Chelsea Manning, former soldier, nearly convicted of treason, announced over the weekend he is running for U.S. Senate in Maryland. That Manning believes himself to be qualified at all for the position, aside from what he would do once he got there, is as appalling as it is absurd and shows how entitled this generation of transgender advocates have become. (Because Manning was born male, and language is vital, and referring to him as a she is a deliberate denial of biological reality, I will refer to him with the male pronoun).
Manning, before he transitioned from male to female, was known most infamously for being a traitor, not a transgender superstar. As many might recall, Manning was a subpar soldier who betrayed his country, disclosing to WikiLeaks, illegally, nearly 750,000 classified or sensitive military documents. He was charged with 22 offenses, including aiding the enemy, and was convicted of 17 of those charges. He was sentenced to 35 years in a maximum-security prison and only avoided that fate because former President Barack Obama took pity on him and commuted his sentence to seven years of confinement dating back to 2010.
Given that it’s only just now 2018, does anything about Manning so far seem to qualify him to run for public office? No? If anything, the odds seem stacked against him given his treasonous activity.
Didn’t @xychelsea already have a chance to serve this country honorably and fail? #askingforafriend
— Dakota Meyer (@Dakota_Meyer) January 15, 2018
Still, Manning’s running for office, not because of his military background, but his belief that he is special and entitled, because he is transgender. How do I know this? Immediately following sentencing, Manning revealed he had had a “female gender identity” since childhood, wanted to be known as Chelsea, and expressed a desire to start hormone replacement therapy. Strange timing, no?
From that point on, instead of letting him rot in a prison because of his treasonous behavior, he was given special attention and treatment related to his transition. Manning hounded the military he was serving to acquiesce to his various transgender-related demands via letters and lawsuits, from a legal name change and hormone therapy to dealing with requests to move Manning to various facilities because of his new identity. The army even agreed to do transition surgery, although it was not completed while he was in the military.
Somehow, a soldier convicted of treason was able to convince his superiors that his transition, a choice due to gender dysphoria, was of more note than his own awful behavior while in uniform.
Now, following that, Manning lives as a “free” person — a woman, at that — and instead of living a quiet life, full of regret for his behavior as a soldier, or at the least, some self-respect to stay mum about it, he parades around yammering about his new identity and wishes to be elected to public office. If that isn’t the height of what happens when you combine a psychological disorder with a keen ability to manipulate, I don’t know what is.
Manning’s political aspirations demonstrate with spot-on clarity how the transgender movement is not about equality, but entitlement. He truly believes he deserves a chance to run for office, not because he served in the military honorably, or because he is qualified in policy, but because he has conquered the greatest social justice crisis of our time — transitioning from one gender to another. This does not only demonstrate a fake kind of courage and qualification for any duty, let alone public office, but one that disregards the reason the country recognizes his name in the first place — being convicted of treason.
Manning is the worst kind of public servant: When he was one, he betrayed his country. When he was freed, he became indignant and self-focused. Now that he’s transgender, he’s entitled to do anything, including attempt to serve the public again.
Nicole Russell is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. She is a journalist in Washington, D.C., who previously worked in Republican politics in Minnesota. She was the 2010 recipient of the American Spectator’s Young Journalist Award.
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