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.

the wealthy urban coasts that have the population, and the poorer rural areas, whose interests are often tied to the land

You make it sound a bit like the wealthy urban coasts are a person. A. Snooty rich person twirling their moustache and laughing at all the population he has. While the poor rural area with its rural hands cracked by years of hard labour holds only a small population. The population isn't a thing. It is people, lots and lots of individual people all with thoughts and interests that may sometimes conflict and sometimes agree in complex ways.

Personally I think Harris and the Democrats have relied too heavily on identity politics

That’s why one of Trump’s ads is:

”Kamala is for they/them. Trump is for you.”

I think it’s notable how the Harris campaign has generally steered clear of trans rights. I think they know it’s an active vote loser, with nothing to gain.

Well I'd say more that while a lot of people are against some of the specific bills, Trump is so effective at parlaying any mention into hate (free sex changes for immigrant prisoners!) that it's not worth attacking him for.

But Trump plays the populist while cutting taxes for the rich. Of course he's going to claim to be "for the people" (while coopting Kamala's old slogan). That's the definition of populism, regardless of what your opponent does.

The EC doesn't benefit regions the way people imagine, except through its numerical skew (since everyone gets 2 votes from their senators). The "they'd just focus on the cities" is a target not really borne out by fact. The EC encourages micro targeting in close elections and treating safe states as ignorable. No one cares about Texas much. No one cares about Kansas. And in states that actually have regional divisions, those get ignored too. No one cares about Republicans in the Central Valley, because the rest of CA outweighs them. No one cares about Republicans in eastern Washington. And similarly no one cares about the large number of Democrats in Texas. One of my best friends is in Pennsylvania, not in Philly or Pittsburgh, and she says it is absolutely bananas there.

Trump is saying what ever it take, being all things to all men. He's the USA's Boris Johnson.

Boris was a hard lesson for the UK. It will be interesting to see what will happen to the US if Trump wins.

@TempestTost

What do they have to lose by looking elsewhere? They may wonder about Trumps real thoughts but they know what the Democrats do and think.

The one thing anyone running for office can do that will lose a vote forever is to show that they despise a voter.

Trump actually articulated their problems. Whether he or any other political figure is genuine is always debatable, but if your other option is the same old crap as last time, why not give it a try? And no, Trump actually hasn't managed to speak as if he despises those people.

The mess Obama has made of Harris campaign now is a similar problem. And a surprising miscalculation for someone who has been as good with people skills as he has in the past. You can't treat voters as if they are owed your votes and there is something wrong with them when they don't find you convincing.

I find it surprising you think this. I've seen nothing from the Democrats' campaign that would make me think that they "despise" voters. Trump, on the hand, by his very actions shows his derision daily. His lies and stunts display that he thinks his voters to lack the critical thought required to work out what he really is: a carnival barker. I think he equates his voters to an army of worker ants. He isn't actually articulating their problems, either. He is manufacturing/inflating them, and has been since he started on the campaign trail before his first election.

The Democrats are dominated by middle/upper middle class, professional university educated people. These people make it pretty clear they think of the rural people and working class factory workers as rednecks and people who have backwards values. You can see it any day in the progressive media.

Biden has actually been better at creating economic policy for the manufacturing states. That's rather a shift though, Obama for example was seen as anti-union. And we know what problems HC had with the working classes.

The economic crash didn't do anything to endear WC people to the Democrats, and more recently I think many were almost radicalized due to covid, where it seemed the university educated continuously claimed they were stupid.

His lies and stunts display that he thinks his voters to lack the critical thought required to work out what he really is: a carnival barker.

He's not wrong about that, @Westea. A stopped clock and all that.

Trump is a full blooded New Yorker. He was a registered Democrat before he realized that he could sell the idea that he was just one of them to the MAGA crowd and they would buy it. Between Trump and Vance are more Ivy League than Harris and Walz. The Republican party is filled with millionaires. Trump has the richest man in the world, Elon Musk stumping for him. Musk, who won't even allow his workers to join unions. So I'm not sure how this idea that the Republican party is all about the common people is being believed to be honest. Trump looked at supermarket groceries as if he truly was seeing them for the first time.

I'm sure the time will come, but it will need to a woman that is capable of inspiring confidence and let's face it - who also has balls. Neither Badenoch nor Thatcher are/were shrinking 'be kind' violets. I guess Britain has also had three very enduring female monarchs, too...who have symbolised female power.

The U.S.A has its own nature, its own DNA and I guess it is always going to be the case that some of that wild frontier spirit and independence is always going to be one of the defining and motivating factors.

I don't believe that women must necessarily be soft, 'feminine' 'open', caring and 'kind' at every turn - though that is what is now being peddled via Identity politics and 'open borders', for example........ a kind of societal feminisation.......but within a larger culture which also encapsualtes the primacy of the individual and other core values of the constitution which could be said to be represented by direct, plain talking, non nonsense traditional values of home, family and nation first.

The USA is so vast in scale and various in community - and is now entrenched in a deep seated polarisation between different identity groups - it is difficult to know how it could move forward with more unity of value and purpose.

Trump is not a natural politician, he is a populist who manages to voice what it is the masses are thinking and saying to each other. Yes, its crude and vulgar and uncompromising - but there is a need to pay attention to the values that are being expressed beneath the performance. It is about values and about lifestyles. A corrective to too much 'progressive' identity politics and open borders in which the core values that hold a society together begin to break down.

Oh I agree. One definitely needs to listen to the underlying message that obviously resonates. But what I can't wrap my head around is that the man himself doesn't believe what he says, In all the years he was a businessman, he never once invested in a flyover state, nor cared about them in the least. But yet to listen to people saying how much he cares about their welfare is what I find confounding. As for immigration, open borders, Harris is addressing them. And also one must remember that a bipartisan border control bill was ready to pass, until Trump stopped it because he did not want the issue to be addressed. He wanted to remain a sore spot he can capitalize on. It's one thing to be academic about the issues, and I agree with you on those, but I look at what is actually happening and have to shake my head at the quantity of lies that are believed, and the evidence of their own eyes being ignored.

Unfortunately it has got to the point where one side sees itself as morally superior and the other side therefore digs in even deeper and refuses to be patronised. Trump is anti establishment in his rhetoric. The Democrats have become the progressive, elite establishment that pushes its own values through much of the media and through Hollywood, the Ivy League universities, etc, and which also has some very big money backers with their own radical 'progressive' agendas.

I don't think I agree entirely with that last post, but let's agree to disagree. I've digressed from the point of this thread.

Trump offers two things: lower taxes, and protection of American jobs through reduced immigration and increased tariffs on foreign goods.

For many of those who intend to vote for him that is good enough. They may not agree with him on anything else, they may think he’s a liar, a hypocrite, a misogynist, a racist, and a loon. But none of that matters as long as he delivers on tax cuts and protectionism.

All you have to ask yourself is -

Given everything that Trump quite plainly, provably is, how bad does the "other guy" have to be for 50% of the country to want to vote for him. Twice?

1. Tariffs will be paid for by American consumers and probably increase inflation.
2. Lower taxes - invariably for the rich - must lead to worse public services for everyone else.

Trump is a repeat sex offender!

It's not hard to feel morally superior to him for that alone.

As I said previously, he's the USA's Boris Johnson. And like Johnson he will not deliver on his promises.

It won't matter to him. He'll have what he wanted.

The Democrats currently do have a majority of college educated voters, but the issue is not simple "elitism". That's the republican narrative. Urban voters, regardless of income level, lean Democratic. THAT's what they mean, more than income. The GOP simultaneously complains about people voting Democratic to get welfare. Meanwhile, most of their politicians are actual elitists. Ted Cruz trying to play the common man makes me want to spit.

Tarrifs do not protect jobs. The opposite. If American manufacturers have to pay huge amounts to import goods they need to make their products, many will just move their factories to Mexico. American consumers are going to foot the bill for Trump's ridiculous tarrifs. He's such a moron that he thinks the exporter pays them rather than the importer. American companies import a ton of stuff from China. If they can't pass the cost of tarrifs onto consumers their profit margins shrink.
So either the jobs go off to Mexico or the consumer pays higher prices. It's inevitable.
Trump is a incredibly stupid man who understands nothing about economics or anything else. Anyone who votes for him has to be stupid as well, or at least very ignorant. His supporters are not the best and the brightest, to say the least.

You are making a similar mistake that pmc Labour members make about the working classes hating the wealthy.

They don't particularly. They didn't resent Obama even though his background was far outside their experience. Or Bernie Sanders. And Trump, or at least his wealth, has an aspirational quality for a lot of people. (As is Vance's Ivy League education, because he absolutely did not start out as privileged, he was really from the bottom of the pile some of the most neglected people in the nation. Plenty of WC people would love to see their kids do something like that.)

What they resent is people who make it clear they despise them. Which unfortunately is a pretty evident in a lot of the progressive left press.

Even Obama's little gaffe last week fell flat largely because it sounded like he was talking down.

No, actually, it means globalists.

I can't think of another good word for globalism or globalist - internationalism might come closest but it does have a somewhat different meaning, less focused on economics.

If you want to imagine people using it mean "Jews" you are going to have some very strange ways of understanding normal discussions.

I am Jewish and "globalists and bankers" is a dog whistle. It's a direct reference to Jewish economic control. If you don't mean to be antisemitic, don't use that phrasing.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2018/03/the-origins-of-the-globalist-slur/555479/
https://www.ajc.org/translatehate/globalist

It's a generalization, you are probably right.

But I think there is a real contradiction in, on the one hand, claiming a political view that says it looks out for those with less power, but not even understanding that materially, right now, a purely population based voting system for president would always work mainly in favour of those who already control the most wealth and political power.

I'd be more sympathetic if there was some understanding that is seems a little concerning. And a lot of it seems to be driven by the fact that the rural people are seen to be making the wrong choices.

The other issues of course is that the states entered into the union with the understanding that they were protecting the political power and influence of their citizens. Had that meant a purely population based vote the union wouldn't have happened and if it changed they'd absolutely be justified to leave.

I always wonder why you hear of people wanting to abolish the electoral college, but not the Senate, which in many ways exist for the same reason.

You do hear people wanting to abolish or reform the Senate, but it gets less air time.