Fred Karger, the first openly LGBTQ+ candidate for president from a major political party, is still correcting the record regarding his legacy. And while he admits to being grumpy about this oversight on occasion, the 74-year-old pioneer who paved the way for Pete Buttigieg was pleased to play pundit, point fingers, and suggest the emerging “resistance” could actually harm the queer community when he spoke with LGBTQ Nation from his Laguna Beach, California, home following the election.
As a gay activist in the 2000s, Karger was known for his outspoken opposition to Prop 8, California’s anti-marriage equality amendment that was overturned by a federal court but only repealed by a ballot measure earlier this month.
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That was followed by his 2012 presidential campaign. As a Republican.
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But well before Karger was involved in politics, he made a splash on TV and may be best remembered by some for his appearance in a famous shaving cream commercial.
Today, Karger continues to enthusiastically support Buttigieg, whom he believes represents the next generation of leaders. Although he favored a Harris-Buttigieg ticket, Karger expressed disappointment that President Joe Biden dropped out of the race.
(“I did support Biden and went to, like, five or six fundraisers for Biden over the course of the four years. I felt so sorry for him. He got pushed out of the way and I thought he was just a good guy and very confident.”)
In his retirement, Karger carries on another one of his legacies, crashing parties of the nonpolitical kind.
LGBTQ Nation: You’ve been involved in politics for 40 years, including as an advisor to Republican presidents. Did you predict a second Donald Trump presidency? Or were you surprised?
Fred Karger: I was not surprised. About ten days probably before the election, I said, you know, 50-50 chance, which is what generally happens when it’s a presidential campaign and it’s down to the two nominees. But I don’t know, I just felt the Trump momentum and something going on. And then something I was involved with 42 years ago, the Bradley Effect, which happened in California, which was when Tom Bradley was running against George Deukmejian, who was our candidate for governor, and a lot of people were not honest with the pollsters.
And I think we saw that in 2016, certainly, and then in spades this time around, because, you know, there’s the “Trump embarrassment factor.” A lot of people were not honest with family members, and particularly, I think, if some nice pollster called. And so I just kind of felt something going on there, and it happened.
How do you think the policies of the incoming administration will impact the LGBTQ+ community?
Hard to say. You know, he was the only president to take office supporting gay marriage, which is kind of hard to believe, but, you know, he was, when he came in in 2017, a supporter. [Ed. note: Trump has never said he supported marriage equality but he has said he opposed it multiple times.] So he’s worked in New York, has a lot of, apparently, a lot of gay friends. I’m told by some people close to him he felt tremendous hurt during the AIDS crisis, lost a tremendous number of friends, Roy Cohn being certainly one.
[LGBTQ+ issues are] certainly not one of his top five priorities, and what he’s done, I think, [to] his base is that he’s gone aggressively after the transgender community. So the T part of the LGBTQ is, I think, in for a rough ride.
His appointments in his first term were pretty good as far as LGBTQ, or L-G-B-Q, I guess. He’s very unpredictable and this is just gonna be a completely different presidency as he’s gonna be in charge and not really listening to a lot of other voices in the room, is my guess. And he’s been there, done that, knows how to bring people into the administration, knows the world leaders and how to handle them and I don’t think he’s gonna be taking a lot of direction.
I think he’s gonna go with his instincts, which have served him well. You can’t deny the election results. I mean, it’s just unbelievable after the last four years, everything that’s transpired. How does somebody come back from one of 30 different major events that could just ruin a candidacy for anybody else? But he’s managed to survive and prosper.
I’ve been thinking about the rallying cry of the Harris campaign: We’re not going back. And this does feel like a setback for the LGBTQ+ community. What can we learn from pioneers like you about continuing the fight if this is a major setback? Especially for the trans community, for marriage equality, even.
You know, one of the things I’ve been very upset about is there are national LGBT organizations that are just so partisan. And the leadership there, it’s amateur hour. We’ve got a situation now that many of us have been talking about for years. And it’s happened before, where Republicans control not just one of the three branches, but really all three, including the Supreme Court and both houses of Congress, and the presidency. And where are these [LGBTQ+] leaders, these brilliant leaders that we put into place? It’s amateur hour.
They don’t understand that you’re not gonna have 2021 to 23, where we have the presidency and both houses. That changes. And so they have made themselves so partisan and such an enemy of Republicans. That little Log Cabin Republican club, I’ve known them a long time, but they’ve always been, you know, one or two people staff, as opposed to the $50 million annual budget—just the HRC, not even the educational fund—and $25 million [for] GLAAD. I mean, these mega, mega organizations that are just so naive, they don’t understand that there’s a two-party system.
And sure, the Democrats are far better and have been practically since the beginning. But the Republicans also have been good, a few of them.
Of course, everybody’s gonna do the resistance now. Well, that’s how the LGBTQ community can really get harmed. And so I think there’s some olive branches that need to be extended privately, quietly. There’s plenty of influential donors that are very LGBTQ supportive or LGBTQ. And, you know, those people have the president’s ear, many of them.
One of the reasons I ran for president as a Republican was because all the groups I met with and all the individuals and standing on the stage with Rick Santorum and Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich and all of the many of these, you know, awful people, six of whom had signed a constitutional amendment that year. I mean, a pledge to the National Organization for Marriage for a constitutional amendment they supported to ban same-sex marriage, and suddenly they’re meeting a gay Republican with good credentials, far more liberal than they, on the same stage, and I was pleasant to them.
So, you know, we gotta be in the room. And that’s what a lot of us have realized. And I think that the leadership of the LGBT community, they need to clean house, and they need to bring in people who are just not 100% partisan in their words and actions, because they need other people now to create relationships or have relationships.
I mean, [HRC executive director] Kelley Robinson, November 6, should have been meeting—which I doubt happened—with the head of the Log Cabin Republicans, if they would meet with her, because they are very close to Trump, and figure out how we can work with this administration for the next four years, and the House and the Senate.
And so that’s my beef. And I’ve been saying this for a long time. This is nothing new. One of the reasons I stayed in the Republican Party was to try and change it. I failed, and I left the party to vote for Pete, 2020, after 49 years.
Returning to marriage equality and Clarence Thomas’s statement about revisiting certain decisions such as Obergefell v. Hodges after overturning Roe v. Wade. You were a tireless advocate for defeating Prop 8 in California. Do you think Obergefell will be on the chopping block?
Well, I think it’s gonna certainly be up for discussion. I mean, we didn’t think Roe was gonna disappear, but it didn’t take long. So yeah, that Supreme Court, they’re not just conservatives, they’re religious fanatics. These are Catholics, uber Catholics, who take their orders from Rome.
There’s no doubt about it, and that’s what’s really upsetting. But again, Trump plays to his base, and the Heritage Foundation was crucial in those appointments, everything kind of yielded to them. And they’re very loyal to Trump, as we’re seeing and I’m sure many more are to come. So it’s frightening, and you got people like Clarence Thomas, who are very scary. But I think worse, or as bad, are these other, the new three Trump appointees.
In what ways are you involved in politics today? Do people call you for advice?
[Karger laughs]
I’m fairly toxic, Ellen.
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