It can't really be ignored, but it can't be put on the forefront of the election either. Which is part of the Democratic dilemma.
The GOP has one base. The Trump base. Well, that's not ENTIRELY true. The base consists of three sub-groups; the MAGA crowd (who feels culturally diminishment and is all about lashing out + hardliners on immigration), the white evangelicals (who want to remake the judiciary) and the donor class. (who want their tax cuts) But in practice it's still one base since none of the demands of these three sub-groups contradict the other subgroups'. The MAGA-base will accept tax cuts and Kavanaughs as long as they can have detention camps and a president who triggers the libs. The evangelicals will accept tax cuts and detention camps/tweet storms as long as they can have their judges. And the donor class will overlook the camps, cofveve's and Kavanaughs as long as they get their tax cuts.
The Democratic party has two bases. The Biden base and the AOC base. Both are needed to win the election. Both are deeply offended by Trump, but neither one can be exclusively catered to. Unlike the Republican base, these two camps don't fit as neatly together. The AOC base is this place. The Biden base consists, among other sub-groups, of older black and latino voters who are rather religious and more socially conservative than the "woke" base would probably prefer. This base, in the words of the author, is indeed not particularly interested in pronouns and the nitty gritty of gender identities.
Economic equality and efficient and well-functioning (non-corrupt) government is where these two bases overlap. Culture war issues and identity politics are where these two bases tend to have some friction. That's why Republicans will always try to steer the election towards that particular playing field. Because they don't have to do balancing acts there while Democrats do. Like all the other in-built advantages the GOP enjoys, it sucks, but it's political reality that none of the candidates can afford to ignore. What the author's saying is not "LGBTQ+ people suck and should get back in the closet". What he's saying is don't give the Republican Party too many openings to make the culture war the central pillar of the 2020 election because you have handicaps on that field that they don't and focussing on stomping out plutocracy and corruption allows you to take on the GOP without playing to their strengths.
The hot takes here about his homophobia tend to miss the fact that he's not entirely wrong about this aspect of the political environment.
He did actually. One of the ways he reeled the alt-right and MAGA-crowd in was by caricaturing the left as overreaching on the political correctness spectrum who send twitter mobs after everyone who doesn't mind his pronouns.
