Electorate is pretty damn sexist, if either of Clinton or Harris were men it would have been landslide victories. Instead they elected the worst man ever born in America twice.
And yet, Biden barely won in 2020. He only won in 2020 because of Covid. And polls at the time he dropped out indicated he was on track to losing far worse than Kamala did. I think you’re just projecting your sexism onto the electorate.
Something I think is that back in 2008, I’m certain Hilary Clinton would have won and possibly won by a bigger margin than Obama. Practically anyone that won the dem primary in 2008 would have won after the start of the financial crisis and the albatross of middle eastern wars, but Clinton in 2008 hadn’t been so successfully smeared and there wasn’t 8 years of continued middle eastern wars and widening income inequality discontent under a dem president where interest in party outsiders exploded. Plus the significance of social media was so much more important in 2016 than 2012 and 2008 and Clintons poor adaptability to the daily internet mood swings wouldn’t have been a problem in 2008 when Facebook was still duking it out with MySpace and didn’t really have middle aged and older people yet, youtube was 2 years old, twitter was niche, reddit was really nerdy, instagram wasn’t a thing yet
I’m certain in 2008 Clinton would have won easily, won by a larger margin, faced less unified opposition from republicans in congress. 2024 ended up so close that I’m sure if there was a democratic primary, Harris would not have won but whoever did win, would have beaten Donald Trump. Like if the Michigan governor ran and won the primary, Gretchen Whitmer would be president
Exactly. Is there sexism in the electorate? Sure. But those folks are unlikely to vote for a Democratic candidate anyway. Maybe there are a handful of people that are deeply sexist but still want to vote for Democrats, but it kind of goes against the entire core brand message of the party. Just how many people are there that would never want to vote for a woman president, but also want to protect immigrant rights, queer rights, black and brown rights, etc?
And we should also not ignore positive sexism. Are there some people that would vote for a male Democratic candidate but not a female one? Probably. But there are probably even more people that would be persuaded to go from non-voter to Democratic voter simply to see the first woman elected president.
The example I always keep coming back to is Margaret Thatcher, curse her bones. She was elected prime minister of Britain…in the 1980s! Britain has a very similar political culture to the US. And she won while running as a conservative! Left of center voters, the people most likely to support a female candidate, opposed her. And rightly so because of her policies. But she was able to win over conservatives. If a conservative woman can become the leader of the UK in the 1980s, there is zero reason a liberal woman can’t do so in the US in the 2020s.
Electorate is pretty damn sexist, if either of Clinton or Harris were men it would have been landslide victories. Instead they elected the worst man ever born in America twice.
And yet, Biden barely won in 2020. He only won in 2020 because of Covid. And polls at the time he dropped out indicated he was on track to losing far worse than Kamala did. I think you’re just projecting your sexism onto the electorate.
Something I think is that back in 2008, I’m certain Hilary Clinton would have won and possibly won by a bigger margin than Obama. Practically anyone that won the dem primary in 2008 would have won after the start of the financial crisis and the albatross of middle eastern wars, but Clinton in 2008 hadn’t been so successfully smeared and there wasn’t 8 years of continued middle eastern wars and widening income inequality discontent under a dem president where interest in party outsiders exploded. Plus the significance of social media was so much more important in 2016 than 2012 and 2008 and Clintons poor adaptability to the daily internet mood swings wouldn’t have been a problem in 2008 when Facebook was still duking it out with MySpace and didn’t really have middle aged and older people yet, youtube was 2 years old, twitter was niche, reddit was really nerdy, instagram wasn’t a thing yet
I’m certain in 2008 Clinton would have won easily, won by a larger margin, faced less unified opposition from republicans in congress. 2024 ended up so close that I’m sure if there was a democratic primary, Harris would not have won but whoever did win, would have beaten Donald Trump. Like if the Michigan governor ran and won the primary, Gretchen Whitmer would be president
Exactly. Is there sexism in the electorate? Sure. But those folks are unlikely to vote for a Democratic candidate anyway. Maybe there are a handful of people that are deeply sexist but still want to vote for Democrats, but it kind of goes against the entire core brand message of the party. Just how many people are there that would never want to vote for a woman president, but also want to protect immigrant rights, queer rights, black and brown rights, etc?
And we should also not ignore positive sexism. Are there some people that would vote for a male Democratic candidate but not a female one? Probably. But there are probably even more people that would be persuaded to go from non-voter to Democratic voter simply to see the first woman elected president.
The example I always keep coming back to is Margaret Thatcher, curse her bones. She was elected prime minister of Britain…in the 1980s! Britain has a very similar political culture to the US. And she won while running as a conservative! Left of center voters, the people most likely to support a female candidate, opposed her. And rightly so because of her policies. But she was able to win over conservatives. If a conservative woman can become the leader of the UK in the 1980s, there is zero reason a liberal woman can’t do so in the US in the 2020s.