A formerly well-connected GOP donor convicted of giving teenage girls gifts, alcohol and money in exchange for sex has been sentenced to 21 years in prison on sex trafficking charges in Minnesota.

A formerly well-connected GOP donor convicted of giving teenage girls gifts, alcohol and money in exchange for sex was sentenced Wednesday to 21 years in prison on sex trafficking charges.

    • kescusay@lemmy.world
      201·
      1 year ago

      I don’t see it as actually working. The attempts to smear LGBTQ+ people as groomers only resonate with revolting bigots who want to believe that shit anyway. Everyone else seems to be recoiling from it in horror, especially the younger generations.

      • stereofony@lemm.ee
        10·
        1 year ago

        Speak for yourself. As a trans person, I stopped using Instagram entirely because it got to a point where every top level comment, regardless of the subject matter, was a transphobic one (even ones not even REMOTELY related to LGBTQ+ issues).

        It was never like this before the recent GOP push in anti-queer rhetoric. It’s the worst it’s been in my life, tbh. Worse than when my peers used to casually call things “gay” as an insult. Because this time, the rhetoric is genocidal.

        • kescusay@lemmy.world
          4·
          1 year ago

          I didn’t mean to downplay the harm caused by the hateful garbage they’re spewing. My son is trans, and sees the same stuff you do on his Instagram.

          All I was trying to express is that as aggressive and awful as it is, I see a lot of hope in the fact that the younger generations seem to be disgusted by it, rather than susceptible to it.

          But I’ll defer to your personal experience on this, though I desperately hope the next election will be a resounding rebuke against the “groomer” shit.

        • kescusay@lemmy.world
          5·
          1 year ago

          What I was trying to get at is that the younger generations don’t seem to be as susceptible to it, but I see your point. We need to work our asses off to make the next election an overwhelming rejection of the hateful shitheads pushing this crap.

          • Hazdaz@lemmy.world
            11·
            1 year ago

            the younger generation don’t seem to be as susceptible

            Hard disagree. I’d go so far as to say they are more susceptible, quite frankly. You might be surrounded by people who follow the news and track politics. Those type of people are NOT typical. At all. Like, at all at all.

            Plus there have been the stories in recent days of how a large number of young (teenagers) white males are joining right wing causes. That meam theyve been bamboozled.

        • some_guy@lemmy.sdf.org
          2·
          1 year ago

          The difference is that the Left would have to stoop to their level to be effective at this game. It’s the same reason I think we’re ineffective at pushing back on rightwing violence. Only a handful of us are willing to commit violence.

          While I support nazi-punchers, I myself do not punch nazis. I’d like to think I would, but I honestly wouldn’t unless I feared for my safety. And for those who do it to protect the safety of marginalized groups, I applaud.

      • Hazdaz@lemmy.world
        62·
        1 year ago

        I think I’ve seen that list and it only gets longer every year. And yet with all that information, the Left can’t come up with a good attack on these guys and taint their entire party as being a bunch of creeps.

        • EssentialCoffee@midwest.socialEnglish
          61·
          1 year ago

          Partly because the people supporting them are okay with this. Because it’s their people doing it and their people are going to hurt the right people.

          You can’t logic someone out of a position they didn’t logic themselves into.

    • Bone@lemmy.world
      5·
      1 year ago

      I think the Bill Clinton saga and guys like Anthony Weiner, to a much lesser degree, provided just enough ammo on this topic that the GOP was able to make a reverse argument. Not that it applies, the way they argue it. There’s still a messaging problem, however, as you’ve mentioned clearly.

      • Hazdaz@lemmy.world
        3·
        1 year ago

        The way Democrats handle some of these issues typically only makes things worse. Look at how they bungled the Al Franken issue and forced the poor guy to step down even though he was a great communicator for the party and was one of the few Democrats that was quick on his feet to go on the offensive (not surprising since he was a comedian). Not saying the party should simply brush things under the rug, but for fucks sakes they over do things because of political correctness bullshit.