Illinois Republican candidate’s ad mocks feminists, trans people

Illinois Republicans sure have a fine couple of candidates on their hands: for Congress, they have a proud actual Nazi who calls the Holocaust “an international extortion racket”, and for the governor’s office, there’s current State Rep. Jeanne Ives, who just released this campaign ad that tells you everything you need to know about the sort of person she is:

Summary:

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Various actors portray people whom Illinois Gov. Bruce Rauner’s (R) policies have supposedly benefited. This includes a deep-voiced man in a dress that reveals chess hair thanking Rauner for “signing a^[sic] legislation that lets [them]^* use the girls’ bathroom”, and a “pussy hat”-wearing woman thanking him for “making all Illinois families pay for [her] abortions”. It also features an Antifa-like masked man who says Rauner “oppos[es] law enforcement” and made Illinois into “a sanctuary state for illegal immigrant criminals”, and a Black woman wearing a “Chicago Teachers Union” shirt saying he “ma[de] the rest of Illinois bail out Chicago teacher pensions”, amongst others.

This is Illinois, not Alabama, so the state’s top Republican official hurried to denounce the ad, calling on Ives to take it down and apologize. So naturally, Ives is defending it.

"What the commercial that is generating the expected hysteria from the expected quarters attempted to do — admittedly, provocatively — was to properly and truthfully characterize the extreme issue positions Rauner took and their implications. The commercial does not attack people. […]

The transgender man, that’s exactly what, typically, a transgender man looks like (groans in the audience). Sir, with all due respect, I’ve had them show up at my door, so ..."

I thought that hideous caricature was supposed to be of a trans woman? Ives can’t even keep her own prejudice straight.

Once again, you have the Republican Party trying to distance itself from a flaming bigot, yet they still haven’t figured out why flaming bigots keep flocking to their camp.

(via Friendly Atheist)

* I wavered on whether to use “her”, since it’s meant to be a trans woman, but I felt that would also legitimize the insulting caricature, so I went with a gender-neutral term instead.