I'm no Maureen Dowd fan. If you're starting a Maureen Dowd fan club then deal me out. But she does a pretty good framing of the coming Trump-Hillary Battle Royale:
"In Indiana, Trump boasted that “Iron” Mike Tyson and “all the tough guys” had endorsed him. The chair-throwing Bobby Knight backed Trump with the brass-knuckles encomium that Trump, like Harry Truman, would have the guts to drop the bomb. When his rallies become Fight Club, Trump boasts that it adds a little excitement."
"Hillary Clinton’s rallies, by contrast, can seem like a sorority rush reception hosted by Lena Dunham, or an endless episode of “The View,” with a girl-power soundtrack by Katy Perry, Taylor Swift and Demi Lovato. The ultimate insider is portraying herself as an outsider because she’s a woman, and the candidate who is considered steely is casting herself as cozy because she’s a doting granny."
"Her website is chockablock with empowerment gear, from a hot pink “woman’s card” to a “Make Herstory” T-shirt to a “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun-damental Rights” tote bag to “A Woman’s Place Is in the White House” throw pillow. She says her favorite shows are “The Good Wife,” “Madam Secretary” and “Downton Abbey,” and she did a guest shot on “Broad City.”
"Trump’s most ardent supporters, white men, are facing off against Hillary’s most loyal supporters, black women."
"Clinton and Trump have moved on to their mano a womano fight, leaving behind “the leftovers,” as Trump labels deflated rivals."
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/01/opinion/sunday/donald-the-dove-hillary-the-hawk.html?ribbon-ad-idx=6&rref=opinion&_r=0
"It probably won’t work. It definitely is ugly. But it may be the best card he has to play, with 7 in 10 women regarding him unfavorably. A man who has demagogically divided Americans by race and ethnicity now aims to finish the job by dividing us by views of gender roles."
"A fascinating new study by Dan Cassino, a political scientist at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey, shows why. Just as Trump has exposed a surprising depth of racial animus in the United States, there is gender animus to be tapped as well. Cassino found that the “gender role threat” — a perceived threat to male identity and masculinity — leads to increased support for Trump among men, and lower support for Clinton."
In a survey of New Jersey voters in late February, Cassino and his colleagues tried an experiment. Half of respondents, before being asked about their preference in the presidential election, were asked whether they or their spouse earned more money. The others were asked about their household income distribution after they were asked about their presidential preference."
"What they found was troubling — and huge. Men who weren’t “primed” with the question about spousal income preferred Clinton over Trump, 49 percent to 33 percent. But those who were primed with the income question, reminding them about the upending of traditional gender roles, favored Trump over Clinton, 50 to 42 percent — a 24-point shift. Removing any doubt that the issue is gender: The same experiment produced almost no shift in a hypothetical matchup between Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)."
"The priming of voters with the gender-role question caused women to support Clinton even more strongly, by an extra 12 percentage points. But this didn’t offset the losses the experiment caused Clinton among men. Overall, she lost 8 percentage points when voters were reminded about changing gender roles."
"What this shows, and what Trump apparently recognizes, is that the gender gap cuts both ways. Trump has already lost the votes of liberal and moderate women (and of liberal men, who, like women, tended to be even more pro-Clinton when they were primed with the gender-role question). Playing the man card — appealing to a male sense of feeling threatened by changing gender roles — can help Trump boost turnout among conservative and evangelical Christian men, while peeling off some support from non-white men and older, anti-feminist women."
The gender gap “probably hurts him more than it helps him, but it’s close,” Cassino told me. “I don’t think it’s a big loser in the general election.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-calculated-misogyny/2016/04/29/c063a984-0e03-11e6-bfa1-4efa856caf2a_story.html
I'm not sure I agree that it's not a big loser. I think it very well may be. I do agree it's all he's got.
In any case, it certainly confirms the reality that 2016 is not a post gender election. Not even close.
"In Indiana, Trump boasted that “Iron” Mike Tyson and “all the tough guys” had endorsed him. The chair-throwing Bobby Knight backed Trump with the brass-knuckles encomium that Trump, like Harry Truman, would have the guts to drop the bomb. When his rallies become Fight Club, Trump boasts that it adds a little excitement."
"Hillary Clinton’s rallies, by contrast, can seem like a sorority rush reception hosted by Lena Dunham, or an endless episode of “The View,” with a girl-power soundtrack by Katy Perry, Taylor Swift and Demi Lovato. The ultimate insider is portraying herself as an outsider because she’s a woman, and the candidate who is considered steely is casting herself as cozy because she’s a doting granny."
"Her website is chockablock with empowerment gear, from a hot pink “woman’s card” to a “Make Herstory” T-shirt to a “Girls Just Wanna Have Fun-damental Rights” tote bag to “A Woman’s Place Is in the White House” throw pillow. She says her favorite shows are “The Good Wife,” “Madam Secretary” and “Downton Abbey,” and she did a guest shot on “Broad City.”
"Trump’s most ardent supporters, white men, are facing off against Hillary’s most loyal supporters, black women."
"Clinton and Trump have moved on to their mano a womano fight, leaving behind “the leftovers,” as Trump labels deflated rivals."
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/01/opinion/sunday/donald-the-dove-hillary-the-hawk.html?ribbon-ad-idx=6&rref=opinion&_r=0
I have to credit Dowd with a nice framing her, though I disagree with her on two large points:
1. Trump is not a dove. What he is talking about with letting South Korea, Japan, etc. go nuclear and not ruling out using the nuclear weapons himself, is a recipe for a much less safe world-as should be obvious.
Hillary's team should brush off LBJ's Daisy ad.
2. Hillary does not play the gender card. Dowd, in continuing to say she does-this has been Dowd's claim for years-she shows she herself agrees with Trump.
As Dana Milbank argues, it's not Hillary playing the woman card, but Trump playing the man card:
"It probably won’t work. It definitely is ugly. But it may be the best card he has to play, with 7 in 10 women regarding him unfavorably. A man who has demagogically divided Americans by race and ethnicity now aims to finish the job by dividing us by views of gender roles."
"A fascinating new study by Dan Cassino, a political scientist at Fairleigh Dickinson University in New Jersey, shows why. Just as Trump has exposed a surprising depth of racial animus in the United States, there is gender animus to be tapped as well. Cassino found that the “gender role threat” — a perceived threat to male identity and masculinity — leads to increased support for Trump among men, and lower support for Clinton."
In a survey of New Jersey voters in late February, Cassino and his colleagues tried an experiment. Half of respondents, before being asked about their preference in the presidential election, were asked whether they or their spouse earned more money. The others were asked about their household income distribution after they were asked about their presidential preference."
"What they found was troubling — and huge. Men who weren’t “primed” with the question about spousal income preferred Clinton over Trump, 49 percent to 33 percent. But those who were primed with the income question, reminding them about the upending of traditional gender roles, favored Trump over Clinton, 50 to 42 percent — a 24-point shift. Removing any doubt that the issue is gender: The same experiment produced almost no shift in a hypothetical matchup between Trump and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)."
"The priming of voters with the gender-role question caused women to support Clinton even more strongly, by an extra 12 percentage points. But this didn’t offset the losses the experiment caused Clinton among men. Overall, she lost 8 percentage points when voters were reminded about changing gender roles."
"What this shows, and what Trump apparently recognizes, is that the gender gap cuts both ways. Trump has already lost the votes of liberal and moderate women (and of liberal men, who, like women, tended to be even more pro-Clinton when they were primed with the gender-role question). Playing the man card — appealing to a male sense of feeling threatened by changing gender roles — can help Trump boost turnout among conservative and evangelical Christian men, while peeling off some support from non-white men and older, anti-feminist women."
The gender gap “probably hurts him more than it helps him, but it’s close,” Cassino told me. “I don’t think it’s a big loser in the general election.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trumps-calculated-misogyny/2016/04/29/c063a984-0e03-11e6-bfa1-4efa856caf2a_story.html
I'm not sure I agree that it's not a big loser. I think it very well may be. I do agree it's all he's got.
In any case, it certainly confirms the reality that 2016 is not a post gender election. Not even close.
I have been waiting for Hillary-Trump since last Summer. It is going to be a huge event. Nothing like it in electoral history. I'm sure they will get to everything including what really happened at his wedding.
A piece by Jenee Jesmond-Harris argues that the positive aspect of Trump is he proves racism is still very real.
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/01/opinion/campaign-stops/the-upside-to-overt-racism.html?smid=tw-share
Agreed, with the caveat that he also proves that sexism is still very real.
You probably already knew this, but the phrase "mano y mano" in Spanish does NOT mean "man to man" it means "hand and hand." "mano a mano" means hand to hand (as in hand to hand combat I guess).
ReplyDeleteSo it sounds like Trump's putting his hands all over her. Lol. But that came from Dowd, I guess, so I won't hold you responsible.