TYT - ANA KASPARIAN

[canpakes]

The PWAU term is used, correct me if I’m wrong please, mainly in healthcare. NIH, I believe? There might be some crossover ever since the appointment of the trans surgeon general, but I think it is probably something bouncing around lgtbq and feminist circles? I’m out of my element here, but I have seen PWAU dropped on a Reddit thread a couple of times.

- Doc

For those of us who are ducks, can you tell me (us?) what PWAU and NIH stand for?

PWAU = person with a uterus

NIH = National Institutes of Health

[ceeboo]

For those of us who are ducks, can you tell me (us?) what PWAU and NIH stand for?

PWAU = person with a uterus

NIH = National Institutes of Health

Thanks!

[honorentheos]

There was one other thing I noticed: after she was attacked by a homeless man, she started xitting stories of homeless people attacking other people. The vibe was, OMG I was attacked and now I realize that this is a serious problem no one is talking about. Apparently, she wasn't either until it became personal.

I didn't bother to look into her social media (as you said, bigger fish and all that), but that tracks.

It's interesting how the reverse can work as well. Personalizing the homeless problem through meeting and hearing the stories can heighten a person's concern that homelessness isn't usually someone's fault. And it can do damage to a person's ability to get back on their feet through so many vicious loops. If a person only sees the homeless as in the way or as a blight they experience through a windshield it won't get better. But you know? It can also be hard to see past the ugliness of homeless on the ground, too, pushing people away due to the experience. Contact does not equal personalizing. That seems to be true of issues across the board. You mentioned the terror campaign against minorities and trans, homosexuality has become more accepted but it's still mostly due to people knowing a lesbian or gay person and seeing them as not so different from themselves.

Cam noted elsewhere that lack of empathy seems to go hand in hand with bigotry. Great comment. Unfortunately empathy isn't something handed out with a check mark on a voter registration card. In the Trump years more than a few folks out protesting the rise of neonazi groups with intention to use violence were not value driven defenders of good. They wanted to punch a Nazi and let the justification for doing so cover up the violence. After Trump was elected in 2016 Michael Moore pointed out that those shocked by the result weren't in touch with big swathes of the country. I'm ok with that in 2016, less so in 2020 and 2024. If politics has become a war over good and evil, we are in trouble because those are value judgements that can't be touched with facts. So we are left attempting to defang them through individual subjective experiences. That's a long row to be hoed.

[Marcus]

Is this the tweet referred to in the OP?

Based on other reading I did, I think that's the one.

I appreciated reading your history about that:

But the tweet referred in the OP isn't about that at all. What happened was Ms. Kasparian started to take shots at transgender activists and people. There wasn't just one tweet -- there were several. One was in response to some transgender activists who occupied or blocked someone's office. She posted a Xit chiding them and claiming that black people never acted that rude during the civil rights era. She was lambasted on X because she was flat wrong. Next, she Xeeted that "they" had lied about puberty blockers being reversible. That is also flat out wrong. Anti-trans groups had misrepresented "reversible" as meaning "without side effects." That wasn't what medical professionals meant, but it was grounds for still more anti-trans hysteria over the decisions other parents made for their children. (Funny that the same people become apoplectic over the notion that someone else gets to decide whether their child gets a measles shot.) Finally, she put a belligerent statement in her profile to the effect of "Don't ever call me a person with a uterus. I am a woman." I couldn't find any reference to anyone actually calling her a person with a uterus, but sticking it in one's profile like a declaration of war is pretty over the top. I live in a liberal area of the country and spend lots of time in a community that is trans friendly, and I've never heard a trans woman insist on being called "person with a uterus." Woman works just fine, thank you very much.

The U.S. is pretty scary right now for trans folks. It's not quite as bad for them as is for immigrants (at least the non-white ones), but they are being both scapegoated and made the targets of a moral panic. They are explicitly made targets in Project 2025 of the right's culture war.

That's horrifying. Thanks for the tl:Dr. It helps put the OP in context.

[Res Ipsa]

Hey RI,

As a politically right lump of carbon, I always enjoy reading your posts about politics. In almost every case, I learn something, or I am forced to think about something that I hadn't given much thought to prior. This post is one of those I speak of (Thanks).

The U.S. is pretty scary right now for trans folks. It's not quite as bad for them as is for immigrants (at least the non-white ones), but they are being both scapegoated and made the targets of a moral panic.

Regarding the immigrants - can you elaborate a bit about them being scapegoated and this moral panic targeting?

Thanks, Ceeb. There's no reason you would know of the inside baseball stuff on the left. I know there is similar stuff on the right, but without much detail.

On immigrants. Trump, Vance and other R leaders are targeting "migrants" as the source of a apocalyptic murder spree that has entire American towns and cities held hostage. That's a moral panic because it is a completely false representation of both crime in the U.S. and crime by migrants. The rate of crimes committed by citizens and by non citizens has been studied, and the immigrants commit crimes at an overall lower rate than citizens. That's true of migrants here without permission as well. So, there is no migrant crime wave. Overall, crime rates are still near record lows in the U.S. Even the spike during the pandemic was nowhere near the peak rates in the 1980s. Yet Trump, without even distinguishing between migrants that are here here with permission and those who are not, claims that migrants are chopping up children in front of their parents, cutting women's throats in their kitchens, and on and on and on. Immigrants are being scapegoated as the cause of an imaginary crime apocalypse.

The threats against immigrants have escalated to include denaturalization. Think about that for a minute. Naturalized U.S. citizens are legal, resident aliens that have satisfied the requirements to become full U.S. Citizens. The threat is to strip citizenship from actual U.S. Citizens. Hell, my mom is a naturalized citizen. Pack up, mom. I guess.

Take the Haitians in Springfield, Ohio. They are in the U.S. legally under a program called TPS. Springfield has been one of those dying rust belt towns, losing population year after year. But within the last few years, a couple of manufacturing companies set up operations. That's good news for Springfield. But, the companies ran into a problem -- in a tight labor market with people migrating out of Springfield, they had trouble finding workers. Some of the Haitians admitted under the TPS learned that there were jobs in Springfield and moved there. Through word of mouth and a Haitian newspaper, other Hatians moved to Springfield and became the workers that the companies needed. It's not clear, but apparently companies were so happy with the Haitian workers that they actively recruited them to come to Springfield.

This is a good thing for a dying rust-belt town. The population of the United States, not including immigrants, is declining and is expected to continue doing so. Without immigrants to fill the work force, businesses will go where the work force is. Even though the Haitians are here temporarily, a growing town, with new residents also opening businesses and putting money into the local economy makes Springfield a more attractive place to live.

But, there were growing pains. It doesn't sound like the companies talked with the city and county governments about the influx of new workers and their families. So there were some growing pains that were well within the capacity of the locals to take care of.

Except for a local Neo-Nazi group that really didn't like all those black people invading their territory. Their leader spoke at a City Council meeting about how the group was there to keep an eye on the intruders. He also said that the Haitians were kidnapping cats and dogs and eating them. So another moral panic kicked off, with fuel thrown on the fire by first, Vance, and then Trump. Then, not only were they eating cats and dogs, the Haitians were killing and eating geese from the city park. The right wing media went into a frenzy to prove that Haitians were eating cats and dogs. Christopher Rufo, who never met a moral panic he could resist jumped into the fray with a smoking gun... of what was actually chicken cooking on a BBQ.

No cats or dogs were eaten. No geese were eaten. One woman posted a third-hand story about pet being eaten, which wasn't true. She took the post down and apologized. One woman filed a police report saying that her cat was missing and she suspected her neighbors had eaten it. She found the cat in her basement the next day. She also went over to her neighbors and personally apologized. There was a picture of a black guy holding a goose by the neck (that's how you pick them up and move them -- trust me). But he wasn't Haitian and he was in a completely different town.

Two geese were shot and killed. By a white guy on a golf course riding a lawn mower. Geese are pests in Springfield, and is legal to just kill them during a certain period each year. It wasn't legal when he did it.

Before Vance started making claims about the Haitians in Springfield, one his staffers contacted the city and was told there was no evidence that Haitians were kidnapping and eating pets. Vance made the claim that day anyway. He said that the Haitians were there illegally, which was totally false. He implied that the Biden administration dumped the Haitians in Springfield, which they didn't. And even after confronted with the evidence, both continued to insist their claims were true. Vance ended up waffling a little, but he pivoted to "I'm not going to say they're legal," which is kinda counterfactual.

In the meantime, the MAGA telephone warriors flooded Springfield with threats, including bomb threats, that resulted in closure of government buildings, and, if I recall correctly, at least one school. Haitians received death threats. And Trump eventually said that he would kick the Haitians out on day one, apparently for not doing what Trump claimed they had done.

So, yeah, Trump, Vance and other Republican leaders are scapegoating migrants for problems that either don't exist or are widely exaggerated that migrants aren't, in any event, causing. Moral panic and scapegoating.

[Res Ipsa]

The PWAU term is used, correct me if I’m wrong please, mainly in healthcare. NIH, I believe? There might be some crossover ever since the appointment of the trans surgeon general, but I think it is probably something bouncing around lgtbq and feminist circles? I’m out of my element here, but I have seen PWAU dropped on a Reddit thread a couple of times.

- Doc

I read that in a post, but wasn't sure enough to include it.

[ceeboo]

Hey RI,

As a politically right lump of carbon, I always enjoy reading your posts about politics. In almost every case, I learn something, or I am forced to think about something that I hadn't given much thought to prior. This post is one of those I speak of (Thanks).


Regarding the immigrants - can you elaborate a bit about them being scapegoated and this moral panic targeting?

Thanks, Ceeb. There's no reason you would know of the inside baseball stuff on the left. I know there is similar stuff on the right, but without much detail.

On immigrants. Trump, Vance and other R leaders are targeting "migrants" as the source of a apocalyptic murder spree that has entire American towns and cities held hostage. That's a moral panic because it is a completely false representation of both crime in the U.S. and crime by migrants. The rate of crimes committed by citizens and by non citizens has been studied, and the immigrants commit crimes at an overall lower rate than citizens. That's true of migrants here without permission as well. So, there is no migrant crime wave. Overall, crime rates are still near record lows in the U.S. Even the spike during the pandemic was nowhere near the peak rates in the 1980s. Yet Trump, without even distinguishing between migrants that are here here with permission and those who are not, claims that migrants are chopping up children in front of their parents, cutting women's throats in their kitchens, and on and on and on. Immigrants are being scapegoated as the cause of an imaginary crime apocalypse.

The threats against immigrants have escalated to include denaturalization. Think about that for a minute. Naturalized U.S. citizens are legal, resident aliens that have satisfied the requirements to become full U.S. Citizens. The threat is to strip citizenship from actual U.S. Citizens. Hell, my mom is a naturalized citizen. Pack up, mom. I guess.

Take the Haitians in Springfield, Ohio. They are in the U.S. legally under a program called TPS. Springfield has been one of those dying rust belt towns, losing population year after year. But within the last few years, a couple of manufacturing companies set up operations. That's good news for Springfield. But, the companies ran into a problem -- in a tight labor market with people migrating out of Springfield, they had trouble finding workers. Some of the Haitians admitted under the TPS learned that there were jobs in Springfield and moved there. Through word of mouth and a Haitian newspaper, other Hatians moved to Springfield and became the workers that the companies needed. It's not clear, but apparently companies were so happy with the Haitian workers that they actively recruited them to come to Springfield.

This is a good thing for a dying rust-belt town. The population of the United States, not including immigrants, is declining and is expected to continue doing so. Without immigrants to fill the work force, businesses will go where the work force is. Even though the Haitians are here temporarily, a growing town, with new residents also opening businesses and putting money into the local economy makes Springfield a more attractive place to live.

But, there were growing pains. It doesn't sound like the companies talked with the city and county governments about the influx of new workers and their families. So there were some growing pains that were well within the capacity of the locals to take care of.

Except for a local Neo-Nazi group that really didn't like all those black people invading their territory. Their leader spoke at a City Council meeting about how the group was there to keep an eye on the intruders. He also said that the Haitians were kidnapping cats and dogs and eating them. So another moral panic kicked off, with fuel thrown on the fire by first, Vance, and then Trump. Then, not only were they eating cats and dogs, the Haitians were killing and eating geese from the city park. The right wing media went into a frenzy to prove that Haitians were eating cats and dogs. Christopher Rufo, who never met a moral panic he could resist jumped into the fray with a smoking gun... of what was actually chicken cooking on a BBQ.

No cats or dogs were eaten. No geese were eaten. One woman posted a third-hand story about pet being eaten, which wasn't true. She took the post down and apologized. One woman filed a police report saying that her cat was missing and she suspected her neighbors had eaten it. She found the cat in her basement the next day. She also went over to her neighbors and personally apologized. There was a picture of a black guy holding a goose by the neck (that's how you pick them up and move them -- trust me). But he wasn't Haitian and he was in a completely different town.

Two geese were shot and killed. By a white guy on a golf course riding a lawn mower. Geese are pests in Springfield, and is legal to just kill them during a certain period each year. It wasn't legal when he did it.

Before Vance started making claims about the Haitians in Springfield, one his staffers contacted the city and was told there was no evidence that Haitians were kidnapping and eating pets. Vance made the claim that day anyway. He said that the Haitians were there illegally, which was totally false. He implied that the Biden administration dumped the Haitians in Springfield, which they didn't. And even after confronted with the evidence, both continued to insist their claims were true. Vance ended up waffling a little, but he pivoted to "I'm not going to say they're legal," which is kinda counterfactual.

In the meantime, the MAGA telephone warriors flooded Springfield with threats, including bomb threats, that resulted in closure of government buildings, and, if I recall correctly, at least one school. Haitians received death threats. And Trump eventually said that he would kick the Haitians out on day one, apparently for not doing what Trump claimed they had done.

So, yeah, Trump, Vance and other Republican leaders are scapegoating migrants for problems that either don't exist or are widely exaggerated that migrants aren't, in any event, causing. Moral panic and scapegoating.

Thanks so much for taking the time to post such a lengthy response to my request. As usual, you are quite generous!

My great-grandfather from my dad's side came here from Lebanon. In addition, I am 100% confident that I can ask you something without being concerned that you would not give me the benefit of the doubt.

Why don't you use the term illegal immigrant? (I have noticed this from others as well and don't quite get it)

Thanks again for taking the time that you did.

[Kishkumen]

There's a bunch of inside baseball that comes into play here. In oversimplified terms, the left is composed of three groups. I'll call them the institutional left, the economic left, and the social justice left. The institutional left are the DNC democrats (think Hillary Clinton), the economic justice left (think Bernie Sanders) and the social justice left (think ... I'm not sure they have a major candidate). Each group has its own "purity" faction that tries to police the boundaries between the good guys and the bad guys.

These factions do not play nicely with each other. The different candidates supported by these factions in 2008 (Obama v. Clinton) and 2016 (Sanders v. Clinton) created angry, ugly, bitter rifts within the left. The economic justice group really, really, really, really hates Clinton because she represents the capture of the democratic party by big corporations. The institutional and social justice left went at each other hammer and tongs in 2008 because Obama jumped the queue and cut in line in front of Clinton. But the war in 2016 was uber nasty. While Clinton wasn't a social justice warrior by any stretch of the imagination, the social justice faction tended to back Clinton because of the historic ties between the institutional democratic party and racial minorities. So, not only were the "Bernie Bros" extremely hostile and antagonistic toward the institutional Democrats, they directed some of their venom at the social justice wing.

The Young Turks, and Kasparian in particular came out of economic justice wing. They were brash, they were loud, they were aggressive, and to that extent, they were the smashmouth left voices that were appealing to lots of folks -- at least when they trained their guns on the right. I read a bunch of Kasparian's posts over time, and she is absolute death on Clinton.

I've never been a fan of the Young Turks. I tend to hang out at the Daily Kos, which is site established to elect (1) more; and (2) better Democrats. In 2008, the Hillary backers got so angry about the Obama backer, they packed up and left the site. Most eventually came back after the general election. 2016 was even nastier, with the Sanders backers leaving the site. I don't think the return rate was as high. Cenk used to be active at Daily Kos. He left there when the Young Turks were formed.

Among the economic justice faction, social justice issues are pretty sus. Which brings us to Ms. Kasparian. The left can ignore these internal divisions as long as the big guns are trained on the right. The incident with the attack by the homeless person seems to have been something that played out internally at TYT. But the tweet referred in the OP isn't about that at all. What happened was Ms. Kasparian started to take shots at transgender activists and people. There wasn't just one tweet -- there were several. One was in response to some transgender activists who occupied or blocked someone's office. She posted a Xit chiding them and claiming that black people never acted that rude during the civil rights era. She was lambasted on X because she was flat wrong. Next, she Xeeted that "they" had lied about puberty blockers being reversible. That is also flat out wrong. Anti-trans groups had misrepresented "reversible" as meaning "without side effects." That wasn't what medical professionals meant, but it was grounds for still more anti-trans hysteria over the decisions other parents made for their children. (Funny that the same people become apoplectic over the notion that someone else gets to decide whether their child gets a measles shot.) Finally, she put a belligerent statement in her profile to the effect of "Don't ever call me a person with a uterus. I am a woman." I couldn't find any reference to anyone actually calling her a person with a uterus, but sticking it in one's profile like a declaration of war is pretty over the top. I live in a liberal area of the country and spend lots of time in a community that is trans friendly, and I've never heard a trans woman insist on being called "person with a uterus." Woman works just fine, thank you very much.

The U,S. is pretty scary right now for trans folks. It's not quite as bad for them as is for immigrants (at least the non-white ones), but they are being both scapegoated and made the targets of a moral panic. They are explicitly made targets in Project 2025 of the right's culture war. Not surprisingly, people react strongly when someone with a microphone that they thought was on their side starts taking shots at them. I imagine the responses on X were pretty brutal. By the same token, given the cesspool that X has become, "people were mean to me on X" sounds like something a Young Turk should be able to handle.

Part of my reaction is live by the sword, die by the sword. Or at least expect a few cuts. Part of this is my typical frustration is purity movements that eat their own. Part of me is the usual skepticism over a story in which the protagonist was savaged for doing nothing wrong. It's always more complicated. Part of me thinks that relabeling oneself as an independent is probably a positive thing. Part of me despairs that we've lost some of civility glue that binds societies together forever.

Most of me thinks I have bigger fish to fry. People were horrible to me on social media = dog bites man.

Thanks for that informed perspective, RI!

[Res Ipsa]

You’re welcome. There’s a reason why some of us say: “I’m not a member of any organized political party — I’m a Democrat.

[Kishkumen]

By the way, I sometimes watch Ana Kasparian. I used to watch Cenk more, but I almost tune him out because of his fierce anger. I am more of an economic justice kind of person, but it is disappointing to me that Kasparian would go out of her way to be rude or hurtful about transgender people.