Marvelous! This article is one of the rare ones. It doesn’t tell me anything I did l didn’t already know, but explains it in a way that makes the pieces fit together with a satisfying snap.

Like, trans rights. If the moral legitimacy of the trans cause comes from their status as an oppressed group, then advocating for them necessarily means criticizing the American system, which I think is what a lot of people react negatively to. (Think about the appeal of the other guy’s slogan.) As another commentator I read said years ago, we should appeal to traditional leave-us-alone conservatism, and cast it as the American ideal that we protect them because they are citizens deserving freedom like anybody else, and doing so is what makes our country great.

But, bigger picture, the idea of learned helplessness really resonates.