Credit: Processon.
The Trump campaign made efforts to broaden the GOP presidential nominee’s appeal last night. As unmoored from reality as it was, Ivanka made a case her father would be a champion for women. During his own speech, Trump made an appeal to the LGBT community, despite providing little indication to date he’d actually do anything on their behalf.
Trump’s base, however, continues to be white men. An ABC News/Washington Post poll released early last month showed Trump with a huge 60 percent to 26 percent advantage among that demographic. It might not be enough for Trump to secure a general election victory — thanks to his unpopularity with others groups, Trump trailed Clinton overall in that same ABC poll — but it was enough to secure the Republican nomination.
During a CNN interview this morning, Rep. Sean Duffy (R-WI) acknowledged the Trump phenomenon for what it is — identity politics for white men.
While opining about Trump’s RNC-closing speech, Duffy said, “There’s a viewpoint that says, ‘I can fight for minorities, and I can fight for women,’ and if you get that, you make up a vast majority of the voting block and you win. And white males have been left aside a little bit in the politics of who speaks to them.”
White males have been left aside. Really. How about if we shift back to reality land here, and tell the truth – white males have been on top of the pile of humanity just about everywhere on this planet for…all time. It is unfuckingbelievable how whiny white males can get over being “a little bit left aside”, when the reality is they are not at all left aside, because as usual, every damn thing is about the poor white men. I’ll try to work up a tear. If you white men feel so hurt and upsetty about that, could you possibly take it just a teeny bit further, and try to imagine what it has been like for minorities and women for fucking centuries?
Via Think Progress.
To be fair, Trump will help a few women immigrate, if they’re “hawt”
To also be fair, even Clinton’s platform still panders to forced-birther men. I guess they’re complaining that the white cishets are represented “only” by a Democrat VP?
Shiv:
Yes, because everyone everywhere panders to white men, forced birthers or no.
As a White, cis/het male, I would like to apologize in advance for all the idiots who share my melanin deficiency, physical sex, gender identity and sexual orientation (though thankfully nothing else) who are working so assiduously to put the most dangerous contemporary fascist on the planet in control of the world’s most powerful nation.
I know that a fair reading of world history would have under the heading ‘epic historical and/or contemporary screw ups’ a little label reading ‘cf: cis/het white guys’, but we really seem to be out doing ourselves this time, with potentially catastrophic consequences for everyone.
White males have been ‘left aside in politics’? What planet is Duffy on? So long as I can remember, the people in charge have always been White male social elites championing the narrow interests of other White male social elites, with horrifyingly disastrous outcomes more often than not. That hasn’t changed simply because Hilary Clinton is the Democratic Nominee, anymore than it changed when Barack Obama became President, because the same power brokers still represent the same core interest groups, and those groups are decidedly pallid and bloke-shaped -- the whole system is set up to revolve around the interests and worldview of middle and upper class cis/het White men -- how willfully obtuse do you have to be not to see that?
Gregory:
Oh, very, and unbelievably so. I cannot believe all the people who are willingly and happily behind Trump. It’s terrifying enough, and now he’s making even more men think they are marginalized? Gods, we are in so much trouble.
Most or at least many *can* see it, and will, in unofficial settings, admit to it after just a bit of probing. Officially, no one says “Let’s opress and infringe on these people for our benefit!” It’s always framed as -- “This …. is a problem, and we have to do something about it” and given a nice-sounding name that has nothing to do with what is actually being proposed.
It’s such a common strategy that many people can’t even believe that someone would do something for *other people* without a hidden agenda -- as evidenced by tex the argument “Men who say they are feminists do it just to get laid.”
Trump’s message isn’t that white cis het men are opressed, it’s a ‘dog whistle’ -- a campaign promise that he will actively strive to uphold and further their supremacy. And the slogan “… Great Again” makes sense only as a reference to the recent times when white male ect. had *more* power than now. That’s why no one wants to say out loud when or what was ‘Great.’
Of course a lot of people take the pretty slogans at face value, others don’t want to lose what they feel are ‘normal’ advantages (which they perceive as being treated unfairly even when in reality they lose just a small part of a unearned priviledge.)
Caine ‘ 5;
It terrifies me witless, and I am a cis/het White guy who lives in the UK, so about as far from the top of Trump’s hit list as it is possible to get, and yet alongside the empathy I feel for the many, many innocent people who will be very directly endangered by a Trump win, I still also feel a cold shiver of personal fear when I contemplate the kind of world we are heading toward, which makes me feel bad because I am not the kind of person who is in the cross hairs.
If I don’t stand up to be counted, the kinds of people Trump would represent in power probably wouldn’t come after me. That said, I won’t go through life saying I did and said nothing while those arseholes built the pyres high for innocent people not born with the protection of a pasty hide, so I will just have to screw what courage I have to the sticking point and take a stand with all the decent human beings, should it come to that. It is time to put this privilege I never earned to some good use, even if it costs me in the long run. Nobody ever said principles came without a cost.
L. Minnik says @ 6;
Absolutely true -- just as no villain ever admits to themselves that they are the villain, every oppressor has reasons that sound good in their own ears (if nowhere else) for their oppression. As a species, we truly excel at lying to ourselves.
Oh yes, I have heard the accusation of ‘White Knighting’ on many occasions, though if that were my strategy it has been spectacularly unsuccessful, and yet I keep arguing for progressive, feminist values, almost as if ‘bagging’ feminists (charming terminology these MRAs use, no?) was never my motivation in the first place. Indeed almost as if it is possible to care about women as fellow human beings rather than chunks of desirably shaped meat, not that misogynists could ever conceive of such a thing.
Isn’t it interesting how many tactics in common Trump and his cronies share with the MRA’s, pick up artists and other assorted misogynists? That such people may be left on the rise should Trump come to power is another issue to worry about.
The inchoate, unreasoning rage induced by any form of employment policy that can be interpreted as some form of affirmative action being a case in point, doubly so when the person in question was just the better candidate than all the White, male applicants -- the racists and misogynists simply cannot allow themselves to imagine a world where a White guy from their in group (an ‘alpha’ -- because they apparently think they are wolves or other pack animals) loses out simply because someone else was better (and indeed so much better as to overcome the inertia of institutional discrimination and still come out ahead) at something with no conspiracy required.
That such paranoid bigots could be running the show to an even greater degree than today is a frightening prospect indeed.
Gregory Greenwood @8,
Just to clarify, I think it’s incorrect to assume that all people ultimately want to be good. Many only care about themselves and being ‘good’ by the standards of their in-group.
Actually, some will proudly admit to everything as long as they think that they will not suffer any adverse consequences.
And for a lot of people *being a decent human being* is not so high on their list of priorities; as in after for example ‘buying a nice car’ or ‘getting a slightly higher social status.’
Maybe what is wrong is that it is at all culturally acceptable to bring others down in order to gain advantages.
Or maybe entierly rational and calculating with regard to how to get as much as possible by both striving for it *and* hurting one’s competition with the help of coordinated lies and actions.
Then again, a study done in Sweden showed that boys perceived the girls to be given more time to answer than they when the teacher made an effort to make sure the boys and girls in the classroom had the same amount of time. That’s about as innocent as it gets. Then, thanks to what the boys see and experience around them, they protested this perceived ‘injustice’ and expected things to go back to they way they were before.
If the motivation, goodwill/lack thereof and ignorance of a bigot is better known then it makes it that much easier to counteract. So making up excuses/denial instead of admitting to wanting to disadvantage groups of people is like using smoke and mirrors -- a distraction that wastes the other side’s time and energy on irrelevant arguments and may get some to truly believe the lies. It’s entierly rational if that is someone’s goal.
“There’s a viewpoint that says, ‘I can fight for minorities, and I can fight for women,’ and if you get that, you make up a vast majority of the voting block and you win. And white males have been left aside a little bit in the politics of who speaks to them.”
What has this guy been smoking?