"Dear Peter, Trump is not racial. Get over it. You think too racially."
Comment to this blog
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| Father Knows Best Radio/TV 1949-1960 |
Maybe the comment is right. It isn't so much about race. It is about gender, too.
Trump is un-woke, and proud of it.
There was an imagined Golden Age in America, the postwar America of the youth of current Baby Boomers.
By process of wartime elimination, America was the sole industrial country with a consumer industrial base. Blacks were segregated. Women tended the home. An American working man could support a family. It was a pretty sweet deal--for white American men.
By process of wartime elimination, America was the sole industrial country with a consumer industrial base. Blacks were segregated. Women tended the home. An American working man could support a family. It was a pretty sweet deal--for white American men.
Americans attempting to understand how Trump was able so successfully to transform policies of the Republican Party of Reagan, and then win the 2016 election, consider race to be central. High scores on white race consciousness and resentment were highly correlated with support for Trump. Race consciousness--not economics, not education level, not gender--was determinant. Click. Click.
This then creates a wholistic theme for understanding Trump: he solidified a coalition built around "real, normal, regular American," white, married, Christians, who considered themselves to be under demographic and legal attack. Trump is their tough guy hero.
This then creates a wholistic theme for understanding Trump: he solidified a coalition built around "real, normal, regular American," white, married, Christians, who considered themselves to be under demographic and legal attack. Trump is their tough guy hero.
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| Click: Washington Post |
No. Maybe there's more.Take a closer look at Trump this week.
His response to Nancy Pelosi has been oddly flummoxed, given Trump's usual ability to swipe away detractors, and it is getting noticed. She makes him fume. He walks out of a meeting. Click.
How dare she?!
In the famous Oval Office meeting in October regarding the government shutdown, Trump said: "Nancy's in a situation where it's not easy for her to talk right now."
Pelosi, immediately responded: "Please don't characterize the strength I bring to this meeting as leader of the House Democrats."
Don't condescend to me. She was composed, decisive. She told him. He was put down by a woman. Trump knows it doesn't make him look good.
Maybe the imagined Golden Age of American greatness is as much about gender roles as about race. Trump projects the un-woke consciousness of the America prior to second wave feminism of the 1960s, of Betty Friedan's Feminine Mystique, of Ms. Magazine, of women as professional peers.
Trump has a Playboy Hugh Hefner air about him, an air of unapologetic hyper-traditional masculinity. He owned beauty pageants. It was the gender roles portrayed in the Mad Men episodes of the early 1960s.
Note this is the same asymmetry as in the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky relationship. Clinton got more popular when he was impeached. It is not a disastrous role for a president. It might be oddly positive. The Access Hollywood "pussy grab" recording did not end Trump's campaign.
It is the opposite of the modern, feminist, HR compliant gender role. It is the traditional one, the one under attack by the left. It still has currency. We saw it reflected in yesterday's post about attitudes towards women in traditional village Africa. Many women in America consider male leadership to be the natural state of genders, and God's will. Women, be still. Submit to your husbands.
Don't American women hate Trump's position? Some do, many don't. A great many women see power and economic security in male domination and patriarchy, especially married women. Married women voted for Trump, though unmarried women did not. Click.
Almost half of white women supported and believed Kavanaugh, not Ford. Click.
There is great cultural inertia to socialize both men and women to accept--indeed assume without thinking--traditional gender roles. Women who try to lead are thought to sound "shrill" or are "unlikable." Hillary was disliked as the author of the 1994 Health Plan, but admired as First Lady. She was popular in the support role of Secretary of State, but unpopular as a candidate for President.
Women are supposed to influence from behind. Nancy Pelosi leads upfront. She breaks the Trump brand.
Trump has a Playboy Hugh Hefner air about him, an air of unapologetic hyper-traditional masculinity. He owned beauty pageants. It was the gender roles portrayed in the Mad Men episodes of the early 1960s. Note this is the same asymmetry as in the Bill Clinton/Monica Lewinsky relationship. Clinton got more popular when he was impeached. It is not a disastrous role for a president. It might be oddly positive. The Access Hollywood "pussy grab" recording did not end Trump's campaign.
It is the opposite of the modern, feminist, HR compliant gender role. It is the traditional one, the one under attack by the left. It still has currency. We saw it reflected in yesterday's post about attitudes towards women in traditional village Africa. Many women in America consider male leadership to be the natural state of genders, and God's will. Women, be still. Submit to your husbands.
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| Academic study on social role theory |
Almost half of white women supported and believed Kavanaugh, not Ford. Click.
There is great cultural inertia to socialize both men and women to accept--indeed assume without thinking--traditional gender roles. Women who try to lead are thought to sound "shrill" or are "unlikable." Hillary was disliked as the author of the 1994 Health Plan, but admired as First Lady. She was popular in the support role of Secretary of State, but unpopular as a candidate for President.
Women are supposed to influence from behind. Nancy Pelosi leads upfront. She breaks the Trump brand.
3 comments:
Perhaps she's the only woman who could take him on and beat him in an election. If she ran, I think he would faint.
"...unpopular as a candidate for President." Really? I guess that popular vote thing didn't matter.
If the Speaker was male and made the same comments gender wouldn't even be an issue, although pundits would be making WWE comparisons and oblique references to genitalia. Conflict and confrontation are oh so titillating when it's male/female and we see a constitutional crises devolved to an episode of "The Honeymooners" ("to the moon, Nancy!").
The whole point of this movement is to accept women as equals, however unwilling certain men may be, but then the dinosaurs didn't see the asteroid either.
As to "woke"...It's interesting that this term, which is African American street slang of uncertain origin, although it was popularized by being used in rap lyrics, is now generally applied to refer to social issues, like misogyny. Like "hip" and "cool" before it "woke" can't be used by someone who is not "woke" without looking "square". I avoid it, preferring the more descriptive "intelligent".
BTW, Clinton should have been found guilty and removed from office. Republicans didn't do it because it would have meant a Gore presidency and certain reelection. As it turned out Gore couldn't remove the stain, and 8 years later his wife couldn't either.
Trump is way woke. According to the study you cite, which analysed why 6 million white Obama supporters switched to Trump, being woke is why he's president and Hillary is not. Cambridge dictionary defines "woke" as "aware, especially of social problems such as racism and inequality" Sophisticated political use of dog whistles to channel racial and gender resentment presupposes that awareness. Hillary and identity focused democrats were the unwoke ones. They mostly still are. Democrats floating in our arrogant politixal correctness fantasy bubbles are the opposite of woke. We are still too often in our 2016 deep sleep, dreaming of things like a Joe Biden rescue.
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