Some of the post-election assessments of some of my more liberal friends seem almost designed to lose future elections. It may be that the country will endure scandal after scandal in the Trump era and fare so poorly economically and internationally that the Democrats can win elections even with their 2016 election strategies, but this is not guaranteed. When I pointed out that the Democratic Party might be having trouble getting men to vote Democratic because the Party's policies and rhetoric had basically ignored roughly half the electorate, I was told that the real reason that Democrats lost was because of male sexism. ("Joe the plumber is afraid of women taking jobs that he thinks only men should have.")
Few deny that sexism exists nor that racism exists in America, but two points are worth noting:
- It is unlikely that these "isms" are going away any time soon. The Democratic Party is going to have to win in spite of these "isms." I do not believe that most American men think of themselves as "sexists." The lunatic (20% ?) fringe of the women's movement has had some success in squelching free expression when it offends the movement. (Trigger warnings, safe spaces, opposition to men's groups on college campuses, for example.) But despite the efforts of the women's lunatic fringe, men are still free to express themselves in some important ways. One of these ways is voting. It is difficult to understand how many liberals' penchant for pejoratively describing men as "sexists" or harping on "male privilege" is going to help win men's votes. To many men this is an unjustified and slanderous attack. Whether or not you ascribe to the "male privilege" ideology, an undeniable fact is that men still have an equal right to vote.
- Unless one believes that sexism is a much more serious problem than racism in America (I do not), then the two elections that Obama won indicate that the Democrats can win elections in spite of the "isms." Perhaps it is not the most important difference between Obama's campaign and Clinton's campaign, but one significant difference is that Obama made few (zero?) comments about policies specifically to help black people. Clinton seemed to emphasize policies she championed that were specifically designed to address women's issues and hardly ever (zero?) even mentioned policies to address men's issues.
The Democratic Party seems to be ceding the men's vote to the Republican Party. I suspect many men now view the Democratic Party as the women's party whereas in the past the Democratic Party was often viewed as the common people's party. What evidence would the Party supply to convince men that the Party actually cared about men to even one tenth the degree that the Party cares about women? Maybe it goes against decades of tradition at this point, but maybe liberals could stop dissing men if only enough to get Democrats elected so that they can pursue policies to help women?
The following would help Democrats win male votes:
- Stop dissing men. Encourage all Party members to drop the pejorative attacks on men borrowed from the lunatic fringe of the women's movement.
- To win back a few male votes, it is probably enough for Democratic politicians to pretend to care about men's issues. If your website has a link (or email list) for comments on "women's issues," add a link (or email list) for comments on "men's issues." ( https://smolyhokes.blogspot.com/2016/11/the-democratic-party-and-men-one-good.html ) The software can be programmed to delete automatically any resulting comments about "men's issues," so a Democratic politician can still keep 100% focus on "women's issues." Still, it will look good and win at least a few extra votes.
- If, even after making the efforts in steps 1 and 2, a Democratic politician still has concerns (say the polls look bad) about the male vote, a low level staff member could read the comments about "men's issues" and respond by saying that the politician thanks the constituent for the comments and would keep them in mind. This will, unfortunately, take some staff time away from "women's issues," but it need not take any of the politician's time. This will look even better than item 2 and win even more extra votes than item 2.
- If even item 3 does not work well enough the politician may want to actually read the comments on "men's issues" and pretend to care by introducing a bill. Fortunately, unless the politician really spends significant time promoting the bill, the bill will never even make it out of committee. Inasmuch as the bill has no chance of becoming law, very little time, consideration, or effort need be expended to write a good bill. Even a very bad bill is good enough to give the appearance of caring. The attempt can at least be advertised on a website and pointed to if questions arise about what the politician has done to help men. This will look even better than item 3 and win even more extra votes than item 3.
- It is somewhat drastic, and it breaks with decades of Democratic tradition, but as a last resort, the politician might consider actually spending enough time, effort, and political capital to get at least one law passed addressing one "men's issue." With luck, the politician will still be able to partition effort between "women's issues" and "men's issues" at a 99% to 1% rate. This will gain many male votes out of all proportion to the effort involved because it will be a symbolic sign that "men's issues" will, at least sometimes, get more than trickle down considerations via "women's issues." ( https://smolyhokes.blogspot.com/2017/01/the-democratic-partys-trickle-down.html )
In summary, if the Democratic Party wants to win more male votes it will help if it actually does something for men. The Party seems to understand winning female votes by doing things for women, but it seems to be a novel idea to win male votes by doing something for men.
No comments:
Post a Comment