Gender Matters in This Year’s Election
As the campaigns are gathering up for their final output, I’ve started looking closer at the presidential contest. This past week I’ve watched part or all of campaign rallies in Georgia, Michigan, and Pennsylvania staged by both candidates.
As I'm writing this, I have Donald J Trump’s Madison Square Garden rally on in the background. It’s like a greatest hits version featuring his worst associates saying the most offensive things ever. It’s as if Trump has decided he’s not going to win at the ballot box and is preparing his supporters for Coup Attempt Version 2.
Trump’s identity is built around his manly marketing. If Harris was a man, this contest wouldn’t even be close. So gender matters. A lot. More than you might think.
What I feel is that VP Harris will win. I am also seeing a remarkable number of polls with down ballot Democrats winning by even larger margins than the top of the ticket. A lopsided win for Harris/Walz gives me the most hope that the future they envision might get closer. (It will still be incremental)
I also feel that the thing Republicans are all worked up about –voter fraud– fits into a pattern of being the thing that they accuse others of. It’s entirely possible the vote count won’t matter.
I’m not sure that post-election street protests are going to sway the billionaires providing a lion’s share of pro-Trump funding. Nothing matters to them but the opportunity to become heroes in their imagined dystopian/sci-fi novels.
Democrats have lined up a small army of lawyers, ready to duke it out in the courts–all it takes is one MAGA judge in the Fifth Circuit to get even the lost righteous case before the Supreme Court.
I have no idea of how this part will work out.
Back to the campaigns….
The absolute best speech came from Michelle Obama on Saturday in “Kamalazoo.” Damn, she was fire!, hitting both intellectual and emotional chords with an intensity worthy of being preserved for generations to come. She broke down women’s (oft unspoken) physical health, the realities of care, and the need for understanding/support from the men in the audience.
The nod for second best would be husband and ex-President Barack Obama in Atlanta. I couldn’t help but be impressed with his focus and ability to connect the dots. He was everybody’s favorite teacher/adjunct/professor, speaking easily on a tough subject. It was all so clear at the end.
Of course, both speeches began and ended with exhortations to support candidate Kamala Harris, and the elected officials needed to “turn the page.”
The power of crowds united in focus is something marvelous to experience. Religion and politics are different from culture and sports in their impact beyond the immediacy of the stage or field of play. Kamala and crew want observers to “do something” and have faith in a certain kind of future that’s inclusive and collaborative.
I also watched earlier Donald Trump rallies. The Donald is some twisted version of daddy, promising both security and retribution as the future. It doesn’t matter that he can’t put two sentences together, slurs his words, and is offensive. His smile, wave, and bombasity are the payoff.
MAGA rallies appeal to the mentality of the subjugated "little man" who craves authority and rebels against it at the same time. Trump is somehow a guy who beat the system and now shits in a gold toilet.
The content of speeches, the lies and distortions, the inevitable tardiness of the headliner also don’t matter for the faithful. Those who come for its entertainment value are increasingly leaving earlier. They mostly already know the messages and the get-togethers are just icing on the cake, and affirmation of their belief.
You could stand outside a Trump rally and offer instant salvation, wealth, and fame to those exiting and most would take a pass, others might take offense and display hostility at you. While MAGAs cult-like properties are obvious to outsiders, there are darker forces at play.
Fascism– the word that no right thinking mainstream politician was supposed to use has come out into the open. And it’s important for the future, no matter who wins the election, for non-believers to understand what lies ahead.
Fascism is not, as too many Americans are prone to assume, the same as dictatorship and or authoritarianism, although both describe facets of fascism. It’s also more than the old communist viewpoint as a condition of late-stage capitalism, or state directed corporatism.
At its root is the presumption, no matter how illusionary, of some people being better than others. And the first sorting in this view of humanity is Boys and Girls.
Superior people are entitled to lead, and those that follow dream of being rewarded. In other words, the ultimate state of being is thought of as being personal (and family by extension) fame and (hopefully) fortune.
All the culture war crap being peddled by Trumpies ends up at the place where patriarchy is restored as the supreme accomplishment of civilization. To deny the opportunity for fascism, we’ve got to resolve the damage caused by that first sorting of humans.
It's not enough to blame Hitler or the Nazis or any political party for the rise of fascism, we have to understand why millions of people have been, and continue to be, drawn to the very idea of such a movement –its mass character is what distinguishes fascism from simple authoritarianism.
Adhering to a point of view based on historical patriarchal structures in society, especially the father-dominated family prepares children to obey and even revere a harsh leader.
When a larger than life hero/leader/father figure emerges and capitalizes on fears and anxieties, then we’re wandering into fascism territory. The promise of rigid and authoritarian structures providing immediate relief from these inner anxieties in exchange for group validation is the secret sauce.
If you’ve ever had the experience of trying to argue "facts" with a Trump supporter, you know how fruitless it can be. Their positions are not dependent on facts; they are subjective beliefs based on being on the winning side of history.
The reason this presidential election is scarier than the last two is the coalition of the “haves” who stand ready to assist Dear Leader in running the country. In 2016, Trump thought he could run things on his own, with technical support from hierarchical organizations who would appreciate his supremacy. Chaos ensued.
In 2020, we had a pandemic election. The world we knew had been uprooted and it made sense to bring in an old hand to set the ship right. And he has, to an extent more than most people thought possible, returned some sense of normalcy.
The 2024 electoral vibe is about the future course we take as a nation. Project 2025 shows us that there is a game plan for the nuts and bolts of a takeover. As VP candidate Tim Walz says, if you’ve got a game plan, you’ll use it.
This past week’s rallies speak to that point. The only promises coming from the Trump side of the equation are wrapped in retribution, getting even with [insert bogeyman here].
Once he has the votes or the illusion of a victory, he doesn’t need the congregation anymore except for purposes of ego gratification and easy money. (Word is the campaign nets about half a million from each of these events.)
If Kamala Harris is as smart as I think she is, she won’t be making the same post-election mistake that President Obama made, namely failing to provide an avenue for public support for policies advocated on the campaign trail. When the Obama administration first rolled out the Affordable Care Act, they had no counterforce to the (largely Koch-funded) Tea Party.
The bullshit framing inclusive of “death panels” and rationed care got before the American people unchallenged, necessitating unforeseen compromises with the legislation, and planting the seeds for a political force essentially opposed to democracy.
My long view of a American politics is that questions of gender and class must be addressed if future elections are going to be more than Fascism: Yes or No?
Does this mean castrating men? Nope. It means opening up opportunities and co-opting the whiners.
The Democratic ticket can’t ignore the real challenges ahead connected to gender roles, post election. There are changes coming, dictated by nature, economic forces, and the profound alienation afflicting our youth. Who wants a suburban home, a job, and a sense of purpose when uncertainty dominates our world and previous standards are shown to be dangerous?
An entire generation already no longer automatically feels bound to traditional familial relationships, sexual identity, and the need for procreation. It’s no wonder that fear of Trans humans is part of the Republican closing argument in this campaign.
A declining birth rate is at the base of all the fear being drummed up about immigration. Will “they” replace the Caucasian majority? So the short-term solution is to round “them” up and make it difficult for women to avoid childbearing.
Fascism won’t go away until its foundational beliefs are challenged.
