Kicking. Squealing.
The lede of Roger Cohen’s NYT editorial titled “America’s Gender Divide“:
CLEVELAND — FOR one prominent Cleveland businessman, a lifelong Democrat, the election had come down to a couple of burning questions: Did he dare tell his wife that he was thinking of voting for Mitt Romney? Would she ever forgive him?
In the end, although tempted, he did not dare and voted early for Obama. His quandary illustrates a fundamental dynamic of the excruciatingly close Ohio vote, which in turn could decide the election. Many men who voted for Obama in 2008 are now leaning toward Romney because they are frustrated by the president’s handling of the economy and convinced that he cannot spur a decisive recovery.
I’ll state the obvious. No man worth his salt cowers in fear that his vote will offend his wife or anyone else. If this is the case, then you are in an unhealthy relationship. I always hate to do this, but imagine one of the media castrati expressing with not just a hint of glee that a wife’s vote was dictated by her husband. Lying at the bottom of every single bit of rhetoric surrounding this election is the belief that female voters (and minority voters) are the voices of morality – that any woman or minority who votes (R) is doing so out of false consciousness and that any man who also supports Romney is seeking to maintain the Old Ways with white men at the helm.
Cohen also dramatizes the divide. The following statistical blurb doesn’t seem to fit the strongly adjectives to describe gender differences in voting patterns:
My Ohio survey was unscientific — conversations over a few days — but national polling reveals a sharp split along gender lines. The latest poll by The New York Times and CBS News found that Mr. Obama is supported by 52 percent of women and 44 percent of men, while Mr. Romney is preferred by 51 percent of men and 44 percent of women.
The race is poised on a knife-edge: the knives at the American breakfast tables where many husbands and wives are arguing.
And the kicker:
It has come down to women against men, turnout against momentum. How many women, blacks, Latinos, workers will vote for Obama? How many Romney voters are keeping quiet about their choice? There is no romance left. Obama will have to grind this out — and hope feminine good sense prevails.
The New York Times’ stable of editorialists are really good at saying absolutely nothing. The only point that stands out in Cohen’s piece is the one which I’ve focused on here. He seems to think he’s making a larger point, but I can’t really see it. Beta posturing, ineffective writing.
Mr. Obama is supported by 52 percent of women and 44 percent of men, while Mr. Romney is preferred by 51 percent of men and 44 percent of women.
The race is poised on a knife-edge: the knives at the American breakfast tables where many husbands and wives are arguing.
As Sailer has pointed out, the majority of married women support Romney, so the sort of breakfast table arguments Cohen talks about are less common than he believes.
Moreover, assortative mating for political ideology is very strong, so most spouses are unlikely to argue about politics anyway. Razib http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/gnxp/2012/08/a-political-animal-in-the-genes/>wrote about this recently:
One important finding that emerged from extended pedigree studies is that long-term mates correlate more highly on political ideologies (0.65–0.71) than on almost any other clinical, behavioral, or psychological trait…Spousal similarity was not due to convergence or social homogamy…
Correct link.
Who wants to bet Roger Cohen has a harridan wife who would cut his balls off if he printed one ideologically-suspect word about relations between the sexes? I wouldn’t be surprised if she proofreads his articles and punches up the leftist rhetoric wherever she finds it lacking, like Paul Krugman’s wife does (that bit about hoping “feminine good sense” prevails looks like something no adult man could write without contemplating suicide). Of course the Obamas themselves are a prime example of the whipped beta/domineering manjaw template, whereas for all his faults Romney seems to have the kind of personal and family life most real men aspire to.
Good article here on why young white men dislike the Democratic party:
http://robertreich.org/post/34831152302
^^^ Which is to say that Cohen is a big filthy liar and rather than enlightening us on the true “nature” of these males who play “woman” and these females who play “man,” he instead asserts that there is a (white) husband versus (white) wife “war” at hand. This is part projection, part coverup and all evil liberationism.
How can “men” like that described in the article look in the mirror in the morning? Seriously, how can these “men” live with themselves?
^^^ Easily… Because they aren’t really men and only want the benefit of man-ness when it actually destroys the notion of man.
Cohen’s real enemy is the same as Obama’s real enemy.
Strong white men. Genuine white Supremacists.
Have we all forgotten how these same clowns at the NYT tried to sell us Obama as “Alpha?”
He is absolutely anti-Alpha and his “wife” is a wannabe Alpha imposter historically known as “Butch.”
What Christian man with money and power stops having children after ONLY two DAUGHTERS?
It’s fascinating to recognize that none of the unabashed radical liberals on the open left and none of the radical liberals within the alt-right have attributed ANY of Obama’s doings to his supposed “Christianity.” What this suggests is quite easy to decipher.
I think any WOMAN who votes for a candidate she doesn’t really like to appease her husband is pretty pathetic. So what does that say about a man who does the same?
It says that he deserves to get cheated on. Seriously, if you have no balls and can’t stand up for yourself, you can’t really expect any woman to respect you.
i agree that many people who are thinking of voting romney are keeping it to themselves. i think the polls, exit survey notwithstanding, will play out more pro romney than any poll or gallup might suggest.
Real white men don’t have to “intellectually” learn that they shouldn’t feel compelled to be led by other males especially a “black” male. There is something simply instinctual to the notion of “man” to not be led by anyone.
So this election is actually close because white male liberals have divided “loyalties.” But this just means they can’t decide between which radical liberationist to choose? They can’t decide between being led by a “black” liberationist or the “white” liberationist who does a bang-up job of appearing as genuine white Supremacist, BUT ACTUALLY is not at all.
Ergo, it is this latter false belief that has a significant portion of the white male liberationist cabal pushing for us to be led by a radical “black” liberationist INSTEAD of one of their own “white” liberationists.
Incredible.
The Robert Reich article posted above is scheisse. I find it absurd that an upper-middle class Yale and Oxford graduate, ensconced in academia and high-level politics his whole life, thinks he has any idea why working class whites do what they do and vote how they vote. The height of elitism and condescension.
That Robert Reich article concludes with:
“Republicans have offered white non-college males the scapegoats of racism and immigration —blaming, directly or indirectly, blacks and Latinos —and the solace of right-wing evangelical Christianity.”
So many lies and bad faith in one sentence.
1. Liberals are allergic to the phrase “white men.” It’s always “white males.”
2. Immigration depresses blue collar wages.
3. Blacks and Latinos ruin working class whites’ schools and property values.
4. Republicans are pro-immigration.
5. Evangelical Christianity is not right wing.
This same Robert Reich also slipped up when Obama was freshly elected and was recorded saying that the stimulus jobs should not be going to white men.
PA says…
–1. Liberals are allergic to the phrase “white men.” It’s always “white males.”
That is because they are truly “white” males themselves. Deracinated, emasculated, homosexualized, despirited, i.e., radically autonomous.
They fear white Supremacy like no other radical liberationist. And only white man has any possibility of being a GENUINE white Supremacist.
Ergo, white man cannot exist.
PA, it’s obvious you are more astute than most non-college white males. So it’s not really about you, per se. If you peruse some manosphere blogs, you are bound to find white guys who lash out at blacks and hispanics while in the same breath spewing hatred for the Democratic party. You can’t miss it. Republicans know this and hence the not so subtle advertisements reflecting a typical republican as a back-slappin, shirt tuckin good old boy, when in fact they are the party of the chamber of commerce. (for the elite whites – not poor whites). .
I enjoyed that Reich article too. He starts with a bang and boldly states the problem – white men have no jobs. But the editors must have cut the article because he never mentions a solution. It just ends with him attacking the usual scapegoats – racism and the godbags (which he in turn calls scapegoats – is this double scapegoating ?).
This is from a guy who served in the administration that signed NAFTA into law.
Wiki says – Reich was born with multiple epiphyseal dysplasia, also known as Fairbanks disease, and as a result is 4 feet 10.5 inches (148.6 cm) tall.
I’d like to give the little prick a wedgie.
Three words: Bogus trend story.
Just don’t read the NYT. Problem solved.
“This same Robert Reich also slipped up when Obama was freshly elected and was recorded saying that the stimulus jobs should not be going to white men.”
Reich is one of those academics that you just have to wonder how he stays in the limelight.
Regarding, the whipped Ohio man voting the way his mistress told him to, I agree with Georgia Boy, manufactured malarky.
Actually, while it does appear the man in the news story is a gonadaly challenged pussy, many of us would lose our livelihoods – which may represent years of investment in time and training – if our bosses or co-workers found out that we did not vote for Obama.
This is unfair, but it is reality. And to some extent it is justifiable for a woman whose man throws away his ability to support his family, based on a relatively minor matter of principle, to ask what exactly is in it for her. Is voting for Romney over Obama really such an important matter if it means that, if word gets out to your co-workers, you are likely to be ostracized, passed over for promotion, accused of sexual misconduct on a trumped-up charge, or simply “downsized” out of a job while the company replaces you with someone less talented and of impeccable Democrat/feminist credentials who is a “team player”?
Some will say, “Yes, a man should always vote his conscience and accept the consequences.” These people probably do not have wives and families who depend on them; at least, one hopes they are not so irresponsible.
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GLP – why do you bother with Roger Cohen? Isn’t he the shemale who said that the Iranian mullahs are nice, practical guys who just want to live and let live?
He’s a liar and a putz. Married women vote like their husbands. The gender divide is a product of the large number of never-married people in our society. Spinsters for the most part vote Democrat, because they need a substitute husband. There’s your answer. Cohen is not a reliable polling source.
“But then there was Pamela Stevenson, aged 49, with a job in marketing, who had already voted for Obama when I met her — and brought along her two sons, aged 20 and 19, to make sure they voted for Obama, too. “We are coming out in numbers,” she told me. “We know that is what we
have to do to get him back in.”
Words fail me. Let’s try that again with the genders reversed:
“But then there was Joe Stevenson, aged 49, with a job in auto sales, who had already voted for Romney when I met him — and brought along his two daughters, aged 20 and 19, to make sure they voted for Romney, too. “We are coming out in numbers,” he told me. “We know that is what we have to do to get him in.”
How many hysterical op-eds would we have for that response? This is not merely cognitive dissonance, it’s full-blown omega obeisance to the matriarchy. A woman who commands her sons to vote for the candidate of her choice and is lauded for doing so. Revolting.
Who is there left to care as the NYT sinks beneath the waves?