Wednesday 11/6/24
I saw a post yesterday on social media--and it was representative of many other posts I encounter which themselves are indicative of certain elements in society--in which a woman bragged about going to Trader Joe's, cornering some poor employee--not that she looked at this way--and asking that person who was working what snacks went best with smashing the patriarchy.
That's a fantastic level of entitlement, essentially demanding that someone be your audience for your egotistical witlessness. And then boasting of this for points on social media.
That's a person with zero self-awareness. The support for this individual--I use the term loosely--was enormous, with so many people saying how funny she was, they had accepted the assignment--cringe-inducing, self-congratulatory phraseology which translated to, "I hate men and I'm amazing for driving downtown voting, just as I was amazing for sitting on my couch and stopping COVID. I clicked on her bio. Cats. More cats. Pronouns. The term "advocate," which is so common now, and such a person's way of telling you that they're a hero who rescues people that they regard as pets and objects and without any agency of their own. And also how empty their lives are. And how hypocritical they are.
Well, this was the problem of Harris's campaign. It became this rah rah gender thing. Lonely, embittered, self-medicating cat women were never going to vote for Donald Trump anyway. Other people had concerns, though. Practical concerns.
I wouldn't defend Donald Trump. I don't defend any of these people. I couldn't support a single one of them. But Harris had a winnable campaign and what will happen now is that there's going to be so many people blaming her loss on her skin color and gender, as if there was no way she could have won because of those things and big bad white men being what they are in an America undergirded by fascism, racism, and misogyny.
That's not why she lost. Biden taking as long as he did to step away didn't help. Felt like the car had pulled over on the side of the road pretty far into the trip and someone in the backseat took over at the wheel. Undercuts confidence.
I think she had to try to assuage the concerns--or anticipate the concerns--of the people who saw someone who had the shrill backing of women who almost brag about how angry and miserable they are. I don't mean angry because of society's workings. I mean in life. Often as a result of their choices.
There is so much disconnection and loneliness now. It gets worse every year. You could take this back to the level of a dating site. Ten years ago, it was possible to have a conversation with someone. Hard, but every now and again. Doesn't happen anymore. People want to collect compliments, be mean, boast about these things, often in the digital square of a social media platform. While they're alone. Drinking. Petting Fluffy. You have all of these brittle people. Tap them with a pencil and they crack apart and fall to dust.
That's scary to people who are less like that when it comes to matters that can directly effect their lives. They'll choose to vote for someone they don't like when it comes to their interests. Or when they don't have enough reason to think that the other person is aware of them. They'll lie about it, too. Outside of the ballot box, I mean.
People care more about themselves than anything else. Not I. And I'm sure there are some others. But almost always. Which is ironic, given how much harm people cause to themselves with their choices, their ignorance, their laziness, their determination to never think, and certainly not to think for themselves and be accountable.
Those people who were going to have those concerns were the ones to really focus on. The Trader Joe's thing is anecdotal, sure. But it's also more than that. It's symbolic of a trend. Of a mainstreaming. Or an attempted mainstreaming, you could say. A countenancing.
People don't want to be effaced. The self-medicating, lonely, miserable cat woman wants to efface the straight male. People react out of fear and fear isn't often reasonable. I think you had people who weren't like that kind of person who worried about where they'd be left with all of this.
There are some who will cite Trump's base as its own monstrosity. I think they're being willfully ignorant. Trump's base might include that cave man type of guy who thinks the Bible--this book he's never read four words out of--is a literal history and gays are bad and other sundry stupid and terrible things, but it also includes more practical people who don't think it's super awesome, for example, that some biological male who has elected to identify as someone else has beaten the shit out of their daughter in some sporting event.
The absurdity gets pushed so far. The further it can be pushed, the more pushing occurs. It's not about justice. It's about power and it's often about projection, because so many people are unwell.
A moratorium eventually comes with these things, and it manifests itself in an election. Or it can. People say, "Enough." You push it far enough, and they can say "Enough" by voting for someone they don't like.
Trump is what he is. Keeping to our car analogy, he's like who takes a joy ride in a car for his own shits and giggles and amusements and ego and will keep driving as long as he can get away with it. How many lies do you think such a person has told in his life? Personally, I don't think any modern politician is better than any other, give or take. That's not what I'm talking about here, though.
I'm talking about how Harris could have won and why I think she was hindered in that goal by a portion of her strategy. In the final days of her campaign, she hammered away at Trump, personally. Again, that just strikes me as for that Trader Joe's woman and her ilk. Trump bashing has been done to death. We've had almost a decade of it. I don't believe that it seals the deal of victory. It's extraneous. It achieves nothing at this point save to highlight myopia.
The people who hate Trump already hated him. But a lot of it is on a personal level. How he talks, what he says, his mannerisms, speech patterns, the way he carries himself. The hate is more personal than policy-related. If you had someone else who was more palatable as a person and they had Trump's same policies, you wouldn't have the same kind of obsessive hating.
Problem is, there are many people in our society who always want to hate more and it's so easy to throw scraps of meat to that camp, because they always want to be fed, and Harris fell into this. They'd be so much happier if that's not how they were. They're their own worst enemy. They are the reason they're angry, alone, not working out, whatever it may be. It can be hundreds of things. It's not the patriarchy. People and Americans suck equally. We, as a people, have so little to offer from individual to individual. Part of the reason why is because people are so similar. Even with their political differences. They have the same shortcomings, they're just cast in different hues.
You know what I see often now? The claim that a man is not allowed to write about a woman. I'm a man and I'm creating the best book that's been written about women and girls. Doing that book--putting it out--would now be an act of radical politics made more radical still because it'd be truer to being a woman, being a girl, than any book written by a woman, and it's by a man. And a man who looks like I do at that. Among many other things.
I shouldn't be allowed to do that book that's amazing? Because that woman at Trader Joe's who buttonholes the employee also posts how she doesn't read works by cis heteronormative gendered white males or whatever the word-slop they're using is?
That's simply an example of how no one wants to be--or feel--effaced, no matter what it is they're doing. Too many people felt that way with the Harris campaign. Some still voted for her because of what they believe Trump to be. But enough of them didn't, despite what they think of Trump the person, because in their minds they were looking after their personal interests. He allowed for them.
I don't think Trump cares about women, people of color, but I also don't think Trump cares about men or white people. I don't think he cares about his family, his friends. I don't think he has real friends. I don't think Trump cares about anyone but Trump.
Sometimes when people only care about themselves they make decisions--or have policies--that aren't terrible, because they're trying to make themselves look good. That's their motivation, not a greater good. But there can still be the useful results. That's an idea that also got Trump votes, even if people didn't consciously articulate it that way.
I know what a big storyline will be, especially among that huge demo of people who hate themselves, hate their lives, and who exist in a form of miserable, angry isolation: It's the patriarchy's fault. But it's that same forced thematic insistence that in no small part produced this outcome which could have been avoided.
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