At a campaign rally in Wisconsin on Tuesday, Donald Trump decried President Biden for issuing a White House proclamation of March 31 as the annual Trans Day of Visibility, which this year happened to fall on Easter. “What the h— was Biden thinking when he declared Easter Sunday to be trans visibility day?” Trump complained, to loud boos from the audience. “Such total disrespect to Christians.”
The former president omitted that Biden has observed Trans Day of Visibility on the same day every year of his presidency, and the overlap with Easter was purely coincidental. Instead, Trump turned from stoking fears of Christian persecution to another campaign trail favorite: predicting his election victory. “November 5th is going to be called something else,” he said. “Christian visibility day, when Christians turn out in numbers that nobody has ever seen before.” The crowd reacted, of course, with raucous applause.
He is dangerously priming his voters for a repeat of his multipronged assault on the 2020 election results.
In the last few days, many GOP lawmakers and conservative figures have joined the ginned-up anger that trans people are getting special rights and recognition at the expense of Christians. But in linking “Christian visibility” to the election results, Trump is doing more than feeding into his base’s outrage of the week. He is dangerously priming his voters for a repeat of his multipronged assault on the 2020 election results and the peaceful transfer of power. After all, in the minds of Trump loyalists, if Christians (that is, Trump’s loyal base of white evangelical Christians) show up on Election Day in unprecedented numbers, how could he lose?
The crack-up over the coincidence of Easter and the Trans Day of Visibility was potent fodder. (Biden also issued a declaration recognizing March 31 as César Chávez Day, but somehow that escaped the right’s notice.) Trump backers called it “a slap in the face to all Christians in…
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