POtuS?
What half of America looks for in a president.
Before the Democratic National Convention, according to the ABC-Ipsos poll, white men supported the convict over Kamala Harris by 13 points. After the convention, his lead in the Chad, Trevor and Frankie demographic expanded to 21 points.
Interesting. Considering that the Republican candidate is a six-alarm gashole, that polling jump would seem to suggest some very unsettling attitudes among white men — which would come as no surprise to some people, such as women, and especially the Bob Garfield’s Daughters demographic.
Mind you, there is no Bob Garfield’s Daughters Poll that I’m aware of. But, anecdotally, I can assure you the three of them pretty much wake up every day fuming about white male hegemony, misogyny, promiscuity, belligerence, arrogance, anger management and other slight imperfections that they don’t think are fully balanced by jar-opening and football watching. There are times, I must confess, that I feel a bit otherized over my Y chromosome. Come on. Besides sexual assault and all war ever, plus perhaps a touch of emotional unavailability and excessive toilet lingering, what exactly is the issue?
Oh, you know what? It might be that my kids are also fed up with the rampant racism, which would also account for rising white-male concerns about a President Harris. (As for white women voters, they somehow also preferred Trump by 13 percentage points pre-convention but have now narrowed the gap to 2 — apparently because many don’t appreciate being told by slimy politicians what to do with their bodies.)
So the support uptick for Michigan’s perennial “Not Man of the Year” is disturbing. More alarming still is that his appeal to white males isn’t limited to the portion of the cohort that has prostate concerns and Fox News Channel turned up to 11. According to a New York Times/Siena survey released last week, the difference between male and female support for the Bronzer Don is even greater for those under 30.
“On one side are young women, who as a group are very liberal, and who have been politically galvanized by gender bombshells like #MeToo, the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and the candidacy of Vice President Kamala Harris,” wrote reporter Claire Cain Miller.
“On the other are young men, some of whom feel that rapidly changing gender roles have left them behind socially and economically, and see former President Donald J. Trump as a champion of traditional manhood.”
Miller located a theory on that viewpoint from Daniel A. Cox, director of the Survey Center on American Life at the American Enterprise Institute, which is a rightwing Washington think tank.
“Economically they’re getting shafted, politically they’re getting shafted, culturally no one’s looking out for them,” Cox said. “They’re drawn to his message, his persona, the unapologetic machismo he tries to exude.”
Oh, yeah. That’s what it is: “machismo,” which evidently is a Republican word for “sociopathy.”
I actually wrote a book on this phenomenon (American Manifesto). As literally dozens of readers know, it actually draws similar conclusions about the sense of grievance and powerlessness that fuels MAGA.
Between court decisions and legislation that have incrementally fulfilled the human-rights promises of our founding documents, and the hollowing of the middle class by rapacious billionaires and corporations, their “way of life” has indeed vanished before their eyes. Allow me to quote me:
They think they’re victims of the world’s biggest bait and switch, taking away not only their chance to pursue happiness, but their very identity. Because when you used to make $45 an hour down at the auto-parts plant and now you’re driving an airport shuttle for $12, what does that make you? When your whiteness and your Christianity have gotten you maxed out on three credit cards and a mosque being built down by the middle school, whose fault is it?
They feel oppressed, but are too angry, bigoted, uneducated and/or stupid to grasp what has taken place. (Remember: more or less by definition, half the population is dumber than average.) So they seize on demagoguery and fall prey to Internet Disinhibition Syndrome, ranting and raving and spewing disinformation for like-minded malcontents. As I like to say, they are like those fucknuts on the interstate in 2002 Buick LeSabres with body putty all over them, weaving and zooming from lane to lane. Their highway recklessness is the great equalizer; they feel power.
But here’s the thing. Here’s the terrible, hitherto unimaginable thing: We are not speaking of a modest cluster of deplorables who are frustrated enough to embrace a corrupt, evil buffoon.
On the question of Trump’s favorability, the survey data is consistent. Whether the poll comes from The Economist, Yahoo News, USA Today or the Wall Street Journal, the would-be POtuS scores between 42% and 46% of the electorate. In two elections, his popular vote percentage has been even greater — which at first glance is simply unfathomable, until you have the courage to understand the unthinkable.
We Americans are and have always been living a lie. “The land of the free and the home of the brave” isn’t. America may still indeed be a land of opportunity and refuge for immigrants (for the moment), but it is otherwise not exceptional. It is not a shining city on the hill. It is a society of humans, with distribution of intelligence, gullibility, superstition, intolerance and moral weakness like any other. Once social media allowed malign nature to coalesce and take its course, we were revealed to be as prone to nativism, nationalism, racism, religious chauvinism and fascism as anyone else.
Trump, menace though he is, didn’t start anything. He simply drew it out. MAGA is like disappearing ink. It was there, but suddenly made visible. Maybe, maybe, the Bob Garfield’s Daughters cohort and large numbers of other furious women will bring a narrow victory to Kamala Harris. Maybe the preening criminal monster will at long last get his comeuppance. Maybe democracy will survive.
But, as the numbers show, maybe not. Maybe fucking not.
Too many dumb ass white boys who never had ambition enough to get a GED living in shacks out in the woods with huge Trump and “Fuck Biden” banners hanging on the tool shed. They suck down their Bud Lites and drive their beater pickup trucks with the American Flags flying in the back of the bed. Their lack of success, failed marriages and the like aren’t their own fault. Donald Trump and Fox News has educated them on who to blame for their personal shortcomings. What a country.
No matter the polls, which have proven unreliable, I believe Harris will take it driven by a massive women's vote. Remember, the one time he won he lost the popular vote (but then again, so did Lincoln).