Quarantine has left me too much time to spend on Twitter, and so I've spent too much time reading about "Karen." In general, some of the memes are funny, but it becomes apparent after a while that it's a dogpile. Yes, there is a "May I speak to the manager" type of woman, just as there is a "I'm going to lick doorknobs to own the libtards" type of man.
However, there's a deeper, unexamined level of misogyny at work. Reading this article about Ohio's health director Amy Acton drives home how much hatred there is of women with power. Ohio has done a great deal right in the time of Covid-19. Governor Mike DeWine is a Republican, and therefore the gun-toting yahoos can't really focus their ire on him, so they have shifted to Acton. Next door in Michigan, Gretchen Whitmer is a Democrat, so they focus on her. Some of that is simple partisanship. Republicans won't attack DeWine, so they attack Acton.
The problem is that you begin to get into a chicken and egg question. As Republicans become more and more hostile to women - especially impressively credentialed women in leadership roles - more and more college educated suburban women will become fixtures of the Democratic Party's leadership. That will lead to more hostility to women. Partisanship and misogyny will constantly amplify each other.
Motivated partisanship increasingly seems like the most powerful political force in America. The roughly 60% of Americans who are strong partisans increasingly take their cues from partisan messaging. Democrats have the advantage (and disadvantage) of basing a lot of their beliefs from evidence-based analysis: global warming, public health, inequality...etc. It's been interesting watching Never Trumpers in social media begin to embrace issues like global warming or institutional racism that they routinely ignored or downplayed when they were Republicans.
Now, Republicans are much more hierarchical in their thinking, so they tended to have to toe the line. It could be that Jennifer Rubin, Tom Nichols, Rick Wilson and Max Boot ALWAYS understood institutional racism and health care inequity, but their partisan loyalties made it impossible to admit that. Again, it's tough to tease out causality.
When we look back at the 2016 election, I really think Joe Biden (or even Martin O'Malley) could've beaten Trump. Hillary Clinton's original sin was being an intelligent, hardworking, professional woman of a certain age. When she was Secretary of State, she was among the most popular political figures in the country. When she had the temerity to ask to lead the country, she was smeared relentlessly. Even sympathetic voters called her shrill.
The Democratic primary field has degenerated to a few Sanders dead-enders attacking Biden and repeating the Tara Reade smear. But the primary as a whole saw incredibly accomplished and impressive women drop by the wayside. Gillibrand never got out of the gate. While Harris and Warren each had their moment, as they ascended to prominence they were taken down a notch.
A lot of that feels like a tactical choice, that in itself reveals implicit sexism. I'll admit to feeling a little of that. I loved Elizabeth Warren's policy platform, but I dreaded a repeat of 2016 where a "woman of a certain age" is systematically destroyed by the election process that is - let's face it - profoundly stupid and shallow. I gave money to Warren, Harris and Booker, but I worried about whether the American people would vote for a woman.
In many ways I remember hearing the same doubts raised about Obama in 2008. African Americans in particular worried that the greater public would never elect a black man. Fears about the Bradley Effect were widespread. In the end, he won comfortably and was re-elected comfortably. I don't know who the female Obama will be; we didn't really see Obama coming either. (If I had to guess, I think Harris has the best media presence and therefore the best shot at it.)
The GOP has one lever: white grievance. That's it. That's the sum totality of their electoral strength. Increasingly, that's white male grievance. I should note that there are many women who embrace and amplify this white, male grievance, hence the Karen memes. Every camo-clad, AR-15 toting freedumb fighter has an enraged woman at his side. If you are a reasonably intelligent, accomplished woman, you're going to feel increasingly that the GOP has no place for you. And as the Democratic Party becomes more and more a party led by women, the attacks on women by the Party of Grievance will only increase.
The GOP has locked itself into a feedback loop that will continue to alienate more and more segments of society. Non-Hispanic whites make up about 61% of the population, but that has been slowly declining over time. Trump is hoping he can rally those WWC votes one more time, but that requires further alienating women, Hispanics and Asians. In 2016, Trump won 6% of Black votes and 28% of Hispanics. While he won 54% of white votes, he LOST white voters with college degrees 38-55 and won white voters without college degrees 64-28. He won white women 47-45, but his support among black women was statistically irrelevant.
In 2018, white women split evenly 48-48 between Democrats and Republicans, this led to an overall gender gap of 59-40 in favor of Democrats. Breaking whites down by age and education the ONLY demographic Democrats won handily was college educated women. They barely lost among college educated white men and got crushed among non-college educated white men. Overall, college educated voters picked Democrats 53-39, whereas non-college voters split 49-49. Among whites, Democrats won college educated 53-45 and lost the non-college 61-37.
Since Trump can only play to his base, and he knows that his base in a seething mob of angry, heavily armed white men, we will see an increase in anti-woman, anti-minority rhetoric. This, in turn, will drive more and more women and minorities into the Democratic party.
When we say that the GOP is a death cult, we usually are referring to their embrace of widespread gun ownership and now their desire to open the economy prematurely.
It might also mean that they are a suicide cult.
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