The GOP to Women: We Love You, Really
A few old white guy members of the Michigan Republican party decided that they could show empathy to women voters by pretending to read a few glossy fashion magazines:
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewire/michigan-republicans-women-s-magazines
Do these guys get how condescending they look? Do they grasp how they trivialize women’s issues by using these magazines as props to win over female voters? Rhetorical questions, I know. These dudes are completely clueless. But you have to love the responses. This stunt was a major fail. Will the Republican Party ever learn that the way to win women voters is to treat them as competent, intelligent human beings? I doubt it.
No. They really don’t.Report
I showed the picture to my wife and that’s exactly what she said.Report
My other theory is that they know that X percentage of women are going to vote GOP for whatever reason, and Y percentage will not and they have just decided to say fuck it and ignore the Y percentage. Perhaps our political discourse is so poisoned that we have reached the stage where everyone is just trolling the other side.
Conservatives have proven that “annoy a liberal” is a raison d’etre for them many times. The other interpretation of this photo is that it is massive trolling.Report
The big problem is that the GOP’s death is going to be very slow and like any slow death, there are going to be times that look like rebounds and recovery. 2014 is probably going to be one of those times.Report
Bingo, @saul-degraw. I’ve said before the smartest thing “reasonable” conservatives can do is sit out 2016, because then Cruz/Paul can lose 39 states and somebody who will sound sane while destroying the welfare state will have a shot in 2020.
Because if, anybody even quasi-“moderate” wins the nomination in 2016, it’ll be three ‘moderates’ losing elections the GOP “should”ve won” in a row and 2020 will likely lead a curbstomping.Report
@jesse-ewiak
I think each party has a lock on X percentage of voters. The GOP’s lock tends to be with more reliable voters especially in mid-term years. The older voters of the GOP can be around for 20-40 more years because it does include a good deal of Generation X and the Boomers. People my age and younger are supposed to swing more left but we are just starting to achieve political office. It will probably be another 10-20 years before we are the dominant electoral bloc.
There is also a certain percentage of voters that seems to vote based on whether they think things are going well or poorly. If they think things are going well, the vote for the party in power. If not, the opposition.Report
It’s kind of hilarious how bad they are at this. It’s like watching someone fail at first contact with an alien species, without the danger of intergalactic war.
Guys – we’re people. It’s really not that complicated.Report
But what do you want? 😉Report
Reproductive rights, free access to contraceptives through insurance, an end to rape culture and sexual harassment, and equal pay for equal work.Report
More to the point, what’s it gonna take to get ya to shut yer yap and make dinner already?Report
Lee,
Sometimes a joke about Freud is just a joke about Freud.Report
@james-hanley
When is a joke about Freud a joke about Jung?Report
“When is a joke about Freud a joke about Jung?”
When it’s a joke about how well-Jung Freud was?Report
@james-hanley, Freud only said that to prevent people from coming to certain conclusions about himReport
He was afreud the truth would slip out.Report
The truth that he was REALLY Australian.Report
That’s not a cigah. THIS is a cigah.Report
Who are you?Report
Crocodile M.D.Report
@katherinemw – if you are asking me, the “joke” (such as it was, in my mind) went like this:
I made the terrible “afreud”/Freudian slip pun in response to Lee’s comment.
I then read my own words, and realized “afreud” sounded like saying “afraid”, but with a comically-exaggerated Australian accent.
Freud was Austrian, so I realized the “truth” must be that he was REALLY Aussie.
At which point I circled back around to Freudian phallic symbols, and Crocodile Dundee’s well-known dirk-measuring contest popped to mind.
Substitute one symbol for another – once again exaggerating the accent – and here we are.
I’m so sorry, everyone.
If it’s any consolation, imagine what it’s like to live in this skull all the time.Report
Glyph – I was responding to James and making a Babylon 5 reference that was inspired by his comment.Report
Katherine,
Sorry, I’m afraid I’m completely ignorant about Babylon 5.Report
Well, I didn’t recognize your reference as being to Freud, so we’re both ignorant in different ways.
Although if you want to join our Babylon 5 book club, it’s one of the best science fiction TV shows I’ve seen.Report
imagine what it’s like to live in this skull all the time.
Like I have to.Report
oofReport
I was thinking that Freud came first, followed by Jung and then Reich, which makes Reich the third Freud. Or Freud the first Reich. I mean, he did write a lot about incest.
Which is a great joke for people whose minds proceed readily from “First Reich” to “Holy Roman Empire” to the Habsburgs, who often they married their cousins when they weren’t marrying their nieces. Not really a mass audience.Report
In terms of missed jokes, I think everyone missed me making fun of the guy in Star Trek and Nasa…Report
What, no Playgirl?Report
I’m a woman. I don’t read those magazine.
Now if they’d had a copy of Mother Jones or Business Week or even Interweave Knits I might be able to relate.
/and I’ll betcha they’re reading the article that gives 11 ways she can thrill her guy or get her own rocks off, explosively; not the article about balancing work and child care.Report
I don’t usually read those kinds of magazines either. I kind of think that this photo op was meant as a joke, but it’s just not funny.Report
I can’t help but wonder if, in some ways, it says more about men’s expectation, often adopted by the women around them, of what it means to be womanly; rather like the recent study that showed men actually preferred pics of the same women with less makeup, while women though men preferred them with more.Report
“I’m a woman. I don’t read those magazine.”
DAT’S DA JOKEReport
Now, if they had said that at the end?
Woulda won points for humor.Report
This reminds me of the time in 2012, when the GOP Congressman walked up to the two women volunteers who were talking about campaign strategy, and he was caught on tape by a reporter asking if they were talking about shoes.Report
It’s like trying to appeal to conservatives by showing people pretending to read Atlas Shrugged, Gone With the Wind, and Guns and Ammo.
Except that that might work.Report
It certainly wouldn’t be interpreted as “THESE PEOPLE ARE DEAD SERIOUS AND HONESTLY BELIEVE THEY ARE REACHING OUT AND MAKING AN EFFORT TO UNDERSTAND YOU, LET’S ALL MOCK THEIR IDIOCY, HA HA HA”Report
Will the Republican Party ever learn that the way to win women voters is to treat them as competent, intelligent human beings?
If it doesn’t work with male voters, why would it work with women?Report
It might work if they ever tried it.Report
Will the Republican Party ever learn that the way to win women voters is to treat them as competent, intelligent human beings?
Yeah, but they’ll need three more Colorados first. In 2004 the Republicans held the governor’s office, both chambers of the state legislature, both US Senate seats, and 5 of 7 US House seats. Today the Republicans hold 4 of 7 US House seats and none of the others. Certainly one of the large contributing factors in the change has been that the Republicans managed to piss off suburban women. Two of the prominent Republican candidates (Gardner for Senate, Coffman for Representative) have made substantial changes in their position on abortion and will, I believe, be back-pedaling on other prior positions between now and November. There’s already a lot of out-of-state money pouring into some of the races because the national Republicans think they can make gains; I personally think the total net change despite the money will be the loss of Coffman’s House seat, largely because they’re still pissing off suburban women.Report
Boy, we sure showed those guys. Next time they’ll think twice before trying to goof around and show that they have a sense of humor! Thank God we came down hard on that shit; if anyone actually laughed at it on its own level, those Old White Guys might think that our disagreements with them were due to honest philosophical differences rather than irreconcilable lizard-brain kulturkampf, and then they’d get all reasonable, and *then* how would we get that lovely delicious uncomplicated guilt-free hate?Report
Sorry. It doesn’t even work as humor except in the most patronizing way.Report
(big post deleted)
I’m sorry, I can’t. It’s just too depressing to try and explain humor.Report
Humour doesn’t need to be explained. If someone doesn’t get it, it’s not humour. Michelle is quite right, and very patient.Report
Are you familiar with humor?Report
jr,
I’m more familiar with it than I am with you.Report
That is exactly why Monsanto is too big to fail.Report
There’s this, too.
http://www.npr.org/2014/05/06/309885683/gop-softens-its-edge-in-an-attempt-to-appeal-to-womenReport