Transcript: Nancy Mace Explodes in Fury after Dem’s Takedown Hits Home

Sargent: Well, I want to get at the cruelty dimension of this, because I think it’s really important. I want to point out that unless you had prompted that reaction from Mace, her long diatribe on the floor would have passed entirely unnoticed, at least outside of right-wing precincts, right? Mainstream media barely registers it anymore when people like Mace do things like this. It’s just treated as Republicans being Republicans, Nancy Mace being Nancy Mace. That strikes me as a real problem. She’s able to continually feed this stuff to her people—to her base and nationally as well—rile them up, fill them with hate, and nobody acts as a check on it. Can you talk about that problem?

Jacobs: Yeah. Look, we can’t let it go unchecked and we can’t normalize hatred. Now, we also know some of what she wants is the attention. And so sometimes it is strategic to just not give her that attention because that’s what she’s seeking. But I also think it’s important that we don’t let their narrative be the only narrative that’s out there because in many cases, it’s that people don’t really understand trans issues. They’ve never met an openly trans person, right? I totally understand why people have concerns and fears around this. That’s totally normal. The answer is not what Nancy Mace is doing. And if that’s the only argument they’re ever hearing, then it’s really dangerous for all of us.

Sargent: Well, that brings me to the Democratic Party. There is some debate inside the Democratic Party about how to deal with these issues. I want to get to that in a second, and first point out this. People may remember that Mallory McMorrow, a state legislator from Michigan a few years ago, got an immense amount of national attention because she erupted at a colleague over issues like these. I believe trans issues were central to why she erupted at them. And there was almost this hunger that was revealed among the Democratic base across the country for Democratic legislative officials to talk that way, to step up and defend trans people and all their vulnerable groups from this right-wing vitriol and hate. Do you sense that out there? And what’s your take on the debate among Democrats right now about how to talk about this stuff?