Sad.

[rose_cat]

Comments

[oslo]

I agree.

To be honest, I feel a bit betrayed by a number of Hillary boosters I talked to back during the campaign. I was worried that Hillary couldn't play Trump's game and certainly couldn't win by it; that a lack of enthusiasm for her would lead to lower turnout; that Hillary wasn't thinking hard enough about how to get voters out. But these women told me that was my male privilege talking: I couldn't see how offensive Trump was to women, and so it didn't occur to me that women could carry this election for Hillary. I was worried about how Hillary could appeal to white men. The boosters told me that we didn't need them.

And so - wanting to be a good and respectful ally - I believed them. I trusted their point of view. And on that trust I built a genuine enthusiasm for Hillary the candidate. But lo, it played out exactly as I expected. Not enough women found Trump's awfulness to be disqualifying, and it turns out we needed those white men after all.

And so now, in the post-election discussions, these same women are looking at the exit polls and concluding... it's internalized misogyny and economic ignorance. I don't doubt these played some role, but that doesn't point to a strategy that's any different than the one that lost - as you suggest, one based on identity politics. I am increasingly convinced that these women - smart, ambitious women that I respect - have trapped themselves in a classist echo chamber, and there's really nothing I can do to dissuade them, because everything I say is "mansplaining."

The early signs suggest that Trump's economic policy is going to be just the usual GOP expropriation. We need a movement to be ready when his supporters start to notice they're not better off.

[unnamed525]

They'll be aware of it. It's whether they give it a couple of years or not.

[oslo]

Well, there was a fair bit of misogyny in the opposition to Hillary. Particularly insofar as people insisted that they didn't like her (for some reason) or failed to acknowledge how similar her platform was to Bernie's.

I mean, we can acknowledge both that misogyny was a real element in the opposition to Hillary, and that Hillary had genuine issues that would make her a poor choice against Trump. These are not mutually incompatible positions.

[oslo]

I am not really sure what you're looking for from me, here. I mean... okay? I don't recall insinuating that anyone was a misogynist unless I felt that they'd actually displayed this misogyny in some way, and I would usually make the effort to demonstrate this.

[rose_cat]

Thank you (everyone in this thread) for the complex discussion. I'm not up to thinking all of this through now and replying in any coherent way. This is partly because I'm not knowledgeable enough on many of these issues, but mostly because I'm still coming to grips with the situation and what it means for both the long and the short term. I'd welcome any links to references that you think might be helpful.