OF COURSE there are many men, and many women, who will not vote for a woman. Just because many men are not sexist does not mean that all men are not sexist. The failure of progressives to understand simple trends like this is a reason to be very pessimistic about American politics.
That may be the case. However, I believe it is exaggerated for one, and also compensated for by those who would vote for a woman because she is a woman.
What is definitely not the case is the simplistic notion that if one does not vote for a particular female candidate, one must have a problem with women qua women. No. All candidates, male and female alike, need to earn the votes of their constituents. They do not "deserve" a vote because they have the right genitalia, the right skin color or because "it's their turn".
I think that is the failure of fauxgressives. Playing the gender (and race) card as a default response.
For the record, I plan to vote for Stacey Abrams in November. But I do not think it is necessarily "sexism" if somebody decides differently. Even if they are black.
A cretinous sociopath won the election of 2016 . . . because his opponent was a woman.
Wrong. He won for many reasons:
- the woman in question was a bad candidate who ran a bad campaign. She should not have been offered as heiress apparent. For one, the Hillary campaign largely ignored the mid-Western states that they mistakenly thought of as a nigh-impenetrable
"firewall".
- Trump's economic populism in part resonated with the same "forgotten" people addressed by Bernie's campaign. The bad feelings between the Bernie and Hillary camp played into his hands.
- The series of violent #BLM riots that started in 2014 continued through 2016 - for example Milwaukee in August and Charlotte in September. Note that Trump carried both Wisconsin and North Carolina. This was the first time Wisconsin turned red since 1984. Yes, even Dukakis managed to carry it. At the same time, Democratic campaigns embarrassed themselves with their ineffectual responses to #BLM disruption.
Btw, Hillary was right about "bringing them to heel".
- Trump had not yet shown how incompetent he was. He could not even delegate to a competent team.
Despite the gross stupidity and even treason on display during four years his base LOVED everything that he was doing, and he had the normal incumbent's advanatage. Yet he lost in 2020 . . . Why? He lost to a man, even an old easily parodied man.
For all his faults, Biden >> Hillary. He is a better politician, a better communicator. And he ran a better campaign.
But also, by 2020 we have all gotten to know Trump a lot better. And there was this little pandemic that year too.
To try to reduce the 2016 and 2020 outcomes to the genitalia of Trump's opponent is just silly.
Nikki Haley is the GOPster who could coast to victory in 2024, yet the QOP is divided between two sociopathic bigots, both male.
That is the failure of the partisan primary system. Nikki Haley would be a great general election candidate, and at least a decent president I think, but she is doomed in the partisan primary. As are many male more moderate Republicans. Again, genitalia are not the reason.
Consider Speaker Nancy Pelosi. She's a fine woman but sounds like the Antichrist if you read Fake-News. Speaker Hastert was an acknowledged child rapist but never got the bad press Pelosi gets.
Maybe because the allegations of sex abuse were not made until well after he left his speakership.
And of course a conservative outlet will be more favorable to a R speaker than a D one. Just like MSNBC is more favorable to Pelosi than any of the R speakers. Again, you have not shown that it is about the sex.
Elizabeth Warren is a fine woman, very popular, who should be a great candidate. Yet she doesn't get many votes. Guess why?
Are you sure she is "very popular" outside a rather narrow slice of the electorate? People don't like her, not even in her own state (where she finished 3rd). There are unlikable male politicians too.
Warren has a schoolmarmy demeanor, and has scored some own goals (like the DNA test). Her scorched earth, personal destruction vendetta against Bloomberg left a very bad taste in my mouth during that debate. I think Bloomberg was the better of the two "old white guys" running in 2020 and I wonder if Biden made some sort of deal with Fauxcahontas.
Warren also had the misfortune of having a much more likeable Bernie in her lane in the primary. Had she decided to run in 2016 she could have had that lane to herself, but she decided not to challenge a fellow woman, so Bernie stepped up. And understandably ran again in 2020 when Warren decided to run.
Sure, Palin, Boebert and others of that ilk attract support from fat old misogynists. They do it by holding and shooting guns in their campaign ads, their surrogate testicles.
So you acknowledge that women can be successful in the Republican Party, but of course you have to explain it with some pseudo-Freudian nonsense, because "Republicans are sexists" is an article of faith you do not want to give up.
Btw, you forgot the
notorious MTG.
Obviously, trends differ by time and place: AOC wins easily in a cosmopolitan city with young voters. Ten or fifteen years from now enough Baby Boomers will be dead that a woman or even a homosexual might be elected President.
I do not think it will take that long or that the Boomers are the chief obstacle. Had Hillary ran a better campaign (even down to that horrendous slogan!) she could have easily been the first female president even with a bunch of Boomers voting. Who the candidate is matters. "I am a woman, vote for me" is not enough, and neither should it be.
But we need to focus on the next few years, not the elections of the 2030's or '40's (if there will even be meaningful elections then).
Stacey Abrams, a black woman, almost became Governor of Georgia in 2018, and of course all right-thinking Americans hope she wins the rematch which is now just weeks away. Cross your fingers. But even if she wins, we need to remember that one counter-example does not disprove a major trend.
What is the major trend? There are plenty of female governors, three of them Republican btw.
Republicans are guilty of so many other election-related crimes that their tampering with balloting software/hardware goes almost unnoticed, for lack of a clear-cut "smoking gun."
Maybe you should write the attorney general and send him your binder of evidence ...
