Kamala Harris has a problem with men. Will misogyny cost her the election?

[IwantToRetire]

There was an earlier thread about whether the Democrats would support a WOC candidate https://www.mumsnet.com/talk/womens_rights/5124648-will-us-democrats-support-a-woc-as-their-candidate-or-will-they-by-pass-kamala-harris

And I think there were some later about her policies, but then maybe there weren't. https://kamalaharris.com/issues/

But was depressed to see this article Kamala Harris has a problem with men. Will misogyny cost her the election?
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/20/kamala-harris-has-a-problem-with-men-will-misogyny-cost-her-the-election
(Should have been men have a problem, not making out she is the problem.)

Polls reflect this age-old dichotomy. Men are more likely to back Trump; women lean towards Harris. A recent New York Times-Siena poll put her 16 points ahead of Trump among female voters. NBC gave her a 14-point lead with women. Trump leads by up to 16 points among men.

Harris’s gender may be tacitly affecting or reinforcing attitudes in other voter categories. In the New York Times poll, 60% of white college-educated voters backed Harris, while 63% of white non-college-educated voters backed Trump. Likewise, Trump, who is white, has a significant advantage among white people while Harris, who identifies as black and Asian, leads among non-whites. Yet voters in two other key categories, blacks and Hispanics, are less supportive of Harris than of Biden in 2020, surveys show – a decline partly driven by younger, non-college-educated Hispanic males. Speaking in pivotal Pennsylvania, Barack Obama angrily castigated his black “brothers” for finding “all kinds of excuses” not to support a woman.

Its just really depressing to think this is the basis on which the decision about the next US President is taken. Because like it or not what the US does or doesn't do impacts on the rest of us.

Even though they are now talking about Trump's mental capacity Trump’s Unwieldy Speeches Raise Questions About His Mental Acuity https://www.forbes.com/sites/saradorn/2024/10/16/trumps-unwieldy-speeches-raise-questions-about-his-mental-acuity/ it doesn't seem likely it will change the minds of his supporters. And is already clear he doesn't feel the need to abide by accepted norms in terms of procedures.

Divisive politics in the UK seems to have lead to an apathy, disengagement (low turn out at GE) but it seems, if news channels are to be believed, that in the US the devisions are making people more active engaged. More oppositional

Or rather men not caring about women's issues, or even trusting a woman to be President.

So they vote for the party which has consistently fought against the protections which help workers.
New definition of insanity; enabling your enemies to screw you over while telling yourself they are actually helping you.

prospect.org/labor/2024-04-02-republicans-union-labor-working-class/

They are often self-employed contractors and often running small business (eg drain cleaners, roofers).

They might say the definition of insanity is doing the same thing again when it hasn't helped you the last 60 years.

Alternative definition;
doing the equivalent of dating Ted Bundy because things didn't work out so well with Homer Simpson.

I don't think thinking hyperbolically is very helpful in understanding why people vote the way they do.

It's all very, "poor black men, too stupid to vote the way they should,"

For anyone that's really interested, the film Larry Elder produced, Uncle Tom, gives some good insights into why this group is changing their voting patterns. It's not a critical kind of film but it does allow them to share their stories.

The group of people Kamala needs to win over to win won't vote for her. They tend to vote against their interests but that's not a new phenomenon.

Why should people vote for their own interests?

That’s a poster who has already had a post deleted on another thread this morning. I wouldn’t bother @GillBeck

It does happen though.

There is a propensity on MN to make out that woman are always the victims in these things. It is simply not the case usually. They are getting the status/power/money that they desire.

The point is that it didn't happen in this case. It's a lie.

even if we accept that this happened....

....we're judging someone allegedly "sleeping their way" to the top harsher than someone who is a convicted felon, sexual predator (as found by a court) and has paid for the abortions he and his career benefited from that he is now vowing to ban for anyone else regardless of women's health?

one of these is not like the other....

I think it has more to do with the fact that men are leaning right and women are leaning left and that’s amplified in younger cohorts. I’m inclined to think this has more to do with politics than her sex tbh (not saying there aren’t people who wouldn’t vote for her because she’s a woman). I also think the dems progressive politics is harming them.

I don’t think it’s dissimilar to the west generally, you have a left wing class who’s moved away from the working classes towards identity politics, niche concerns, luxury beliefs stuff and now you have college campuses overrun with as one black student put it “white people cos playing oppression” (thats the impression they give themselves and what people see on the news). So even if the right looks like a mess I imagine for some they think “well it can’t get much worse, theres a boy in my daughters locker room and no-one seems to think this is a problem, I don’t care about the middle east and my wages are stagnant.”

Trump is a horrible, stupid narcissist and I would rather cut off my own leg then vote for him but I would struggle to cast a ballot for the Harris either.

Honestly even if Kamala Harris had slept with EVERYONE I would consider this none of my business as long as everyone was consenting. Same with Boris, I think he’s a disaster for any woman who comes within 5 meters of him but who he shags is none of my concern. Leaders are rarely perfect. I just care they can do the job.

Trump is a predator, it’s come up time and again including a civil lawsuit for rape. Disgusting man.

I also think some are making the calculation that Vance will actually be the one in charge. He used to be not crazy and quite thoughtful. So lets hope for an inkling of sanity from him if he makes it to the white house (which he probably will).

Of course it is the business of voters how their leading politicians conduct themselves - it is a demonstration of their view of the world, of where they hold their morals, a reflection of how they are likely to conduct their business behind the scenes.

You might think using sex to gain advantage, or leaving a trail of unsupported children in your wake it ok, but other voters may prefer a politician who succeeded through intellectual acumen and who holds fathers responsible for financially supporting their offspring.

I think the American people and the world wanted a strong alternative to Trump and if they'd have been offered one they'd have voted them.

It's become quickly obvious however that Kamala Harris isn't that so her momentum is fading fast. It's not that loads of people suddenly like trump it's that she's not going to get the vote out.

She's weak. And I think weakness in a women is more intolerable to men who have a bias about whether a women can be strong enough to lead anyway. Is that misogyny? Debatable

But the truth is Harris is weak, unlikable and a women.

She's revealed herself to be the most awful example of exactly what everyone has come to hate: empty, coached, word salad platitudes politics which we're meant to accept as some sort of filler for reality and not notice there is nothing there.

People are noticing. People have had enough of this type of politics. And she's terrible at it.

The Dems are campaigning like it's 1999 with a candidate who's terrible. Even Michele Obama is tacitly admitting she's terrible, but saying you have to vote for her anyway.
Not sure that's going to work.

If she loses the post mortem will claim misogyny and racism but there's so many other reasons she won't get out the vote. An analysis just based on identity politics will just be continuing the exact same mistake which lead them here.

Trump is a horrible, stupid narcissist and I would rather cut off my own leg then vote for him but I would struggle to cast a ballot for the Harris either.
This is the key point @User37482

Trump doesn't need to increase his vote people just need to not be motivated to vote for cardboard Kamala and he'll win.

Liz Truss was a dreadful PM and an awful human being. There's no need to stick up for bad leaders just because they're women. I am totally unimpressed by Kamala. She just seems like a vacuous corporate suit.

She just isn’t a leader.

Ive been watching interviews of Margaret Thatcher online recently.

Now you really couldn’t get anyone more divisive than MT. I don’t even imagine that America will still talk about Trump in 50 years in the way Thatcher is in the UK. There are still huge sections of society that would never ever consider voting Tory because of the Thatcher years.

But no one could argue she wasnt a leader. She is somewhat mesmerising when she speaks, unflustered, calm, direct, answers the question, polite, steely, intelligent, sharp, focused. I mean she was hated but she had leadership qualities.

Now contrast this with Harris in interviews , the complete opposite. She’s very anxious, circular answers , scripted, boring, bland. Now she seems like a decent person but she’s completely uninspiring and couldn’t possibly leader of the world’s largest economy. How she even got VP is beyond me.

I have a cousin, who is a bright guy, who is convinced that there was basically some sort of nefarious plan to get Harris in without having her go through the normal selection process. His reasoning is that there it's so clear she'd never have been selected otherwise.

I don't really think that's the case, but I can kind of see his point.

Thatcher is an interesting comparison. Some people forget that at the time, many people felt she wasn't a conservative at all - she represented something quite new, and so many Tories opposed her as well as the center and left.

But the force of per personality was huge.

I find myself wondering if that was always rare, or if it's become more rare. Boris maybe had some of that, but he lacked self-disapline which I think is what did him in. Sunak didn't seem that way to me, nor does Starmer.

I think there is doubt in general about whether politics selects the "best" people. Eg Biden, Trump, George W Bush all happened to be white men, but I don't think they were the most capable white men for the job, let alone the best Americans full stop. I always thought Biden came across very well outside the US but there are still Americans who found him to cerebral.
You could even question whether seeming to come across as a "leader" or having charisma is the most important characteristic but of course that's one of the things people will judge on.

Kamala Harris would be useless in a crisis. If Putin starts sabre rattling I dread to think how useless she would be.

Since Trump is Putin's boyfriend, exactly how useful do you think he would be in that scenario? TBF, he might be useful, but at best only to Putin.

I suspect you are assuming Harris would be useless merely because of her sex.

The misogyny with the "weak" ;language here is amazing and awful. She was a prosecutor. She's not weak.

I think if Trump wins then the narrative the US is not ready for a female woc to become president will preside and black female presidents will be simply the object of Netflix drama.

It will mean Trump has beaten two women and the democrats will look maybe for a generation to possibly pick males very likely white for future candidates. As the US system has very tight margins for victory gender will unfortunately be a factor in elections which is really strange when we look on from the UK.

Most of the drama and cultural import we get from the US is progressive and this can be seen from the celeb endorsement of Harris. We don't get to see conservative, for over state voters in TV as this is not the image US media wishes to oresent.

I think this is why we are quite shocked by the amount of vitriol within the US system currently.

It isn't just because of her sex; it is because of her character and the way she expresses and presents herself. Georgia Meloni, is a far stronger character and is taken seriously on the world stage.