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naraburns  nihil supernum  16d ago (text post)   26869 thread views

U.S. Election (Day?) 2024 Megathread

With apologies to our many friends and posters outside the United States... it's time for another one of these! Culture war thread rules apply, and you are permitted to openly advocate for or against an issue or candidate on the ballot (if you clearly identify which ballot, and can do so without knocking down any strawmen along the way). "Small-scale" questions and answers are also permitted if you refrain from shitposting or being otherwise insulting to others here. Please keep the spirit of the law--this is a discussion forum!--carefully in mind.

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I haven't seen it discussed much, probably because Harris didn't lean into it, but the elephant in the room is that maybe America just doesn't want a woman president?

I think we'd elect an Iron Lady, but Harris and Clinton are the opposite of that.

Clinton seems to me to fit an iron lady archetype very well. (Kamala the Brat, less so.)

I can see the headlines now:

Trump beats women

I'm following Ken White and some other usual suspects on bluesky. If she does lose they're already prepping that narrative hard. Lots of "the votes of racist misogynists aren't valid expressions of democracy"

I’ve been watching NBC, and they just talked about that too. (Paraphrased) “If Harris loses, it might just be proof that Americans won’t vote for a black female president.”

There have been two notable female candidates for the American Presidency in the last half century. One was a clearly ambitious, unprincipled, anti-charismatic party member with debatable interest in legality who ran because it was her turn and the party machine cleared the way. The other was Hillary Clinton.

There are jokes about which was the better role model for young women, but the key point is that neither ran or rose the position on the power of their popularity. This is something of an obstacle in democratic elections, which are basically weighted popularity contests.

I think Hillary would be the better role model. Harris is just as venal but a lot stupider.

I'd like to be able to contradict you, but I don't actually know anything about her, and it looks like I'm going to keep it that way.

I think the Democrat coalition contains a lot of small but important demographics (Muslims, evangelical blacks etc.) who are very firmly opposed to a female President, for many of the same reasons that they're opposed to LGBTQ stuff. This fact makes DNC staffers uncomfortable, so they ignore it, but if they want to win elections, they won't be able to ignore it forever.

I actually don't think the idea of the Republicans putting forward a successful female candidate in the next decade is completely implausible.

A republican woman President is completely plausible, but the problem is that there aren’t many matronly Republican women in senior state positions, the default look seems to be a bimbofied Fox News anchor (just look at what they did to Kristi Noem) which I don’t think people see as particularly presidential.

The odds that the next Democratic presidential nominee is a white male are 100%.

I recall seeing a couple articles about this leading up to the election (eg, from the BBC). I expect to see a whole lot more if Trump wins.

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