In this week’s Rainbow Votes 2020, Xtra’s U.S. political correspondent Nico Lang takes a step back to survey what the heck has transpired over the past week: Trump has COVID-19, Ruth Bader Ginsburg could be replaced with the anti-LGBTQ2 Amy Coney Barrett and the first presidential debate became what national broadcasters called a dumpster fire.
Here’s what’s in store for this week’s Rainbow Votes 2020. (And remember: The Brief is just your sneak peek into our new U.S. election newsletter. Subscribe now to get the full version, featuring exclusive interviews, analysis and Q&As.)
Trump has COVID-19. Now what?
In his opening essay, Lang chronicles the last 72 hours in America: Watching the president fall ill and end up in hospital, only to use the illness to boast about what little threat COVID-19 poses. But Trump isn’t out of the woods yet—even if he plans photo-ops, sans mask, to suggest so. Lang looks at what comes next—and, yes, that still could mean a Pence presidency.
The uncertainty of LGBTQ2 rights
Lang also speaks to Jim Obergefell, the civil rights activist whose namesake case, Obergefell v. Hodges, legalized same-sex marriage in the country. Obergefell, though, is not optimistic about the state of queer and trans rights now that the Supreme Court could boast a conservative majority. “We’re supposed to move forward as a country,” he says. “We’re supposed to move toward that value of ‘we the people’ and ‘equal justice under law,’ but I feel like we’re going back to a time when ‘we the people’ only means some of the people.”
In support of mail-in voting
The Human Rights Campaign’s president Alphonso David pens a guest op-ed in this week’s Rainbow Votes on the importance of the mail-in vote especially for LGBTQ2 folks—and how the organization is fighting to get voters to the ballot box.
The moment
Credit: Yuri Gripas/ABACAPRESS.COM
Even if President Trump’s many machinations to game the election don’t work, it’s still unclear whether he will leave office. When asked to commit to a peaceful transfer of power, Trump declined to do so. He told reporters: “Well, we’ll have to see what happens.”
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