Governor Andy Beshear (D-KY) said Wednesday on CNN’s “News Central” that Republicans anti-trans political ads were an example of “anger politics.”
Anchor Jake Tapper said, “You said this PAC is about supporting candidates who push back against the national trend of anger politics and division, and I wonder how you define, anger politics and division.”
Beshear said, “Anger politics is about trying to turn one American against another. It is wrong whether it’s under my faith, values and morals and it is just wrong to divide our country in a way to just try to get a few more votes for anybody with this or that letter behind their name. You look at attacks on groups of people, kids and you look at attacks based on any three-letter acronym that seems to be out there. It’s this attempt to rile people up and not necessarily even of someone running for office and a group of other people in this country. I think that’s a threat to who we are and certainly violates that Golden Rule that we love our neighbor as ourselves and that parable of the Good Samaritan that said everyone is our neighbor? I know in my race and that’s just here in Kentucky, that we saw every angry, nasty, scapegoating hate-based ad that you can ask for and what did we do, we pushed back with compassion and with empathy about standing up for the right things and we came out on top.”
Tapper said, “I’m just wondering like what is an example of a race where this kind of hate and anger politics was used?”
Beshear said, “The millions upon millions of anti-trans ads that we saw pitting young kids that are trying to find their way in this world that regardless of whether our different groups understand what it is, the idea that they would be repeatedly attacked, called names. A group that already struggles on the margins would see that type of negativity directed at it when we know it can increase risks of suicide it’s just wrong.”
He added, “That’s the type of anger politics that we see out there, and that’s not where we should be.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
COMMENTS
Please let us know if you're having issues with commenting.