MSNBC guest blasts GOP ‘witch hunt culture’ bills: Inflicting ‘trauma’ on young people
'The real threat is that it is fundamentally changing the government’s mechanisms and democracy in this country'
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}During the Friday episode of MSNBC’s The ReidOut, host Joy Reid and her guest Vice News reporter Paola Ramos slammed the "witch hunt culture" of Republican bills around the country to ban abortion, the promotion of critical race theory and gender and sexuality instruction to young children.
They began the discussion talking about recent abortion bills, including the Texas heartbeat bill and two Oklahoma bills recently passed by the state legislature, which Reid described as "turning citizens into bounty hunters with abortion providers in the crosshairs."
Ramos explained what she saw as the real threat from these bills: "The real threat is that it is fundamentally changing the government’s mechanisms and democracy in this country, right, because they are literally deputizing vigilantes, bounty hunters, extremists to take the law into their own hands."
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MSNBC’s Joy Reid
Ramos mentioned that this "bounty hunter" aspect has characterized not just abortion bills.
"A lot of these culture war bills - beyond just the abortion one, right, anti-trans, anti-LGBTQ, anti-CRT bills - at its core is, once again, many of them private citizens doing what typically is the state’s responsibility," she stated, claiming, "That’s exactly what’s happening in Florida with the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill. That’s what’s happening with the WOKE Act bill. It is encouraging parents to sue schools. That’s what happened with [Texas] Governor Abbott’s anti-transgender directive.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"You mandate citizens to report parents if they suspect that their transgender kids are taking these gender-affirming medical treatments," she said.
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A anti-abortion demonstrator protests in front of the Supreme Court building, on the day of hearing arguments in the Mississippi abortion rights case Dobbs v. Jackson Women's Health, in Washington, U.S., December 1, 2021. (REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst)
She declared this is the way that the GOP thinks it will keep control of the country: "That is the GOP understanding - that the only way to stop, what is in my eyes, inevitable, which is, this country becoming majority minority."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Reid remarked, "The irony is the previous time that this mechanism was used was the Fugitive Slave – the two Fugitive Slave Acts."
The segment then cut to an interview between Ramos and a trans teen telling her how they felt persecuted for their identity in their Texas community.
Members and supporters of the LGBTQ community attend the "Say Gay Anyway" rally in Miami Beach, Florida on March 13, 2022. - Florida's state senate on March 8 passed a controversial bill banning lessons on sexual orientation and gender identity in elementary schools, a step that critics complain will hurt the LGBTQ community. Opposition Democrats and LGBTQ rights activists have lobbied against what they call the "Don't Say Gay" law, which will affect kids in kindergarten through third grade, when they are eight or nine years old. (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA / AFP) (Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images)
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{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Ramos described the hardship of that teenager’s situation in dealing with the "vigilante bills."
"It goes beyond this witch hunt culture that is being created, right? It goes beyond these vigilante bills. The real crisis is the trauma that this is inflicting on young people," she said.