A leftie friend bawled me out yesterday for saying that the ’24 presidential race would be more stimulating and issue-oriented if Joe Biden were to run against Vivek Ramaswamy rather than Orange Plague. I was flat-out told to rescind my endorsement of the guy.

Response: “One, I didn’t endorse him. I merely said that, in theory, the ‘24 campaign would be much more substantial and thoughtful if Biden were to run against Vivek than that sociopathic, mouth-breathing animal from Mar a Lago. VR won’t get within 100 miles of the Republican nomination, of course, but it would make for a smarter, more philosophical battle if he was the Republican candidate. Trump vs. Biden will be awful, grotesque. Would you honestly like to see Trump run against Joe? Please.”

I said that anyone who questions climate science simply hasn’t paid attention, but I did add that I feel a certain allegiance with Ramaswamy’s anti-woke rhetoric, particularly in the arena of radical trans ideology.

“Having a granddaughter wakes you up to this stuff,” I wrote. “It’s no longer a conceptual thing for doctors and psychological specialists to recommend hormone blockers or even biological mutilation with kids who’ve expressed a certain ambiguity or anxiety about their gender…it makes you realize that radical gender ideology is more specific and real-deal when you have a granddaughter who may come under their influence in a dozen years.

“I think that some trans activists have crossed the line in some ways,” I said. “I think kids should be left the hell alone until they’re 18 or whatever. Some would say gender is a spectrum and nobody’s one thing or the other and that alleged gender dysphoria has nothing to do with social peer pressure. Well, I think it does have something to do with peer pressure in some cases.”

Bill Maher: “If this spike in trans children is all natural, then why is it regional? Either Ohio is shaming them or California is creating them. It wasn’t that long ago when adults asked kids ‘what do you want to be when you grow up?’ They meant ‘what profession?'”

HE: “Some would further say it’s healthy and liberating for drag performers to perform for grade-school kids. I’m of two minds about this. On one hand it’s obviously fun and harmless but on the other hand I’m thinking ‘fuck those guys for trying to mold kids while they’re soft clay.’ Hence my allegiance with guys like Vivek. I don’t agree with him in many respects, but from where I’m standing he strikes me as relatively sane.”

In response to which the leftie pally said “how conservative have you become over the last couple of years?”

HE response: “I’m not a rightie at all. I’m a center-left moderate. It’s the crazy left that has gone over the waterfall. Okay, I’m a little more conservative these days, sure, but so are you. I was a good leftie for many decades, but then the woke crazies muscled their way in around ’16 or ’17, and now old-school lefties are being accused of being righties. It’s not me — it’s the woke crazies who’ve injected crazy serum and changed the political spectrum.

“Is it rightwing to believe that guys having babies is a bizarre detour and more than a little nutso? Is it rightwing to generally favor meritocracy over equity? Is it rightwing to believe that not each and every white male in the workplace is necessarily sexist and evil and deserving of punishment or censure or being told to sit in the back of the bus? Is it rightwing to believe that bio-women should compete against other bio-women in sports, and that women competing against six-foot-four trans guys isn’t fair? Is it rightwing to believe, as humanity has believed for countless centuries, that in the vast majority of cases XX and XY chromosones naturally determine gender, and that for the most part roosters are roosters and hens are hens? Is it rightwing to believe in free speech and against moderates or sane conservatives getting shouted down by the woke mob on college campuses? Is it rightwing to believe that obesity is a bad thing, health-wise, and that the example of people like Lizzo is not a positive one as far as impressionable kids are concerned?”