The Associated Press is pushing the mayoral campaign of Wheeling City Council member Rosemary Ketchum, the first openly transgender public official in West Virginia. While the press agency presents Ketchum as a nonpartisan figure focused on paving roads and other brass tacks local issues, he has a history of trashing Donald Trump on social media and executing far-left stunts in office.
The AP claims Ketchum’s focus is “address[ing] the community’s concerns, ranging from accessible public transit to support for small businesses,” and jabs at “GOP lawmakers’ focus on books bans and bathroom access.”
It concedes in passing that the City Council during Ketchum’s tenure declared racism a “public health crisis” in the midst of the Chinese coronavirus pandemic, however, and symbolically banned “conversion therapy” of homosexual and transgender persons.
As for Ketchum’s claimed rapport with Trump voters and people “uncomfortable” with “gender nonconformity,” the official has an extensive history of attacking Donald Trump and his supporters online.
Ketchum, who was transitioned as a minor, supported Trump’s impeachment, branded his administration “hateful, vicious, and dangerous,” and claimed his supporters lack “critical thinking skills, self-awareness, and empathy.” He also attacked First Lady Melania Trump as a “complicit, lying, birther” and pushed the hoax story alleging the former president called America’s First World War dead “losers.”
After then-President Trump excluded transgenders from the military in 2018, Ketchum penned an article demanding he be allowed to serve. However, two years later, believing war was a real possibility, he posted on social media celebrating the fact he could not be conscripted, with the hashtag #NoDraftPlease.
While in the whipsers of war, I want to remind Trump that I am transgender and therefore completely unfit to serve. 🤠#AwShucks #Phew #NoDraftPlease #UnitCohesion
— Rosemary Ketchum (@RosemaryKetchum) January 5, 2020
