Republican Tudor Dixon is currently losing the Michigan gubernatorial race to Democratic incumbent Gretchen Whitmer. The Real Clear Politics polling average so far is “LOL, go home, loser.”
She’s desperate, we get it, but when Republicans are in trouble, they normally dust off some Willie Horton-style race baiting. It’s a classic. Instead, Dixon has declared war on porn. That’s not how you win elections. She should consider an affirmatively pro-porn platform.
So, like most porn plots, how we even got here is weird. Last week, there was a collective freakout about some teacher training videos regarding LGBTQ issues. In one video, a trainer recommended ways that a teacher could discuss a student’s suicidal thoughts without directly outing their gender or sexual identity to their parents.
Dixon called the videos “sickening” and claimed the Michigan Department of Education was “instructing teachers how to help children sexually transition and recommending that teachers hide a child’s “chosen name and pronouns” from their parents, “even if their child is suicidal.”
PREVIOUSLY: Gretchen Whitmer Still Winning, Michigan Maybe Still Not Convinced ‘Tudor Dixon’ Is Real Name
Conservatives, who apparently were never personally children, assume that vulnerable students would still confide in teachers if they believed everything they shared would end up transcribed in detail for their parents. In their twisted minds, “groomer” teachers are actively turning kids queer.
Nonetheless, this looks bad and plays to the average voter’s concerns about supposed “parental rights.” No parent likes to feel like another adult has inserted themselves between them and their kids.
But, seriously, how did this escalate to porn raids?
Dixon claimed that “our own state agency is being weaponized to actively recruit our kids and advance their radical gender theory with zero input from parents.” She demanded that Whitmer “condemn this radical and dangerous nonsense,” and barely a day had passed before the Whitmer administration called on the Michigan Department of Education to “continue bringing parents’ perspectives into the work you do.”
Whitmer’s chief operating officer, Tricia Foster, straight-up denounced the training and sent a scorching letter to state Superintendent Michael Rice. She wrote, “We urge you to review your trainings to ensure they comply with all applicable regulations, maintain department guidelines, and are reflective of best practices.” (Dixon argues that this “doesn’t count” and Whitmer obviously “agrees with the radical sex and gender activists.”)
Rice defended the training because, as he wrote in a Monday op-ed for Bridge Michigan, “not all parents are supportive when they discover or are told that their child is gay or transgender.” However, I appreciate the counter-argument that bad parents could also abuse their kids or throw them out on the streets over a bad report card. Is there a reasonable line to draw that protects kids?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NLBmOpun60Myoutu.be
Pressing her advantage, Dixon asked Rice to resign at a press conference Tuesday outside the Michigan Department of Education. Sort of like the dialogue in porn, her remarks were awkward and weird before she even got around to actual porn.
DIXON: We have a school district like Muskegon bragging about how their new middle schools won’t have any boys or girls bathrooms, they’ll all be gender neutral. Imagine at such a critical age. Maybe you have a stomachache and you go to the bathroom, and your school crush walks in right after you, can we not have a little privacy for our children at such a critical age.
Gay kids already use the same bathroom as their “school crush.” Also, most gender neutral bathrooms are designed with individual stalls, so there’s still privacy. Boys and girls can probably handle washing their hands at the same sink
Dixon escalated her attack to gender-neutral school libraries. She vows that as governor she’d “make sure that we are not having children reading pornographic — or having a teacher read pornographic — material to a child in school.” Whatever, lady, if I’m ever governor of Oregon, I’ll look into making sure students aren’t riding unicorns in the hallways. Accidents can happen.
Dixon was asked how she’d define “pornography” and she kindly obliged! I imagine everyone high-fiving the reporter. The serious candidate for governor described pornography as “two naked people, and they are acting out a sexual act, and multiple different sexual acts.” This is Pat Boone-level porn. It’s so plain vanilla it’s not even double-fold.
How graphic does Dixon think the books in school libraries are? It’s likely she just assumes that any reference, no matter how subtle, to gay people fucking is “pornography.”
My official Wonkette source in Detroit says she hasn’t seen a single Dixon ad on TV. It’s all Big Gretch. Dixon had the chance to lead a news cycle but instead she made herself look ridiculous. “Parental rights” consistently polls better than “book burning.”
This was a dumb move, but I guess I can’t blame her for holding a grudge against porn. Her parents named her Tudor Dixon.
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