Chris Bray writes for the Federalist about an interesting trend in American politics.
A growing gender gap in American politics increasingly feminizes the partisan divide: men are more generally right, women more generally left. While political identity becomes more likely to split by sex, a second attribute in party choice becomes more interesting.
A 2020 Pew Research survey question looking at women between the ages of 18 and 29 “found that 56.3% of white liberal women in that age group answered yes when asked if a doctor had ever diagnosed them with a mental health condition.” …
… We increasingly have a competition between a “making arguments” politics and a culturally feminized “displaying feelings” politics, with an undercurrent of status signaling in the latter category. …
… So they went looking for someone in Maine who could seem “working-class dude,” and in Texas put out a casting call for someone who could seem sort of religiousy and reassuringly pastorish, doing some God-sounding stuff for the cameras. Here’s the Bangor Daily News on the work to find the Democrat to challenge Republican Sen. Susan Collins in Maine: “It was part of a union effort to find a Democrat who can appeal to working-class voters the party has shed over the past decade.”
They went appeal-shopping. What do working-class voters find appealing? Uh…forearm tattoos and a hooded sweatshirt? We found one! (The press is here, can we have it drink a beer?)
The crazy lady party went looking for bodies that could seem to occupy the category of “normal man,” which is like asking a halibut to pick the most ordinary grizzly bear. The one category doesn’t know the other category, more or less by definition.
Democrats are trying to find men who can seem the most: seem like a pastor, seem like a working man. This is how you end up with a “seminarian” standing in front of an altar and making the faith-based argument that trannies need lots of abortions.
