We Need To Talk About Sexism In American Politics

 Paul Campos argues around a point about how it wasn't that Trump completely upended the map, so much as brought new voters into his camp. However, he also got a smaller share of the eligible voting population. He gained about 3,000,000 votes from 2020, and Harris lost about 5,000,000 and there were more non-voters this time - despite the pandemic presumably reducing the ability to vote.

I think the most obvious explanation is the anti-incumbent wave that has swept the Global North. That's a common thread across multiple countries.

However, we have to talk about the fact that Trump won more votes, and I think we have to acknowledge that sexism continues to play an ignored role. Harris ran a really good campaign, I thought. She moved to the center, she was charismatic, she destroyed him in the debate, her ads and rallies were great.

She lost votes from Biden's 2020 run.

Unlike parliamentary systems, where the leaders of parties are the leaders of parties, the leader of an American party is the president. (The problem Democrats will labor under is not having a "leader" until they have a nominee. Conversely, not having a "leader" means bad things will not be ascribed to Democrats.) To be a Prime Minister, you have to ably lead coalitions together within your legislative party, and appeal to important constituencies that support the party.

In a presidential system, everything revolves around the office of the president, and the office of the president "codes" male. Those low information voters not only made poor guesses about Trump and Project 2025 and his felony convictions. They also are exactly the sort of people who say, "I dunno, something about her doesn't seem right." And it's not only men who express this.

Biden was the safest, most boring pick possible and he wiped the floor with Trump. Trump, meanwhile, has twice beaten female candidates.

I very much would like to see a woman become president of the United States. But if I'm advising the Democrats for 2028, I would strongly suggest that they not fight against the ingrained sexism that goes unnoticed and unremarked upon. I think our first female president will almost have to be a Republican. Democrats need to find someone with AOC's social media skills and the right sort of feistiness to take the fight to the Broligarchy - someone like Swallwell, but not from California. Pritzker maybe? I don't know, but I'm not taking my chances on Gretchen Whitmer vs JD Vance, because I just have very little faith in people to acknowledge that they can't quite see a woman president.

Of course, Trump's manifest awfulness will give a lot of wind to the sails of AOC and others like her who can step up in this moment. In 2020, Black Voters in South Carolina said, "Give us the safest guy" and that guy flipped Georgia and Arizona.