What Real Men Do
Election Day is three weeks from today, with early voting already underway in many states; Iowans can begin early voting tomorrow.
All of which means it’s the time when normally rational people say and do stupid things.
Kamala Harris is apparently not polling well enough with males generally, and black males in particular.
So that led to testimonials and commercials on behalf of Harris saying, “real men vote for a woman for president.” I’m not making that up; that was actually what was said in one of the ads.
The suggestion is that males are knuckle-dragging cavemen who only vote based upon a candidate’s gender, and that it’s somehow not manly to vote for a woman.
There’s another way to look at it—that males are very willing to vote for a woman, just not this one.
Does that make males sexist? No. Does that make males unmanly? Also no. But it’s a way to shame people into voting solely based on a characteristic of birth, which is the absolute worst reason to vote for (or against) someone.
That takes us to former President Obama’s lackluster campaigning for Harris in Pennsylvania last week. He bemoaned the fact that blacks are not gravitating toward Harris the same way they did toward him 16 years ago. He especially called out “the brothers” for not being in line. I’m guessing he’s referring to black males with that disparaging comment.
Imagine if a former President like George W. Bush said that not enough white people were voting for Donald Trump, and they needed to rally around him. He’d be roundly criticized as fomenting racism. Obviously, Bush would never endorse Trump for any reason, but you get the idea.
A former President who is a person of color can say black males should vote for Harris because she is a person of color is fine…but a white former President who dared to say that white males should vote for a white male would be canceled and silenced immediately.
Racism goes both ways. So does sexism. And it’s not okay just because it’s a certain political party using the tactics. Again, gender and race are no reasons to vote for or against someone. But in the last desperate weeks, those who are behind are apparently pulling out all the stops.
