That old Razzle Dazzle…
Give ’em the old razzle dazzle
Razzle Dazzle ’em
Give ’em an act with lots of flash in it
And the reaction will be passionate
Give ’em the old hocus pocus
Bead and feather ’em
How can they see with sequins in their eyes?
- Billy Flynn, Chicago
These lyrics came to mind after reading through over 400 stories about Trump’s tweet on Wednesday banning transgender troops in the military. Keep in mind that this was only a tweet and nothing more, but it was enough to take the real story out of the headlines…the old razzle dazzle.
As I see it, the real story is the filing with the Justice Department a friend-of-the-court brief asking that LGBT not be included under Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. This prohibits employers from discriminating on the basis of sex, race, color, national origin and religion. The argument is should this protection apply to LGBT workers? Basically, a gay man was fired for being gay and he sued based on Title VII of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. Technically, this act does not grant protections based on sexuality, but this case is about whether it should. As this case winds through the courts, Trump has stuck his nose in this fight.
This only happened a few hours after the transgender tweet. Keep in mind that the DOJ filing took a lot of time to develop, but the tweet only took a few seconds to write…the old razzle dazzle.
I believe that the transgender tweet was timed to coincide with the filing at the DOJ. While Trump is a lot of things, I don’t believe he is stupid. Like with Billy Flynn in Chicago, he’s letting people obsess on a tweet while he goes after the real prize, dismantling the rights of the LGBT citizens.
And all that jazz…
Fortunately main stream media has caught on and are now reporting on this shell game.
I’ll be posting the stories under “POLICIES” along with other policy issues that impact the LGBT community throughout the day.
Thank you for reading.
Patrick
Great point and very thought-provoking. While I’m sure the tweets don’t feel like razzle-dazzle to those directly affected by them, they may prove to be a clever smoke-screen. Or maybe it’s simultaneous attacks on two fronts to overwhelm us. But we’re stronger than that!