So John Kasich is Speaking at the DNC
I’m a woman who uses Planned Parenthood in Ohio and I’m OK with this.
First, I want to preface this by saying if the backlash is too much for the DNC or Kasich and he withdraws or is withdrawn from speaking at the DNC, I’m not going to be mad about that.
Yes, Kasich is part of the culture of rolling back reproductive rights in Ohio. In 2012, he appointed Mike Gonidakis, president of the Ohio chapter of Right to Life to the Ohio State Medical Board. In 2017 Gonidakis was confirmed by our state legislature for a 2nd term, despite protests. And Kasich signed the bill in Ohio defunding Planned Parenthood. I want you to know I listened to the Ohio state legislature debate the bill defunding Planned Parenthood. As I heard the vote go down after the debating, I went outside of my workplace at the time and cried. I was so upset. I knew Kasich was going to sign the bill. Even if he was the type to veto it, the supermajority Religious Right who have taken over our state government thanks to extreme gerrymandering would have likely overturned his veto.
I use Planned Parenthood for my OB/GYN care. It started in 2009 when I first got on Medicaid for myself and my family after losing my job during the last recession. I still use it today even though I have better health insurance now. Planned Parenthood has provided the best care I’ve ever received for OB/GYN services. Once, there was a massive PP protest planned by an anti-choice group. I showed up to counter-protest as is my right. I used profanity on purpose to offend them. One of my signs said “Fuck your Theocracy”. Eventually, my vulgarity made one of the protesters call the cops on me. I was threatened with arrest for “disorderly conduct” even though nothing about my conduct went against the city ordinance in any way. I did leave without getting arrested, but I was pissed about the whole ordeal. I’ve cussed protesters out while showing up for my own appointments. They always assume I was there to get an abortion and not to get a routine pap smear or a check for a yeast infection. The Post Office is across the street and if there are any protesters out there while I’m dropping off mail, I condemn them to the hell they believe in.
I noticed the rage against Kasich is primarily being waged by white cis women and the language being used to protest his speech at the DNC is transphobic as hell. Not once did I see any person mention the way trans men are also harmed by anti-choice policies. Cis women aren’t the only people who can get pregnant. Enby and trans men can get pregnant also and need the services of Planned Parenthood.
I mention this because white cis women, even those who are in the Democratic Party, tend to be just as centering about their own opinions and circumstances as white men without consideration of anyone else’s perspective or even without consideration of the larger Democratic Party strategy for defeating Donald Trump in November. Allowing Trump to win in November is the way that all people who need reproductive care and who can get pregnant will be thrown under the bus. Not by allowing Kasich a speech slot at the DNC. Everyone else who thinks outside of themselves understand that we can dislike Kasich and hate the policies he pushed and signed for while Governor of Ohio while ALSO acknowledging that he isn’t cosigning fascism and if for no other reason than that, he’s willing to side with Democrats against a fascist Republican Party.
The idea that a speech by John Kasich is meant to only woo white people and no other work is being done for other demographics is just a flat out lie.
Who cares if he dreams of picking up the pieces of the Republican Party to create a new party devoid of its recent embrace of fascism? Who cares if he runs in 2024? He’s just another Republican we’re all going to vote against as Democrats. We’re going to do the oppo research on him and bring up all this awful shit he cosigned as governor against healthcare for people who can get pregnant. No one will care if he was one of the only Republican governors to expand Medicaid under the ACA when he did everything he could to deny important healthcare to a significant segment of the population.
However, Kasich IS different than many other Republicans in his party. While Lindsay Graham used to be known as a moderate Republic and who worked across the aisle to accomplish things is now Trump’s biggest cheerleader, Kasich has been against Trump since the 2016 primaries and he never did join his colleagues in unity behind the nominee. He has been one of the few Republicans to speak out consistently against Trump.
He welcomed political backlash for meeting with President Barack Obama about the TPP agreement and had this to say:
“I welcome the fact that people will criticize me for putting my country ahead of my party. It’s time we start doing this in this country. We are not a parliamentary system and we were never taught to hate people because they may be in a different political party,” Kasich said. “You know, when it comes to the president, he and I have a lot of disagreements. But there are areas that we can agree. If I can become somebody in the front that leads an effort for people to hear this and say you know what maybe he’s right, what would I do? Shrink? Go hide somewhere? That’s not who I am.” (Politico, 2016).
Furthermore, he had the chance to sign the famed “Heart Beat Bill” that passed the Ohio legislature in 2018. He vetoed that bill and the Ohio Senate was only one vote shy of overturning his veto.
Speaking of Ohio’s legislature — that is the branch of our state government that is the most broken. Ohio tends to vote for conservative but not extremist governors. However, the legislature is another story. Thanks to gerrymandering, the Religious Right has effectively taken control of Ohio. Note Kasich’s veto of the “Heart Beat Bill” was saved by only one vote.
Even now, Ohio’s extremist Republican legislature is threatening to make it so that no one in the state can order a mask mandate without their explicit approval, putting them at odds with our worse than Kasich but not quite as bad as them governor, Mike DeWine. So while people outside of Ohio like to point to the governor as the purveyor of all horrible things that happen in this state, it’s not quite the truth. Obviously, the Democrats who live here would love to see our governors have more of a spine and stand up to the legislature, but they don’t. Our one Democratic governor in decades, Ted Strickland, only lasted one term. Part of that was the unfortunate timing of being governor during the last recession and part of it was him being obstructed by a Republican super-majority legislature. I mention all this because I need those who don’t live here to understand what it is we’re truly dealing with in this state. It’s a battle Democrats here have to fight every day just for having the audacity of existing and living here.
But back to Kasich specifically and his DNC speech.
Some of the fears I’ve seen expressed about his speech go outside of just protesting his anti-abortion stance while governor here. Some people think giving him a speech means he’s going to influence our party, that we’re pandering to racist Republican white people, and we’re throwing everyone who isn’t a white person under the bus.
None of this is true.
Joe Biden is running the most progressive platform in the history of the DNC. Before him, Hillary Clinton held that honor in 2016. Kasich’s presence will not change any of that. John Kasich is not being given any influence in our party. He’s not going to help write our platform. He’s not joining any of our committees. He’s not going to be having any say or vote in our processes or policies. Inviting him to a speech doesn’t mean we’re now in bed with him.
It’s not good enough that we beat Trump in November by a slim margin. We need to figuratively kick his teeth in.
We’re also not pandering to Trumpers. I have always been against pandering to Trumpers and trying to appeal to their humanity they’ve long thrown away. Someone might be able to deprogram their racism and cult worship of Trump, but that person is not me and that person is not Joe Biden. Pandering to them would be showing up on town halls with Fox News like Bernie Sanders did (while trashing both Clinton and Biden while there, by the way). Pandering to Trumpers would be Bernie Sanders embracing the endorsement of Joe Rogan who has a habit of giving actual Nazis a platform on his show. In fact, Bernie Sanders has attacked Democrats more than John Kasich has and Sanders is the one who tried to become the nominee of our party for president TWICE! Allowing Kasich a platform to speak to disaffected Trump voters is not the same as chasing racist voters who are happy with Trump. Disaffected Republicans are a group of people we SHOULD be spending at least some energy trying to get them to vote for Biden.
Disaffected Republicans are a group of people who didn’t believe us in 2016 when we tried to warn them about Trump, but they are listening now. They didn’t take him seriously before, but they are increasingly disproving of his handling of the pandemic and are not ok with his leanings towards fascism (they’re not quite where we are in recognizing it, but they’re now beginning to see what we’re talking about). Ohio itself voted for Kasich in the 2016 presidential primary.
In 2016 after Trump became the nominee, Trump signs were everywhere in rural Ohio. This year, it’s different. There are the die hard cult supporters who have their flags and signs. But there are fewer of them than four years ago. So much so, Ohio is suddenly being branded as a Battleground State again after the 2016 and 2018 elections had possibly signaled it as a solid red state. Trump is definitely losing ground in Ohio and Biden is spending ground game money here over 100 days before the election. Volunteers in the social media grassroots groups are asking canvassing veterans how to reach their neighbors, family, and friends on dumping Trump and switching to Biden. They are HUNGRY for turning the tide in this state.
Kasich is an important piece to that Ohio puzzle, despite what anyone else outside of this state says. Blue state Democrats need to stop lecturing Red state Democrats as if we don’t understand the issues or know what’s going on. We are the ones having to fight tooth and nail in our states to get and maintain our rights. It’s frankly a losing and disheartening battle much of the time. Many people still like John Kasich here, despite his record on reproductive healthcare. A speech by Kasich at one of the most watched televised events of the entire year may help grassroots volunteers convince voters here to reject Trump and vote for Biden. Getting Biden as president on the federal level will help the red state Democrat battles.
One of the arguments is that we’re not focused on overcoming voter suppression tactics, but that’s simply not true. Part of the grassroots ground game in this state is exactly doing whatever we can in a Republican controlled state to overcome voter suppression tactics, get people registered to vote, get them voting by mail and making sure they have access to vote. I am part of those efforts. I, and many other people, are spending most of our free time working for Joe Biden and the Democrats. The idea that a speech by John Kasich is meant to only woo white people and no other work is being done for other demographics is just a flat out lie.
I agree with the sediment voters need to send a strong mandate to Trump and the Republicans who have embraced him. It’s not good enough that we beat Trump in November by a slim margin. We need to figuratively kick his teeth in. It took a multi-pronged approach including cheating to defeat Hillary Clinton in 2016. Russia is still involved in our elections with propaganda and disinformation besides whatever dark money they’re still pouring in thanks to Citizens United. It’s going to take a multi-pronged attack to defeat Trump this year. This involves a strong ground game, fighting voter suppression however we can, getting people registered to vote, making sure they have access, getting people to vote by mail, and Kasich getting up on stage at the DNC to speak to whatever disaffected Republicans to make his case to why they should cast their vote for Joe Biden. We want total humiliation for Trump, Mitch McConnell, and Vladamir Putin.
I can make space for disliking John Kasich and all he has done to me and my fellow Ohio citizens and also appreciate his anti-Trump stance and lending his influence to help Biden win.
