Wednesday, August 26, 2020

Donald Trump gave LGBTQ Americans lots of broken promises. Anyone telling you different is a liar.

Richard Grenell thinks he can fool LGBTQ Americans into supporting Donald Trump.

On Wednesday night during the Republican National Convention, openly gay former diplomat and Trump pick Richard Grenell is going to make a argument that Trump is pro-gay. It's a continuance of a video in which Grenell anointed Trump as the most pro-gay president in American history.

As proof of this claim, Grenell is no doubt going to pull out some human rights initiative by the Trump Administration which sought to decriminalize homosexuality around the world.   As luck would have it, an article came out in Wednesday's edition of the Daily Beast which said this initiative was nothing more than "smoke and mirrors" and that it accomplished absolutely nothing.

I wish I were surprised.

No matter what Grenell might say, please don't be taken in. Donald Trump is not pro-gay NOR is he pro-LGBTQ. In fact, the method in which Trump has dogged LGBTQ Americans should be considered the epitome of how Trump has dogged America in general.

If there is any group who has been the prime victim of 'Trumpism,' it's LGBTQ Americans. You know what Trumpism is, don't you? It's the art of stabbing people in the back while trying to make them grateful that you're touching them in the first place. Perhaps Trump believes that we are into psychological sadomaschism. Either that or he thinks we're stupid. Or maybe highly forgetful.

LGBTQ Americans are none of those things, especially that last one. We seldom forget when we've been done wrong. It goes along with the measured cynicism we have. It's a quality which we, to paraphrase a line from All About Eve, acquired the day we realized how different we were from other little boys and girls.

And when it comes to four years under the Trump Administration, we not only don't forget. We've been taking notes. Many, many notes.

Allow me to be blunt. Anyone claiming that Donald Trump is even a little bit pro-gay is either delusional or a liar more concerned with his status than with the rights and safety of LGBTQ people. Allow me to be even more blunt. By unashamedly helping to create a false narrative that Trump is pro-gay,  it is obvious that the only community Grenell seems to care about is comprised of only himself and maybe whatever  barely legal twink he has managed to corral for a time. (yeah, I know it's a stereotype, but this is war).

LGBTQ Americans do not forget that while running for office in 2016, Trump sent us this tweet:




Nor do we forget that after he was elected, Donald Trump instead silently declared an unofficial war on us, including the following seen below: