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PaperclipPerfector  1mo ago (text post)   36912 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of July 22, 2024

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It seems to me that they are on the attack - it's just a very stupid, self-destructive form of attack. Calling Kamala a "childless cat lady" just makes Vance look like a weirdo who has been marinated too much in online right-wing men's chats,

This was not a new campaign attack against Kamala. This misquote comes from a resurfaced Tucker Carlson interview from three years ago when JD Vance had just entered the Republican Senate primary.

Here is the full quote by the way:

We’re effectively run in this country via the Democrats, via our corporate oligarchs, by a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made. And so they want to make the rest of the country miserable, too. And it’s just a basic fact. You look at Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg, AOC, the entire future of the Democrats is controlled by people without children. And how does it make sense that we've turned this country over to people who don't have a direct stake in it? I just wanted to ask that question, and propose that maybe if we want a healthy ruling class in this country, we should invest more, we should vote more, for leaders that actually have kids because those ultimately are the people that have a more direct stake in the future of the country.

So she is not directly singling out and attacking Kamala as being miserable cat lady, there are two separate sentences.

like a weirdo who has been marinated too much in online right-wing men's chats, normies don't feel the anger towards childless women that is evident in such circles - like, to me, a childless aunt is the literal childless aunt of our kids (i.e. my sister) who doesn't own cats or drink wine but helps us often and is beloved by the kids.

Dread Jim has a take that the problem is childless older women who haven't played a role in raising their nieces and nephews tend to end up hating children. I think there is something probably to this, and the childless women who have climbed the corporate ladder are probably less likely to have played a role in the lives of their related children than your sister. I don't know how active a role Kamala played in the life of her nieces and nephews, but there are several clips of her giving a cackling laugh at the plight of parents, and that does make me uneasy. And she is a wine-drinker.

Anyways, I do agree that calling out Cat-Lady-Occupied-Government is bad politics, even if it is a real problem worth being concerned about.

I don't know how active a role Kamala played in the life of her nieces and nephews

No nephews. Kamala only has a niece, Meena Harris (father publicly unknown), who has two small daughters (attractive husband, happy family).

She also has two step children, but they were in their teenage years when their father married Kamala. (Wiki says they call her “Momala”, which is kind of adorable).

Okay, serves me right to not get a full context and just trust clips.

How does that make it better? I think it makes it worse – it's not just calling Kamala Harris names but an attack on all people without biological children (stepchildren apparently don't count for Vance). That's more than 50% of American households that Vance says don't care about the future. And aside from being completely unevidenced, insulting tens of millions of voters also seems not very smart.

I mean, this is a general problem for the current GOP, which is different from the past.

As a dirty left-winger, I opposed the Bush GOP with all my heart, but I understood they were trying to win majority support. They failed in 2000, but even putting aside everything post-9/11, they governed in a way to try to get a majority in 2004 - Medicare Part D, No Child Left Behind, etc. along with social conservative stuff I didn't like, but was at least far more popular at the time.

Which, they were then rewarded with the last electoral Presidential majority a Republican candidate has received in 2004, that then they decided to blow-up by trying to privatize Social Security.

Now, the GOP seems not interested in actually winning over a majority of voters. The view seems to be, run a straight flush, win with 47.3% of the vote, then act like you won a 35-state mandate in your actions afterward, then be shocked you become unpopular 19 seconds into office.

Ironically, that's why beyond pure partisanship, it would've been nice if what looked like was possible in 2004 - Kerry winning w/ a popular vote loss - would've happened, because then there might've been a bi-partisan movement to trash the Electoral College, and I'm not saying that as somebody who believes the GOP would be unable to create a platform and argument to win a national popular vote.

Completely agree with you, but also I don't see how Republicans could conserve their policy positions in popular vote system. There is huge demographic change going on that is realistically irreversible, but also generally US population is very progressive and there is little momentum going on in other direction compared to, for example Europe. I think the only way this changes in the near future is emergence of some great figure that can run on bipartisanship platform leaning left on economic issues and right on social ones either from an established party or even as third party break out like Ross Perrot, Trump could have been such figure but he wasn't.

The GOP is better-than-even to win the popular vote in November, and it's not because of Trump -- if anything he's a liability there.

The reason is that although the policies espoused by the left edges of the Democratic Party are very popular and easy to sell, the easily forseeable results of those polices are profoundly unpopular with virtually everybody.

Until either the left backs away from those policies or the populace gains the ability to connect the dots between the policies and their results in advance of casting their ballot, we will see the popular vote swinging wildly every 4-8 years -- sadly this does seem like the most likely outcome.

As a dirty-not-left-winger, it is apparent to me that a voting majority of the United States holds views, that if actually followed in practice, will lead to a great squandering of our potential, in the medium term will lead the US to be a third-world country, and in the long-term will lead to ultimately to the destruction of the nation.

At this point my advice to the GOP would be to ditch policy and ideology altogether, that is, just refuse to have any platform or ideology, and instead just try to run a decently competent, smart, charismatic fellow who promises to govern in the best interests of the people.

The problem is that any smart, non-leftist probably has a paper-trail of past statements that the current zeitgeist views as repugnant, eg, JD Vance. So very hard to find the guy who the party knows is solid but that hasn't tainted himself to the general public.

Now, the GOP seems not interested in actually winning over a majority of voters. The view seems to be, run a straight flush, win with 47.3% of the vote, then act like you won a 35-state mandate in your actions afterward, then be shocked you become unpopular 19 seconds into office.

I guess this is because they've doubled down on Trump; he's inherently polarising so there's little point in trying to win a wide majority. Enthusing the base is the only way.

I think they'll need to reboot the party a bit once he is finally off the scene, we'll see.

Liz Truss when she was UK prime minister came up with the idea of an anti-growth coalition that was just a long list of her enemies that – as she defined them – easily encompassed a majority of the electorate. I don't see how that kind of failing to reach out can ever lead to sustainable government.

I think on the other side that democrats spend so much time getting permission to actually do things that they mostly end up running out their own clock and doing nothing until after they’re losing seats in congress. The end result is that they get very little of their own agenda done and mostly end up being babysitters until the GOP wins. I think we could have lots of nice things — universal healthcare, working on the student loan crisis, affordable housing, better public transportation, fixing education, you name it. Instead they don’t and so nothing happens.

I don't think that electoral college should be trashed, but made stronger. A lot of problems could be solved if it was beefed up. Think something along the lines of - people really vote for electors of their state - as in there are lists with people and they can choose 1. The first X people by votes are the states electors. The electors are free to vote to whomever they desire in DC. The candidates have to actually campaign to the electors to convince them to vote for them. The person that got most votes becomes president. The person with second most - becomes vice president.

people really vote for electors of their state - as in there are lists with people and they can choose 1. The first X people by votes are the states electors.

Or pick 54 random Californians, 40 random Texans, 30 random Floridians, 28 random New Yorkers....

Buying votes has never been this easy.

Sounds like a great way to incentivize assassinations!

I honestly don’t see how the full context makes it any better.

I can see how the general line would be insulting to the childless, but it’s also…kinda true? To take one prominent and recent example, Merkel destroyed Germany both economically and socially for the indefinite future, and it’s easy to see why you would spend a country into endless debt if you know it’s not going to affect you in a few decades anyway.

Merkel's premiership was also characterised by stereotypically childless-person behaviour, e.g. her short-sighted and emotive decisions on nuclear power and migrants. Her outreach attempts to Putin, even as he conquered parts of Georgia, was also reminiscent of this Family Guy sketch: https://youtube.com/watch?v=9FTk3SawjX4

Mostly commenting on it not being an immediate reaction to the Kamala nomination.

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