Jack Butler writes for National Review Online about one high-profile Democrat’s interesting turn.
The Democrats’ ongoing electoral woes are clearly a serious crisis — for them. And Rahm Emanuel has never been one to let a crisis go to waste. Such occasions present “an opportunity to do things that you think you could not before,” he said shortly after Barack Obama, for whom he would serve as chief of staff, won the presidency in 2008 amid a recession.
For Emanuel of late, that has meant breaking from the orthodoxy transgender activists have imposed on the Democratic Party. He recently appeared on Megyn Kelly’s podcast. Kelly asked whether he thought boys should play in girls’ sports, whether men should be in women’s prisons, and, most pointedly, whether a man can become a woman. He responded “no” to each. Remarking on the ease of his answers, Kelly wondered why other Democrats struggled. “Because I’m now going to go into a witness protection plan,” Emanuel quipped.
Funny. But not exactly true. Outlets have begun reporting on Emanuel’s presidential ambitions. There is also almost certainly some opportunism in his recognition of this particular opportunity. But his quip conveyed some truth about the opprobrium he anticipates. Look at the headline Media Matters, which did something useful for once by transcribing the exchange, gave to it on its website: “‘Rahm Emanuel rejects trans identities in appearance with Megyn Kelly: ‘Can a man become a woman? No.’”
Consult also a rant by Substacker (and Media Matters alumnus) Parker Molloy, recently published by the New Republic. Molloy’s jeremiad correctly perceives that Emanuel has moved away from the left on this issue, is urging others to do the same, and is identifying it as a source of Democrats’ election loss. “We weren’t good on kitchen table issues or the family room. The only room we really did well in the house was the bathroom. And that’s the smallest room in the house.”
