Here are Trump's asshole tweets from earlier this morning:






First, about those tremendous medical costs:


Who knew the military spent nearly $100 million a year on boner pills? But now that we know: if we want to save on medical costs, it's guys with erectile dysfunction who shouldn't be allowed to serve, not trans men and women.

Trump was apparently consulting with his imaginary generals because the actual generals over at the Pentagon knew nothing about this:

The presidential announcement took the Defense Department by surprise. “The tweet was the first we heard about it,” said a defense official familiar with the matter.

This tweet storm from Jake Tapper is required reading, as is this tweet storm from author Sandra Mitchell.

Opposition to Trump's yanked-from-his-ass ban is coming from unexpected corners: John McCain, Orin Hatch, and Joni Ernst have all slammed it.

So if it's not about costs and the generals didn't want it... what's really going on here? Here's what a Trump administration official said:

"This forces Democrats in Rust Belt states like Ohio, Michigan, and Wisconsin to take complete ownership of this issue. How will blue collar voters in these states respond when senators up for re-election in 2018 like Debbie Stabenow are forced to make their opposition to this a key plank of their campaigns?"

So it's 2004 all over again. Attacking same-sex couples won George W. Bush a second term—and that sucked—but the campaign against same-sex marriage and the debates and op-eds and talking heads, etc., all of that noise and all of that arguing helped to shift public opinion in the direction of support for marriage equality. The shift wasn't big enough to prevent the losses we suffered in 2004, when same-sex marriage bans passed in 11 states (and the fundy voters who came to the polls helped put George W. Bush over the top). But this particular fight they picked in 2004—this battle they started—ultimately helped us win the war for marriage equality.

Josh Barro thinks this could be a winning issue for Democrats:

Polling from the Public Religion Research Institute in March found 53% of respondents oppose laws requiring transgender people to use restrooms that correspond with their sex at birth.

So, while President Donald Trump's choice to tweet plans of a ban on transgender military service may shore him up with social conservatives upset about his badgering of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, I don't think it puts him on the majority side of a national wedge issue, either.

As long as Democrats message this issue correctly, they do not have to worry about choosing between being right and being popular. The key is to keep the frame about inclusion and service: Allowing capable Americans who wish to serve their country in the military to so do.

Like he said:


The ACLU is already on the case.

And what he said:


But it's important to remember just how few LGBT supporters of Trump there are out there.