Democrat culture and kindergarten drag.

"Culture" is the set of institutions, ideas, and modes of thinking that are invisible until one finds themselves outside of them.

This post isn't about "introducing kindergartners to drag", it's about "culture".

Everyone reading this has some sense of "Republican culture". Neither Trump nor Vance nor any other major MAGA politician ever said the words, but the "Your body, my choice" rhetoric was 100% predictable after a Trump win. It's baked into the culture. Everyone reading this knows (I hope) that "Republican culture" exists, and informs the world-view and actions of its adherents... even if those adherents are unaware that they are living in such a culture.

I recently made the point that "introducing kindergartners to drag" is deeply embedded in "Democrat Culture". The responses have been split roughly between "Democrat Culture? There's no such thing!" and "You're just repeating MAGA talking points, you Nazi!". Simply respectfully objecting to introducing kindergartners to drag put me so far outside the pale that virtually every interlocutor assumed I was MAGA/Nazi/anti-LGBT, etc. One gentleman outright accused me of lying about having voted a straight-Democrat ticket in this election because it's simply not possible for someone who votes straight-Democrat to object to public classrooms introducing drag to kindergartners. One very nice woman told me outright that the only way I could believe such a thing was if I were seduced by MAGA talking points.

Folks, at the point where the general consensus is that it's not possible for a Democrat to object to kindergarten/drag, you have to concede that the progressive end of the party has allowed that issue (among many) to define what "Democrat" means.

Anyone who isn't aware of the narrow "progressive purity" gate has never stepped outside of progressive-Democrat culture. We just watched a true-blue Democrat congressman with a pro-LGBT voting record get accused of "hate" because he believes that sports should be sex-segregated, a view held by more than two-thirds of the electorate. He will almost certainly end up being primaried.

Democrat friends, the "progressive purity" set of values is well to the left of the median swing-state voter, and forcefully excluding people who may not hold to every single tenet of progressive orthodoxy both shrinks and weakens the party.

AOC has said that she thinks the Democratic Party has "too big of a tent". I believe the opposite.

I believe the Democratic Party will do better both at the ballot box and in terms of ability to govern when Democratic Culture puts aside "progressive purity" and embraces heterodoxy as a core value.