We’ve heard a lot in recent days from assorted manosphere dudes about how the “slut vote” – and the endless hunger of our nation’s “sluts” for free contraception – helped to bring about a humiliating end to Romney’s presidential hopes. The sluts went for Obama, we heard, because he promised them (and women in general) what they supposedly want most: “free stuff without ever having to work.”
Minus the word “slut,” this was the basic argument we’ve heard over the past week from a lot of right-wingers as well, including such big names as Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly, who’ve been loudly complaining that Obama won over women – and minorities – by promising to give them “stuff.”
Well, today, a new voice joined this chorus: Mitt Romney himself. In a conference call today with some of his big donors – no doubt a fairly dispirited bunch – Romney offered this explanation for his defeat:
The Obama campaign was following the old playbook of giving a lot of stuff to groups that they hoped they could get to vote for them and be motivated to go out to the polls, specifically the African American community, the Hispanic community and young people. … In each case they were very generous in what they gave to those groups.
Never mind, as the Los Angeles Times points out, that Romney lost in some key states that have a minimal minority population, or that Romney’s promised tax cuts could be considered gigantic gifts to the rich.
While Romney talked less about gender than he did about race and enthnicity, he did single out one group that he said Obama had been especially generous to: young women. And you all know the easiest way to bribe a young female voter. As Romney put it:
Free contraceptives were very big with young, college-aged women.
Apparently the government has been shipping out birth control pills along with those Obama Phones.
@CassandraSays
I recall comparing Republicans to Cybermen a while back.
@cloudiah
That sounds like an awesome coalition/peaceful protest. I hope good things came of it.
As much as I dislike Bush Jr he came across as an actual human being though – a clueless, privileged, often petulant one, but he didn’t have the sort of lack of emotional affect that bothers me about Romney. None of his emotional reactions seemed genuine to me and it creeped me out.
The reasons there’s such a strong tie between hunting and conservative politics is complex:
1: Hunting generally entails the use of guns, depending on the type of game. In urban America, gun ownership is associated with violent crime, while in rural America, it’s pretty much a de facto state of being. Since liberals tend to be drawn from urban populations, they are often strong gun-control advocates (I’m an exception to this rule, and I know others, but I’m speaking on average, here), this comes across as a strong attack on something that is quite literally their way of life.
2: Like most things, within the broader category of gun owners, you develop hobbyists. These are the folks who like to buy military spec weapons and take them to shows and demos and fire off lots of rounds at targets. It’s got more in common with enjoying a fireworks show than anything else, but again–full autofire to an urbanite means you’ve accidentally driven into gang-contested turf and need to get away. Again, a communication break-down causes misunderstandings and hostilities–to the gun enthusiasts, their harmless pass-time is being threatened by a bunch of people who have know idea what they are talking about.
3: On the flipside, the association of the animal-rights movement with liberal ‘hippies’ also causes friction. Good conservationists know that well-regulated hunting seasons can maintain healthy animal populations, but there is a segment on the left that would cheerfully let the deer population explode to the point of starvation. (These also tend to be the ones who buy into ‘natural’ remedies and such, not realizing that “nature” has spent most of humanity’s history trying to kill us off.)
4: And, as noted, small-game hunting, common in rural areas (and especially the rural South) is often regarded with open disdain by urbanites. Squirrel, raccoon, oppossum and so forth are seen as ‘garbage animals’ in the city environment, so eating them is tantamount to eating out of the trash can behind a fast-food joint. This leads to treating Brunswick stew eaters the same as they might a homeless woman–patronizing at best, outright insulting at worst. (For more evidence of liberal classism, see some of the comments made during the Clinton sex scandals about ‘trailer parks’ and ‘white trash’.)
Getting liberals to set aside these attitudes–to actually embrace the variety of American cultures that are NOT intrinsically harmful–might very well go a long way towards breaking the hold the conservative movement in general has on rural whites.
Part of it is lack of platforms to even get the message out. It has been a consistent and ongoing problem that very few Democratic voices are heard on TV and those that are, tend to be center right:
http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=4514
Very well said, Freemage. I grew up in DC and live in Boston and the liberal classism that I have witnessed is striking. I don’t understand how someone can say that they’re in favor of social reform and then make fun of a southern accent or correct someone’s grammar for speaking AAVE.
Freemage
You’ve got a lot of good points there, but I think you’re assuming liberals in urban areas don’t understand these issues as well as many do. I’m liberal, I live in a large city, I own a gun. I grew up in a very rural area, where guns were common for hunting. My family lived on hunted meat for most of the year, and I’ve been shooting since I was 5. But when I think of gun owners from rural/Southern areas, I still think of violent crime. Because growing up around them, I know that many of those hunters and enthusiasts would have no problem using those guns against the “wrong” people. Even now, living in a major city, I know liberals who are fine with hunting and understand how animal populations need to be controlled (raccoons, stray cats, etc.. makes it easy to understand how out of control populations can be a danger to others and themselves), but still advocate for gun control laws because they don’t want a weekend hunter to become a Monday murderer. There is a lot of classism for certain, my Southern twang seems to bring that out in a lot of people (and dammit, squirrel cooked right is goooood!). But there is still some understanding.
I really appreciate the turn this conversation has taken, because as a rural-ish, Midwestern liberal, very few things get under my skin more than people who are supposed to be on my side of the political spectrum cheerfully announcing that everyone who lives where I do is a stupid, uneducated, racist buffoon, that my region is nothing but “flyover territory,” that people with accents that sound like those of some of my friends and family members are automatically “dumb rednecks,” and that nothing of value would be lost were my state to secede. It is an incredibly counterproductive political strategy, because if even someone as liberal as I am has the visceral reaction, “Well, screw you guys, then” when I hear that sort of thing, I can only imagine how alienating it is to people who actually fall somewhere in the “moderate” range of the spectrum, who might very well vote for somewhat more liberal policies if the people espousing them weren’t busy telling them how completely worthless they are as human beings.
Nail on head. Thank you for putting it all so eloquently. That’s what I was trying to get at, but couldn’t put into so many words.
That’s exactly what I feel sometimes, Polliwog. I felt very offended and alienated when Mike Malloy described tornadoes as
There is a lot of classism when people talk about tornadoes, and then some liberals will say that if a state has too many conservatives, then they never deserve help.
or when Bill Maher said that AL and KS are not “smart states”, David Carr said
Shit like that really needs to stop. It only helps conservatives, and it makes it a lot harder for progressives to work well together if they’re always putting each other down.
He makes me think of that senator from Parks and Recreation.
He did a lousy job of pretending to be a human being, but an even lousier job of pretending to have any idea what life is like for non-millionaires, and I really think that’s a huge part of what sunk his campaign. Pretty much every time Romney (or his wife) went off-script, it was to say something that basically boiled down to “I live in an entirely different universe than you peons!” From complaining that cookies he was given looked like they were bought at a convenience store, to wagering $10,000 on a whim, to suggesting that students in need of money could “just borrow some from their parents,” to using the phrase “you people” without a trace of irony, to explaining that struggling financially means “selling some stock,” to the infamous 47% speech, Mitt and Ann Romney pretty much presented themselves to the world as the Howells from Gilligan’s Island, and the worst part was that it was very clear that this was what they looked like when they were trying not to seem like profoundly rich people lost in their own little privilege-bubble.
You can be wealthy and even born into wealth but still understand what the average dude is going through.
Romney just wanted to be President for the title President. I do not think he wanted it because he was on fire to start working on America’s problems (especially since he helped cause some of them.)
princessbonbon, be fair.
He also wanted it because he could keep his friends super duper rich.
He’d have been even less popular if your average person understood what Bain does.
Absolutely! But Romney pretty clearly doesn’t, and a campaign strategy of, “I may be rich, but I understand what it’s like to be poor” really only works when you don’t follow it up with, “…it’s basically just like being rich, but with more laziness, right?”
Now, that’s not quite fair, Polliwog. The Howells could be generous to their fellow castaways, quite brave in defense of those weaker than themselves, and identify with people less fortunate than they were (like when Mrs. Howell moved in with Mary Ann and Ginger when the island men were acting like sexist pigs). When Mr. Howell adopted Gilligan as his heir, he raked Gilligan over the coals for (deliberately) acting like a spoiled brat at a party. “You have money! Money means power! And power means RESPONSIBILITY!” Mr. Howell thundered.
The Romneys? Not so much. For them, the less fortunate are to be exploited and insulted, they defend nobody except their own little clique, and money is for car elevators and boat houses and dancing horses. The Howells were the Roosevelts, Kennedys, and the Rockefellers compared to the Romneys.
That’s right, Mittens. If Obama hadn’t remembered to hold out free contraception and make that clicking noise with his tongue, all us single ladies would have voted for you in droves.
Except, you know, not.
Now I’m remembering my mom holding out the bucket of sweet feed to entice our cows into the barn. She’d tap it with her free hand so the grain would rustle, and call, “soooo-eeee!”
I have an image of Obama doing that to a group of women by holding out George Clooney. It’s not particularly flattering to anybody, but I felt compelled to share. I probably shouldn’t have.
Oh god, Scott Kurtz, don’t make me start skipping over you in my bookmarks like I do Least I Could Do.
Falconer: yeah, I was like “Oh ugh”
Then you think about how many of these “family values” types have affairs or multiple marriages yet never got these women pregnant. How do they pull that off if they hate birth control so much?
Hey, Romney knows how hard it is to put food on the table for his family. That’s why he has his chefs and maids do it for him. He knows that public schools are underfunded, so that’s why he sends his kids to fancy, private schools. And he remembers what it was like to live on $725.00 an hour, and having to choose between buying a second summer home and another stable for Ann’s prize race horses. See, he can totally relate to the average voter.
They never think about it-that is women’s work.
Tell us, O wise Kurtz, tell us like it is, we beseech you!
Come to think of it, is the whole character of the older woman who gave up relationships and children to pursue a career, and frankly dispense awful relationship advice to Francis, an essentialist, mansplainy character? ‘Cause I totally missed it, if it was.
I have never once read a strip of PVP and thought, “you tell ’em!” so there may be hope for me yet 😛
@rest
(From the previous page) Is there also an idea among the reps that the police should be for-profit? Or the fire services etc? Cuz I think (and we think) of health care as a similar infrastructure as those two. Necessary and always nonprofit due to its very nature as a matter of life and death. It sounds like a fundamental difference in valuing the human life, the reps do not sound like they put other than monetary value on human life. Which sounds so weird and contradicting considering their religiousness.