Did misogyny win the 2016 US election?

[TheSteveMilliband]

Donald Trump winning was indicative of all sorts of things, but to me one of the biggest factors was misogyny. He appealed to "alpha males" and those unaware of internalised hatred of women. If he hadn't been up against a woman, he wouldn't have won.

I know lots of people really hate Hillary. I can't imagine a man with similar qualifications / history would have had the same level of hate, but some people, including feminists, insist she was just a "bad candidate" and that had it been another women, they would have won. I think we will see with democratic candidates that there is always some fatal flaw with female presidential candidates.

I'm basing this mainly on what appear to be double standards (whatever Hillary was, trump was 10 times worse) but am really interested in more nuanced / informed arguments either way. If anyone has recommended reading that'd be fab.

What do you think and why?

No, I don't think so. I am increasingly feeling that a lot of Americans are on the wrong track when they believe that certain characteristics, like sex or race, are so overwhelmingly important as to who wins.

That's not to claim there is no effect or that their identity associations don't factor in in other indirect ways, but I think there is really a lot of evidence that most people vote more on other things. Lots of women who run for congress or the senate or local politics do very well. Lots of non-white candidates do very well. I've wondered if the strong belief of many Americans that these factors are overwhelming actually cause the problems they want to overcome to some extent. If you are convinced that race will be a determining factor, that in itself will have an effect.

I think there were two main, related, issues that caused her failure. One is that the Democrats for years have been associated with supporting global capitalism. They have abandoned important sectors that used to support them reliably, Catholics being a minor one, and working class union people being the major one. They actually ignored them in the election and assumed they had those votes, despite running a campaign that on the face of it would be hard for those people to accept. They lost those states. That is not misogyny it is an incompetent political campaign.

The other issue was that for a while now, Americans on the left and right seem to be responding to candidates who look like they are somehow not from the system. Obama appealed in large part because he was relatively inexperienced, something the Republicans tried to criticise him for and it totally backfired - it was like the enemy advertised for him. People liked that he was not a party guy in a big way and that he promised a new way of approaching politics. HC's team made the mistake of using her experience as a selling feature when it actually was a major turn-off. Both Trump and Sanders appealed in part as outsiders of the two main parties, not because they were men. They both claimed they stood against stood against global capitalism, whereas Clinton was careful not to mention that unless she couldn't avoid it.

For the sake of my blood pressure, I won't weigh in on this thread except to say this:

Many factors contribute to a presidential candidate's victory or loss. When I read someone determined to claim that misogyny played NO role in the 2016 election (not just a smaller or less important role than x, y, or z, but NO role at all) I find that person's claims to reveal much more about him- or herself than about American politics.

My partner is a keen gardener and really fascinated by off grid living. As a result we listen to lots of American podcasts relating to this sort of thing. They tend to be produced by libertarians, of both the left and right leaning pursuation, and in amoung tips on how to kick start an old generartor and can your own produce, there's politics and lots of it. These arent your mainstream media shows made in LA or NY, rather independent mid America with call ins and the like.

We were never, not for one minute, suprised that Trump won. Over the years the amount of hostility towards federalism and the political establishment could be read in the voice of every presenter and every caller; they despised Obama, they despised the Bushes, they despised the Clintons. Their politics wasn't driven by misogyny, wasn't driven by race and wasn't even noticeably partisan, it was driven by class and concepts of freedom based upon their interpretation of the Constitution.

Now I know there are those who voted for Trump based on shitty reasons, just as there were undoubtedly those who voted for Clinton for shit reasons too. But there's a whole load of people between the coastal power cities (where race, sex etc are given a disproportionate amount of political importance comparatively) who voted Trump for different reasons, and they often don't get an international voice. Many, for some reason, saw Trump as anti establishment. Some of them have since changed their mind, on account of him being a moon beam, others will stick with him on the basis of their being little alternative. These people are probably guilty of overlooking Trump's misogyny, but certainly didn't vote for him based on it.

Ok, I said I wasn't going to weigh in any further, but I do want to post a few photos of middle American Trump supporters whose "politics are not driven by misogyny," and to whose voices we should all defer a little more. (You should, of course, view these photos with the soundtrack of "Lock her up!" chanted at each of his rallies in your mind).

And some more:

And one more:

Asking why people voted for Trump is a bit like asking why people voted for Brexit.

Posting pictures of those whose politics are driven by misogyny doesn't actually do anything to address those whose isn't, so I really don't know why you responded like that.

What does it mean to say something played no role in an election, though? There are a lot of voters, some have very strange reasons ,and there are some little blocs that have very strange reasons, for their choices. But I would not say they really won or lost the vote. There will always be these groups of people with special interests, and I tend to think they cancel each other out somewhat and you can't easily influence them.

I would also say that I don't think someone with bad attitudes about women or any other group may actually have voted a particular way for that reason. Sometimes the other reason even is what drives the attitude, as people are often exposed to anti-social thinking through another deeper connection. If you have been a working class person in the US, maybe not all that politically sophisticated, your interests have only been talked about in the conservative media. So for ten years or more you have also been exposed quite often to other ideas those people are spouting, and it has an effect.

People who voted for Trump because of his views on race are a very small group. I have not seen any numbers of people who did it due to his attitude to women, but I also expect it was small. Or for that matter, people who did not vote for HC because of her being a women - I think they are a small group who would have voted for a Republican anyway, maybe even if the Republican candidate was a woman.

So I don't really consider those people the factor that lost her the election.

I'd be interested to know what % of voters actually affect the result.
It's such a polarised two party system. There must be a huge % of the electorate that will vote Republican, no matter what, and would never vote Democrat.
And vice versa.
So a large proportion of people would never have voted for Hillary, not because she's a woman, but because she's Democrat. And those people would always vote for Trump no matter what since he's Republican.
It's the floating voters who affect the election.
How many of them are they?

It's the floating voters who affect the election.How many of them are they?

They aren't a huge number. And its not totally about population because the electoral college makes it a bit more complicated.

But they are an interesting group. Among the things that made them interesting with Trump is that a lot of them had previously voted for Obama.
In terms of the EC, some states like Michigan, traditionally have chosen a Democrat. Lots of steel manufacturing jobs, lots of union voters. But also many people who tend to have more conservative social views, and plenty (not all by any means) of those don't fall under the identity group programs the Democrats see as their important social programs. Lots of people who no longer have jobs or who don't see their kids as having secure jobs.
The Clinton campaign assumed those people would vote for her like they always have, and she didn't even visit those states in her campaigning. Trump, on the other hand, spent a lot of time there. He talked about job losses, he talked about the destruction of American manufacturing in order to put wages into the pockets of corporate owners who shipped the jobs to cheaper overseas workers. And while they were listening he also whipped up a certain amount of anger around the identity groups the Democrats were talking about.

Amazingly, from the perspective of the Clinton campaign, those states voted for Trump and that shift won him the election. It also went a long way IMO to increasing the heat around race politics, and HC gets the blame or that as well as Trump.

The piont is that in terms of actual votes Hilary Clinton won.

She lost because Americans who seem to think they can teach and impose (via war) "democracy" on others, actually have undemocratic voting system.

So the US and consequently the rest of the world have had a looser who actual didn't win taking decisions that are impacting on all of us.

So unless and until Americans get their act together and dismantle to Electoral College they will continue to be a country where the loser because the President.

The more significant point is probably that more people through not voting showed that they didn't want either Clinton or Trump.

But did misogyny play a part. Yes you saw it everyday, including young women potentially democratic voters turning against HC as much for her age as her sex.

Not forgetting Susan Sarandon who thought a good dose of right wing reactionarism would make us appreciate liberal democracy. I wonder if the young children separated from their mothers are glad that their suffering is "teaching" us all a lesson.

So despite sexism and ageism HC won, but she was robbed by a weighted system put in place to protect southern slave owning states.

I think in fact, although I am not a supporter, that Theresa May has suffered far more sexism both from her fellow Tories and the media, who have been relentless is characterising her as a problem female, who doesn't cry in the performative way that public figures are now meant to , and worst of all went about Brexit as some dreary task she had to perform, so that all the fanatics could scream at her for not honouring their personal vision of Brexit.

And in less that a week, as confirmed by the EU, what is dubbed HER deal, but is in fact their deal, is the only one we are going to get. But the response from MPs of all parties, which I suspect they would not have ventured into, and that clown Bercow wouldn't have meddled in the way he did, which was to deride her was totally down to sexism.

Bebstar123 I love podcasts like that do you have any recommendations? 😊
I also knew Trump was going to win months before he did. I randomly watched one of his rallies on YouTube and the crowd size difference between his rallies and Clinton's was monumental. He also has a charisma that connects to ordinary every day people. I lurked a lot on the_donald after the Podesta emails were released , despite being warned that is was a racist cesspool. I went in expecting BNP/Stormfront and what I found was ordinary every day people of all classes, colours and sexes who just loved their country, no racism , no sexism just patriots. That the media was framing them as deplorable is why Clinton lost. She is of the same political class that is so disconnected from ordinary people, she would have represented more of the same. Like when Obama said the jobs are never coming back and a lot of liberals made jokes about how ex factory workers needed to learn to code. Or other comments I saw that basically said the opioid crisis can be ignored as it mainly affects white people. Identity politics has infected the left and until they return to addressing actual problems: housing, jobs, crime they are destined to be in the wilderness for years to come. I predict Trump will walk it in 2020, landslide. The left still doesn't get that constantly calling someone racist, sexist or stupid will not make them vote for you.
Ps: I think only a few outfits correctly predicted the 2016 outcome, the LA Times because they based their prediction on asking who your neighbour was going to vote for and a Bill Mitchell a Twitter sensation who based it on rallies, bumper stickers etc www.buzzfeednews.com/amphtml/charliewarzel/bill-mitchells-revenge

Michael Moore, the filmaker, also predicted the Trump win.

The electoral college is only undemocratic if you think the only factor in a democratic system is the majority always wins. Most (all?) functional democracies have a variety of ways to mitigate the problems that come with always following the will of the majority.
There are real questions as to whether the ec functions entirely as was intended, but it exists for the same reason their senate does, or other geographically based legislative bodies in other systems. The US is a large country with a lot of geography.

Susan Sarandon was a Sanders supporter. Is she right wing because she's a woman with a political opinion?

Goosefoot

I think you have misunderstood what i said

The Electoral College is a weighted system that means people in heavily populated areas are forced to accept as the "inner" the choice of people in lower population density.

Why should city dwellers have to live by the decisions of rural workers.

Its nuts.

And it isn't even about proportional representation.

This is about the post of President. One person one vote. Its anti democratic and based on an issue that is centuries out of date.

It makes the US look ridiculous!

And nowhere did i say susan sarandom was right wing. She was so busy signalling her left credentials that she said not supporting Clinton and letting Trump in wouldn't really be a problem because it wouldn't hurt (ie to teach all those dumb people who wanted to defeat Trump) that they could "learn" from people experiencing real loss of liberties (who of course wouldn't by hip media types well insulated from a reactionary government).

People in the US have been trying to dismantle the Electoral College for decades as it is patently undemocratic, but politcal apathy meant nothing has happened.

So now America and world is having to suffer the idiocy of Trump because people couldn't be bothered.

Hello to all of you saying you knew Trump would win because of the size of his rallies - that's just media manipulation just like they tried to pretend more people attended his inauguration.

Trump LOST the popular vote.

The only people who can claim to say they predicted he would win would be those who named the states with the swing votes in the Electoral college.

And Trump won in those states because like Boris he made false promises about revitalising old industries that in reality can not compete against, for instance, the dumping of state subsidised steel by China.

But this lying hypocrite "winning" through cheating has opened up not just the US but other parts of the world to reinstating reactionary right wing males imposing their anti woman policies.

So any of you claiming you knew Trump would win would you care to explain how you knew he would get the number of votes needed in the relevant Electoral College states which has nothing to do with rallies or Michael More.

Seriously this is allowing the media to tell you how to think.

They just do this myth making to justify how they failed to challenge the lies during the campaign.

So one more time, Trump was NOT the winner, he did not get the most votes.

Clinton got more votes and is the winner despite what media commentators say.

As a Bernie supporter Susan Sarandon was well within her rights to criticize Clinton. Clinton has long had a reputation as a war hawk. Also after the shenanigans at the DNC that screwed Bernie Sanders a lot of Bernie supporters were done with Clinton. I remember an influx of angry Bernie supporters to reddit who said they would never vote Clinton.

If the ec is undemocratic because it isn't the popular vote, the people who claim the EU is inherently undemocratic are right - though not in the way they think! If it was abolished the people of the South, or the midwest, would have a good argument for leaving the union, as the president would be chosen by the urban dwellers on the coasts every time. No taxation without representation!

As for Sarandon, if she believes that Clinton has bad policies and was morally bankrupt she is perfectly entitled to make that argument. It's odd to complain about the ec being undemocratic and then complain because she wants to contribute to the political discourse. Although, both seem to involve making sure people you don't agree with don't get a say.

Anyway, saying that Clinton is the winner, not Trump, reminds me a bit of the scene in Game of Thrones where Littlefinger tries to tell Cersei that knowledge is power, and she tells him no, power is power.

No stumbledin , I am a through and through skeptic. I believe that the MSM media is largely a propaganda tool for those in power. Trump isn't enthralled to them hence all the "fake news". You should read the Podesta emails and see all the NYT writers in there fawning over Clinton and offering her editorial control. See the DNC executive plotting how to destroy Bernie. How can the same MSM who claim that trans women are women which I know is scientifically untrue, also be correct on everything else. I imagine you also believe that Trump colluded with Russia. Fisa documents will be declassified next month, which will show that parts of the Obama administration colluded with the UK, Australia and Italy in order to illegally spy on the Trump administration. Comey, Clapper and Brennan are already pointing the fingers at each other, because it is Treason. Has the MSM media reported this ? Operation crossfire, how 6 spies were fired in Italy last week. How the head of Mi6 resigned when Trump was elected?

If he hadn't been up against a woman, he wouldn't have won
Well yeah, if Clinton and her Wall Street Possy Mafia hadn't screwed Sanders, Trump would have lost to Sanders, so you're right on that point

Well yeah, if Clinton and her Wall Street Possy Mafia hadn't screwed Sanders, Trump would have lost to Sanders, so you're right on that point

Ha! Though it's not really funny. To bring this back to a feminism angle, though, it might be that it's a good reminder that candidates policies are more important than their sex or identity group. There were people who accused Sarandon of being a bad feminist for not supporting HC.

I think misogyny was a contributory factor. I also think Hillary Clinton should have been aware that misogyny coupled with the baggage she came with meant there was a good chance she would lose. She should have stepped aside for the greater good. And no, I'm not saying that the woman should be the one to make sacrifices. I'm saying Hillary Clinton wasn't the right candidate to beat Trump.