“Groomer” has become the fashionable charge to level against anyone who opposes Florida’s parental-rights bill. It’s counterproductive. And not because it isn’t super creepy to see so many liberals invested in ensuring prepubescent kids, trapped in state-run schools, are force-fed post-modern, pseudoscientific ideas about sexuality and transgenderism in direct contradiction of the wishes of their parents.
And it’s not because leftists, who habitually dehumanize and smear their opponents as racists, rapists, bigots, and nihilists, don’t deserve it. Just this week, the head of the DNC called a U.S. senator “a maggot-infested man.” We would be knee-deep in feigned outrage had this been aimed at a Democrat. Professional hysterics would be calling it “pre-genocide talk.” So please spare us the tone-policing.
And it’s not because the political frustration isn’t understandable. The entire “Don’t Say Gay” accusation is based on a lie, perpetuated by virtually every mass-media outlet. Democrats not only get to give their bills misleading names like “The Freedom to Vote Act” or “Build Back Better,” they get to misname Republican bills, too. Which must be nice.
Rather, the accusation is wrong because it isn’t really true. Most opponents of the bill, I’m sure, aren’t “grooming” kids for sexual acts. They simply don’t believe that parents should have a say in their kids’ education. They want to normalize half-baked identitarianism and gender ideology against the will of parents. That’s bad enough.
Though most of this “groomer” debate is very online, I also question its political efficacy. The pugilistic inclination among conservatives these days isn’t a bad one. You can’t bring a knife to gun fight, and so on. But, in this case, it makes little sense. Turning it to eleven on every issue has diminishing returns. It didn’t work for Democrats in Virginia. And it isn’t working in Florida. Why do some conservatives believe it will always work for them? Florida Republicans passed the parental-rights bill — a far more consequential victory, incidentally, than dunking on Twitter accounts — without using hyperbolic language. Every poll quoting the bill verbatim, or even framing it a halfway-honest way, finds overwhelming bipartisan support. “Groomer” is a distraction that allows progressives to stop defending the idea that kindergartners should be taught that there are 72 genders, and instead, make it about how Republicans think every teacher is a would-be pedophile.