I read an article this morning by an historian claiming that the level of anti-LGBTQ sentiment among Republican politicians these days is unprecedented since the Lavender Scare.

McCarthyism is perhaps a better comparison (in my mind) since the Lavender Scare was a particular subset of McCarthyism, and since McCarthyism was as racist as it was queerphobic.

The Republican Party of today is centering white, Christian-nationalist supremacy quite overtly and in ways that what probably been unimaginable even a few years ago. Trump got the ball rolling by normalizing and encouraging fringe voices on the right, and the fringe is now a respectable faction.

Saying the quiet racist part out loud is mainstream now, and so are calls to "eradicate" LGBTQ people.

Last week, Michael Knowles quoted Heinrich Himmler at CPAC, calling for such an eradication, replacing Himmler's "international Jewry" with "transgenderism" in a rallying cry to "eradicate transgenderism."

CPAC responded with roars and waves of applause.

Later, after commentators pointed out that Knowles lifted Himmler's speech practically word for word, neither CPAC organizers nor any of Knowles' mainstream Republican supporters called him out for it. (Many defended him on the absurd grounds that his very precise and unusual word choices were mere coincidence unrelated to Himmler's speech.)

That's where the War on Woke is right now. Influential Republicans are quoting literal Nazi leaders, and the Party is OK with that.