Democratic Governor Denounces Anti-trans Ads as ‘Anger Politics’

Kentucky's Beshear stands up for group who "struggles on the margins"

Kentucky Gov Andy Beshear struck back at the kinds of hate and political advertising against transgender Americans thrown around during last year's election in the Bluegrass State.

The ads failed, as the Democrat was handily reelected in a very red state. But, in a national appearance on CNN, Beshear denounced the hate of trying to use trans folks and their gender-affirming care as political wedge issues.

The Republican attacks, coming from groups backing Republican gubernatorial nominee Daniel Cameron and from the candidate himself, were meant to cut into Beshear’s popularity.

Instead, Beshear leans into his Christian faith.

“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,” he said during the interview with CNN’s Jake Tapper. “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,’” Beshear added. “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 asked, “I’m just wondering like what is an example of a race where this kind of hate and anger politics was used?”

“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,” Beshear replied. “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.”

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