This is why people don't want to vote Democrat anymore. Immutable characteristics are more important than being qualified to run the country.
Why are you surprised there's energy around the Kamala candidacy? The MSM is going to do whatever it takes to help the Dems win. Kamala is a puppet and all the other politicians who are now supporting her are puppets. It's no different than Republican politicians who shit on Trump and then all the sudden support him when it benefits them. None of these people give a shit about us. It's all about power and money.
I think it’s a bit of a lazy answer to just blame the media. I was a bit surprised at the energy from the crowd at Kamala’s speech in Milwaukee, especially compared to Biden’s speech in Madison just a couple of weeks ago. I don’t know if you’ve been to either city or not—both are liberal, but Madison might have the most granola-ass, far left, hippie-dippie, vegan-diet-eating yoga practitioners per capita in the known universe. And yet I didn’t see as much energy for Biden as Kamala seemed to get.
I also don’t buy this POV about Dems and immutable characteristics. The Republican Party loves immutable characteristics too—well, two of them in particular: being white and being male. We saw this in Trump’s cabinet, which was
88% white, and 62% male. Even in Congress, Dems are
much more diverse than Republicans are. I am not saying this is true for you personally, but a lot of time conservatives claim that about us, or accuse us of “DEI Hires”— which, to be clear, is a really really gross and insulting thing to say—when the real issue is that the GOP has a big problem with racism, and I am not sure how they are going to deal with it.
How many years do you think it will take for us to not be so comfortable being openly racist and sexist? Simply accepting that's it's okay and "normal" to make strategic decisions based on immutable traits?
Serious question. I remember back in the 80's that whenever there was a black quarterback in the NFL, all anybody could talk about his race.... now you don't ever hear that brought up when a new quarterback enters the draft. That's progress.
When do you think that will be true of race and gender in politics?
I think that’s a good question and I don’t really know. I suspect it’s not mentioned in sports anymore because there’s no problem with representation anymore in sports. So i suspect the same will be true in politics—when minorities are no longer underrepresented, we won’t hear about it so much,
I do think the Republican Party is the main offender, and I believe there are two reasons why.
One is because of the Southern Strategy. Once Dems became the party of civil rights, the GOP courted the South, and all the votes from disenchanted racists. Fast forward to 2024, and those people are like an albatross around their neck. I’m sure some conservatives would like the racists to fuck off, but they know they can’t win an lectionary without them.
Two, in some ways it goes against the very point of conservatism: to conserve, to keep what they have (or regain what they feel they lost). There’s a very real feeling among a lot of conservatives that each time minorities gain some ground, they (the old guard of white male conservatives) are somehow losing ground.
