Some quotes:

“The Mandate for Leadership” is a 920-page document that details how the next Republican administration will implement radical and sweeping changes to the entirety of government. This blueprint assumes that the next president will be able to rule by fiat under the unitary executive theory (which posits that the president has the power to control the entire federal executive branch). It is also based on the premise that the next president will implement Schedule F, which allows the president to fire any federal employee who has policy-making authority, and replace them with a presidential appointee who is not voted on in the Senate.

So they’re gonna take over the executive branch.

And businesses will support and fund this effort because:

The business wish list calls for eliminating federal agencies, stripping those that remain of regulatory power, and deregulating industries. The president would directly manage and influence Department of Justice and FBI cases, which would allow him to pursue criminal cases against political enemies. Environmental law would be gutted, and states would be prevented from enforcing their own environmental laws.

And what about the social wish list?

The social conservative wish list calls for ending abortion, diversity and inclusion efforts, protections for LGBTQ people, and most importantly, banning any and all LGBTQ content. In fact, “The Mandate for Leadership” makes eradicating LGBTQ people from public life its top priority. Its No. 1 promise is to “restore the family as the centerpiece of American life and protect our children.” They are explicit in how they plan to do so, as you’ll see in the paragraph below. They plan to proceed by declaring any and all LGBTQ content to be pornographic in nature.

“Pornography, manifested today in the omnipresent propagation of transgender ideology and sexualization of children, for instance, is not a political Gordian knot inextricably binding up disparate claims about free speech, property rights, sexual liberation, and child welfare. It has no claim to First Amendment protection. Its purveyors are child predators and misogynistic exploiters of women. Their product is as addictive as any illicit drug and as psychologically destructive as any crime. Pornography should be outlawed. The people who produce and distribute it should be imprisoned. Educators and public librarians who purvey it should be classed as registered sex offenders. And telecommunications and technology firms that facilitate its spread should be shuttered.”

When they talk about pornography, this includes any content discussing or portraying LGBTQ figures from the children’s books I Am Jazz and And Tango Makes Three to the Trevor Project’s suicide hotline. We know this by looking at how “don’t say gay” laws have been implemented in Florida: This is literally their model. It’s been tried in Virginia. It’s also arguable that LGBTQ parents would be subject to arrest, imprisonment, and being put on sex-offender registries for “exposing children to pornography” simply by being LGBTQ and having children.

It would also likely criminalize any therapist, doctor, or counselor who provided affirming therapy to trans youth. Indeed, the document makes it explicitly clear they want nationwide bans on abortion and access to affirming care for trans youth, while calling for conversion therapies to be the only available treatments. It could be argued as well that people who are visibly trans in public are pornographic or obscene, because they might be seen by a minor. This understanding of intent is in line with the call to “eradicate transgenderism from public life.”

There’s also the matter of the internet: Any Internet Service Provider (ISP) that transmits or receives data about transgender people could potentially be liable if conservatives have their way. When you read the final sentence of the excerpted paragraph, the clear intent is that the same would apply to any social media company that allows any (positive) discussion or depiction of transgender individuals, as it would be considered pornographic and contributing to harming a minor.

And how will they do this shit?

The organizations that drafted “The Mandate for Leadership” understand that blue states, which have sanctuary laws for transgender people, are unlikely to comply. It’s difficult to imagine California arresting and prosecuting teachers, librarians, doctors, therapists, bookstores (virtual or physical), LGBTQ parents, and especially LGBTQ people merely for existing in public. This is why they included the following paragraph:

“Where warranted and proper under federal law, initiate legal action against local officials—including District Attorneys—who deny American citizens the “equal protection of the laws” by refusing to prosecute criminal offenses in their jurisdictions. This holds true particularly for jurisdictions that refuse to enforce the law against criminals based on the Left’s favored defining characteristics of the would-be offender (race, so-called gender identity, sexual orientation, etc.) or other political considerations (e.g., immigration status).”

This is calling for the executive branch to use the Department of Justice to threaten prosecution of any local or state officials if they do not charge LGBTQ people and their allies with crimes under the pretense that they are breaking federal and state laws against exposing minors to pornography. If people at the Department of Justice refuse to go along with this, then they can simply be replaced under Schedule F. While the excerpted paragraph above includes references to immigration, the fact that it explicitly includes gender identity, and fits in with the previous calls to designate anything trans-related as pornographic, clearly telegraphs their intent.

The result of these actions will be perhaps the biggest power play against states rights in American history, and the threat is clear. If blue states refuse to turn on their own transgender citizens, then the federal government will do everything in its power to decapitate the leadership of those states using the Department of Justice. Conservatives are making the bet that individual district attorneys will not risk prosecution, and prison, on behalf of a tiny, despised minority. They’re betting that state governors will not be willing to risk both prosecution and a constitutional crisis over transgender people.

Well, fuck!

In addition to voting, what should we do about this?

    • cmbabul@lemmy.world
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      1 year ago

      The country has been on that course for a while. I grew up in the south, in a super religious and conservative community. There is a not insignificant portion of that part of the population that will never accept the idea there that isn’t a single correct way to live life, which is conveniently the way they have live theirs, and blame all the ills of society on those who do not. And since the world is pretty shit in varying degrees for everyone but the wealthy they are determined to do so because they think they are saving the world

      __

      Edit: I’d like to add that i in no way mean it’s limited to the south, it’s all over the country, parts of the PNW are just as if not even more extreme

    • SoylentBlake@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      These kind of people are professionally scared, simultaneously both afraid of any learned authority and scared so much, so often, they are the de facto pros at it.

      You want to REALLY see the conservative right afraid?

      Join, or if there aren’t any around you, start a leftist for the 2nd Amendment group/militia.

      The Black Panthers, who rose up to regulate their own neighborhoods to stop wanton police abuse, got Reagan so scared he enacted gun control in Cali. Remember HRC bemoaning congress about “super-predators”?

      They want the left to be pacifist and push overs. The last thing they want is self sufficiency and independence. They’re terrified of Antifa (which is entirely organic and unstructured) because that’s the left disregarding and meeting the rights monopoly on violence.

      Add structure to it, and the fascists will piss their pants.

      No leaders tho, it’s a guarantee the right will assassinate.

      • nickwitha_k (he/him)@lemmy.sdf.org
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        1 year ago

        They’re terrified of Antifa (which is entirely organic and unstructured) because that’s the left disregarding and meeting the rights monopoly on violence.

        Oh really?.. And where were you, “Not High Overlord and Commander of the Antifa”, at the time of last week’s Official Antifa Board Meeting and Spaghetti Feed?!

        • SoylentBlake@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Lolols

          I was stuck waterboar, ehem, I mean, inboarding at the weekly “meat and greet” hot dog barbeque down at the Grange.

          I told Jose Muhammad Chan to fill in for me, did he not make it? I know he was trying to wrap up his counter country terrorism class on advanced leaf blower tactics; tear gas dispersal. I’ll have to cc everyone in the memo. Sigh.

      • jandar_fett@lemmy.world
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        1 year ago

        Ya know. As the political polarization continues to increase, seemingly due to the global resurrection of fascism, I find myself wondering when that watershed moment will be. The smoking gun, if you will, when those still around look back and take a historical accounting.