You picked a fight with who?
You think you're fighting transgendered athletes. But in reality, you picked a fight with Maine.
Earlier today, The Current administration sued my home state of Maine for not complying with the government’s push to ban transgender athletes in sports, escalating a dispute over whether the state is abiding by a federal law be allowing two (yes, 2) transgendered athletes to compete in sports.
But regardless of where you stand on the issue of whether transgendered individuals should be allowed to participate in a sport of their identified gender, the government is threatening to pull $150M from our entire state’s education budget to make a political point.
Yes, that’s right: They are targeting kids.
But this shouldn’t be too surprising, because bullies love targeting the weak and powerless. After all, it seems like an easy win, an easy and public demonstration of their power, like a schoolyard bully doling out wedgies. And bullies are hollow and insecure and insist on dominating any person who dares speak against them. Our president is doing it to law firms, universities, libraries, and nonprofits, and now, he’s doing it to an entire state.
But in my experience, bullies tend to overplay their hands, just like yellow-eyed Scut Farcas in A Christmas Story. But our Bully in Chief isn’t picking his typical targets: Shallow, $1,500 an hour lawyers or New York-based Ivy League academics. He’s not picking on scared immigrants by declaring a national emergency and calling them violent criminals and taking them to El Salvadoran prisons. Instead, he’s picking on every parent and child in Maine. He’s threatening to take away resources from kids, their schools, and their parents.
He’s saying, in effect: “I am going to hurt all Maine kids because I don’t like that your Governor stood up to me to my face.” (BTW, that was kinda baller)
And what kind of person does that?
Because when most people think about school, they see joy and potential, not a place to gain political leverage or exact revenge. Going after SCHOOLS isn’t leadership. It’s cruelty masquerading as policy. It’s a legal maneuver hiding complete moral bankruptcy.
It should be our job as citizens to support and encourage children at every stage of their development and provide them with examples of how to live, engage, and learn in a modern society. Our purpose is to educate them and help them see a world that feels safe and full of possibility.
It is not a place that should be teaching blind conformity to a movement led by a draft dodger who bankrupted six companies, cheated on his pregnant wife with an adult movie star, and was convicted of multiple felonies for cooking his books.
(Sorry, that just sorta slipped out.)
And if we let ourselves lose sight of that, or worse: justify it, we’ve completely lost our moral compass.
Ugh. What a mess.
And for a while, I felt pretty distraught about this situation and sad about the kids caught in this absurd national crossfire. But then I realized something beautiful: This administration has picked a fight with the wrong people: He’s messing with Maine.
And there’s nobody more headstrong, stubborn, or bully-proof than a Mainer. Nobody embodies the values of family, community, honor, and integrity like a Mainer. And Nobody can wait out a winter like a Mainer.
And Janet Mills, our badass Governor, happens to be a lifelong Mainer.
So fret not, folks. Maybe even sit back and pour yourself a Moxie. Because any person who buys a resort in Florida because he’s too soft for winter ain’t gonna win a fight with Mainers.
Besides: Maine ain’t got no use for a bully flatlander.
Ayuh.