What do people care about?

According to a recent poll, not many care about abortion or trans-rights...

So nearly half of Americans (46%) see the economy (Inflation, cost of living, jobs, unemployment, wages) as the most important issue of 2024. Where to these Democratic talking points come into play?

• Both abortion and gender-affirming care for adults have widespread support. A majority of Americans (63%) think abortion should be legal in all (30%) or most (33%) cases, and more than half (57%) favor the rights of transgender adults to access gender-affirming care, though significantly fewer (39%) support gender-affirming care for minors. Most think that politicians are not informed enough about abortion (70%) and gender-affirming care for minors (72%) to create fair policies.

Interestingly, 70% of the public (including a majority of Democrats) feel that our politicians do not understand enough about abortion to create policy? Not really sure how that works, but it seems consistent with the fact that it is only the most important thing for 1 in 20. In the past election, it was considered a huge issue for a far larger percentage of the population (especially liberals). Looks like Democrats might not be in a position to have abortion save them in 2024.

Now the poll is a little deceptive in terms of defining widespread support for transgender rights. I don't believe that adults deciding to lop off their genitals is of much concern to much of anyone. Or at least it shouldn't be. Just don't provide tax payer dollars to pay for it and I think very few even list that as one of their concerns.

At issue is the second question raised where 39% support gender affirming care for minors. To drill into that question further, when polls are willing to address specific issues, the 39% would generally be people in favor of minors getting counseling or even psychiatric help. There is no poll (that I have seen) where nearly 40% approve of medications such as hormone treatments and puberty blocker, and the number of supporters crater when you start to talk about surgeries for minors. This poll lumped it all together which makes any answer difficult.

Personally I have no issues following the lead of many Scandinavian and some European countries where they restrict any gender counseling for children under 7 and where their first line of counseling after that is to affirm their natural (not identified) gender. I believe such counseling could provide a real benefit and seven is an age to at least talk about it (without encouraging it). But I am fully opposed to any medical treatments that would block puberty or create any long term health issues and I would never consider making transitioning surgery available to children? So how do I accurately answer that particular question? Beats me. I am not for all treatment, but also not opposed to certain treatment. At the end of the day, two thirds of the country would prefer our politicians either restrict, stay out of gender affirming care, or provide that it is not important enough to even give an opinion. Only 33% actually want our politicians to push more care for people who believe themselves to be trans-gender. Preaching to 33% is a losing proposition.

So the writing is on the wall in 2024. Unlike 2022 where abortion and other social issues dominated the landscape, the reality of a bad economy has pushed that focus into the background and I suspect that a Presidential race will fundamentally change what people care about when they enter the voting booth.