Here’s a story to keep an eye on:
Those of you who follow current events (and I can hardly blame you if you don’t) will know that President Trump has been leaning on state governments to stop allowing men to compete in women’s sports. The state of Maine has been particularly recalcitrant: the governor, Janet Mills, has been feuding with Trump for years, and has in these last weeks been at war with him in both the media and the courts.
The Pine Tree State’s conflict over this has been intramural as well. Back in February, a Republican state representative by the name of Laurel Libby posted an item on social media calling out a male pole-vaulter who, by announcing that he had changed his sex, vaulted from mediocrity amongst his peers to Women’s State Champion.
For this, the Maine House censured her. She is now blocked from participating in debate or votes, which disenfranchises her roughly 9,000 constituents in District 90. The only way to lift the excommunication is for her publicly to recant and apologize. (I’m not sure about whether she must also do so while kneeling in the snow.)
Ms. Libby has been fighting this in the courts, and an appeal is now before SCOTUS. All strength to her.
5 Comments
As someone from upstate New York, though living in NYC since 88′, with a deep love for New England, I find this heartbreaking.
I don’t have to tell you that most of New England has been a Dem stronghold for generations, although rural New Hampshire and Maine were reliably conservative for just as long, but this bizarre attachment to propping up the farthest fringes of gender dysphoria among New England liberals is just nonsensical, bordering on pathological.
In the wake of Trump’s re election, the legacy media seems to have backed off from outright celebration of the most radical expressions of transmania, to a more reserved approach, if not actually quietly turning their backs on it.
Meanwhile, the state of Maine goes full steam ahead.
Help us here, Malcolm. What gives?
Hi Dave,
I can’t say what’s going on in Maine; I do suspect that it’s just another case of a crazy urban tail wagging the otherwise sensible dog, as we see in so many blue or purple states. I don’t know many people who live in Maine, except for one of my oldest friends who lives way up the coast and is nearly as far to the Right as I am. But I know that Portland is a very hipsterish and woke place, and that’s where most of the power and money are (as well as a lot of people who, in a more sensible society, wouldn’t be allowed to vote at all).
I love New England too, but I’m afraid it’s Ground Zero – dating all the way back to the 1600s – for the mind-virus that took over Massachusetts, then, after the Civil War, took over the nation, and then, after WWII, took over the entirety of the Western world.
Maine is not ground zero. That distinction belongs to NYC, DC, Chicago, and California. The states of Mass, Conn, and the Pacific Northwest are also beyond salvage. Maine overall is a purple battleground that only edges blue overall in the all or none election results at the national level. In real terms, the state is much more red on the local level town to town. My town for instance, went for Trump this last time, and we are firmly in the Coastal strip that belongs in the consistant blue hive 1st Congressional district.
I can tell you as a refugee from Mass that Maine is a long way from being in the deplorable condition of that one party state or others like New York and Connecticut.
Mike, I think you’ve misread me. I live in MA, having moved here after 40 years in NYC (in the music industry, no less!), so I know very well where the epicenter is these days — and yes, it isn’t Maine.
When I said New England was Ground Zero for this memetic infection, I was referring to its historical source, and ideological womb: the New England Calvinist settlers, and Harvard.
Modern-day NYC, DC, Chicago, California, Portland OR, Seattle, Minneapolis, etc., are all just metastases of that primary tumor.
Understood Malcolm. I just wanted to make it clear that there is a world of difference between most of Maine and the few completely blue mostly urban hotspots. By extension, there is an enormous gulf between this state and Massachusetts. The difference is that Maine still has something close to parity between the political poles while Mass has been a hopeless one party state for a long time. In Maine you can make a stand, political or otherwise without being alone. Mass, not so much. I wish you luck down there.