Politics

This would-be Senator just can’t stop tweeting about transgender people

Josh Mandel
Josh Mandel Photo: Wikipedia

Ohio Republican Josh Mandel can’t stop obsessing about transgender people and pronouns. The perennial candidate and former state treasurer is making the issues two of his primary campaign issues.

Along the way, he’s managed to get in a middle-school style war of words with Rep. Ted Lieu (D-CA).

Related: Sarah Palin says she’s considering a run for the Senate “if God wants me to”

Mandel, who previously ran against incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-OH) in 2012 and lost, said he would run against Brown again in 2016 but dropped out when it was clear he wouldn’t win. This time around, he hopes to succeed Sen. Rob Portman (R-OH) who said he wouldn’t run for reelection.

Mandel is a Trump-style Republican full of bluster and far-right talking points littered with a fine dusting of racism and homophobia. In 2012, his own family wrote an op-ed denouncing him for rejecting his lesbian veteran cousin. He vocally and repeatedly denounced same-sex marriage and allowing LGBTQ people to serve in the military.

Mandel is the leading Republican in a crowded primary race that features the former head of the state party and a novelist as other potential candidates. That only makes it more peculiar that while enjoying his perch atop the pack, Mandel – who touts himself as a limited government candidate – is launching attacks on Ohio residents’ freedom to choose their own pronoun.

“I just saw they/them in someone’s bio. What in the world does that mean?” Mandel tweeted on July 21.

A few days later came, “There are only 2 genders. Science.” The day after that he tweeted: “Stop the insanity. There are only 2 genders. Boys. Girls.”

The next day came a meme with a Bible verse with “Male and Female. That is all.”

“Why is the CDC only reporting COVID data for males and females? The libs keep saying there are 23 other genders,” followed shortly after.

Adding his own brilliant commentary to Trump lawyer Jenna Ellis’s tweet that “trust the science” is “the new religious dogma of the left,” Mandel agreed.

“If they were so good at ‘science’ they would know the difference between a boy and a girl,” he wrote with his retweet.

But when Mandel posted one of his inane claims about Democrats who that he claims “hate America,” Rep. Leiu shot back with an apt jibe.

“The last letters in Democrat: RAT,” Mandel tweeted. “The last letters in Republican: I CAN. That should tell you everything you need to know.”

“This is the kind of smart, insightful observations coming from Republicans,” Lieu quipped with a retweet of Mandel’s schoolboy post.

Unable to respond with any intellectual heft to the Congressman, Mandel decided to attack people of color and the LGBTQ community.

“Libs definition of ‘insightful,'” he tweeted, include “Allowing 16-year-old boys in girls locker rooms, Teaching 8-year-olds that they can pick from 23 different genders, Dividing kids down racial lines, Prioritizing illegals over Americans, Praying at the altar of the CCP”

Users were quick to pick up Mandel’s juvenile response to Lieu, pointing out that the would-be power broker sounds more like a petulant teenager on social media than an actual political candidate.

“Dear Diary,” one user tweeted, mocking Mandel. “Today I fired back at @tedlieu. Really showed him. I just hope no one notices that I made up a bunch of random shit as filler for the tweet. I get so scared sometimes that even the MAGA rubes will see through me. Had to change my underwear TWICE yesterday. Long story.”

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