s obvious that there is both a short game and a long game in operation. In the short term, these organizations hope to suppress turnout for Democrats or even convince a few people in marginalized communities to vote for the party of white supremacy. In the long term they’re clearing the way for policies of genocide: Already, they’ve rolled out policies to reduce the number of trans and other LGBTQ+ people, and these ads drive support and/or reduce opposition to such extreme policy measures. Among the worst GOP politicians there is already open talk of killing us, and this talk will only get bolder the longer the mainstream left waffles, and continues to pretend that both sides of the political spectrum have been equally polarized.
The mainstream media is particularly culpable for the preparing fertile ground for lies about transgender people and our medical care to flourish. They’ve done this by ignoring trans issues and (when they deign to notice us), publishing concern-trolling longform pieces that spend more time handwringing than they spend correcting the record.
Against incipient US grown genocidaires, the mainstream has for too long answered: “Both sides.” More recently, we’ve seen signs that people in the center and left are starting to awaken to the festering issue of anti-trans propaganda, and how it’s being used to radicalize uninformed people. We only hope that the awakening is real, not an illusion or a passing fad, and that it’s not too late to stop the worst from happening.