Tom Kando
As the election approaches, Kamala Harris is having great difficulty staying even with Trump. According to innumerable polls, the race is more or less even on any given day. She still enjoys the support of a majority of the popular vote, but due to our idiotic electoral system, it will be hard for her to get a majority of the electoral college.
This is baffling. The poll percentages should favor Harris 85% to 15%. After all, the election pits against each other an excellent candidate (Harris) and a disastrous one (Trump).
Harris is superbly competent and qualified, rational, smart, attractive, honest and young.
On the other hand, Trump is an incoherent weirdo, mentally deficient and aging rapidly, a declining buffoon who cannot complete a coherent thought or sentence, whose verbal skills are those of a ten-year old. His agenda is fascistoid, proposing to use the army to suppress dissent. His economic plans are disastrous, proposing further tax cuts for billionaires and tax increases and inflation for the rest of us in the form of tariffs on imports. He would have to build concentration camps and deport millions of immigrants. He would pave the way for a national 100% ban on all abortion. He would ruin the federal court system and bring back chaos.
There have been many explanations for Trump’s popularity. Race, class, age, a populist grudge against the liberal governmental, academic, technocratic and cultural elites.
But I have come to the conclusion that the single most important factor is AMERICAN MEN: For some reason, a large swath of American men remain sexist to an extent rarely seen in other western countries. In America, a female head of state remains repugnant to millions of men.
The other day, at a dinner party attended by half a dozen couples, we overheard some geezer say that he is voting for Trump because “no woman could possibly govern a country as large as the US.” Others are secretively silent about it.
Thus, we have an election gender gap:
Eight years ago, men denied Hillary Clinton’s election for the sole reason that she is a woman. They may do the same thing this year. A majority of men will vote for Trump. No one in their right mind can argue that Trump was the more qualified candidate in 2016, or that he is now.
Meanwhile, the rest of the world has moved into the 21st century. The following are just a few of the countries that have had female heads of state:
Argentina, Australia, Bangladesh, Brazil, France, Germany, India, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Mexico (this year!), Myanmar, Pakistan (a Muslim country!), the Philippines , Peru, Sri Lanka, Thailand, the United Kingdom, every Scandinavian country, several African countries, several additional Asian countries, several additional European countries, several additional Latin American countries. Female Heads of State
Many American men remain sexist and misogynistic. In large regions of this country, the desired male identity remains that of the macho (gun toting) cowboy. A more appropriate label might be “macho Neanderthal.”
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