You shouldn't want to keep people continually activated. Let us live our real lives on a human scale. If you won't leave us alone to do that most of the time and you manipulate us into a continual agitated state, our humanity will deteriorate and then what's the point of democracy? You're asking for the choices of people who shouldn't be trusted. If women are leading the way withdrawing from political activism, good for us. I bet many sensible men are doing the same thing.
I review the news every day because I have this blog, so I have to see the headlines and quotes from politicos — all these things that are obviously designed to crank us all up. The stuff that's supposed to get you on any given day will be forgotten in a few more days.
Most of it I pass on instantly, but I choose some things because they fit something I want to write, but then, it's funny to me to look back on political posts from a year or a month ago, because so often I can't even remember what that item was. I mean, pick an old week from the archive in my sidebar and scroll down to see what the political posts were about, what people were angsting over back then. You'll probably struggle to remember what was that thing that I was supposed to get so worried about?
Posts
70 comments:
COuld be they're coming to the realization they were lied to.
I thought it was white men who voted a lot less for Trump in 2020 than in 2016, thereby rebuilding the "Blue Wall" in the Midwest. Why are women treated like they were the ones who saved Biden?
Twenty-eight years of just voting against the last guy is exhausting....
Women tuning out is good. Just stop voting.
Receptionist:
How do you write women so well?
Melvin Udall:
I think of a man, and I take away reason and accountability.
The article is, of course, designed to get Democrat voters amped up to vote McAuliffe.
>women in key swing states said they were 'paying less attention to what happens in Washington' than they were when Trump was in the White House. This was particularly true among female Biden voters who are independents, under the age of 35, college graduates and city dwellers.... This sense of growing political ennui among women<
"Political ennui" my ass. These TDS Biden voters have eyes, ears, televisions...and pocketbooks, just like the rest of us. They see the catastrophe they have wrought and choose to pretend that it isn't actually happening. Or at minimum, that they didn't have anything to do with it. What better way than to abruptly "lose" interest in what is going on in Washington!
The stuff that's supposed to get you on any given day will be forgotten in a few more days.
The details will be forgotten, but the emotional reaction lives on. The loss of the details actually makes it harder for people to change their minds using mere facts.
Gunner said...Why are women treated like they were the ones who saved Biden?
Maybe men are the ones deciding who gets the blame?
By Spring, no one will admit they voted for Biden. Even Chuck will be claiming that he never wanted Biden to win, if he even has the courage to show up at that time, which is doubtful.
'People are exhausted,' she explains. 'We have people deliberately saying, "I am just taking a break — enough."'
I can see that. After all that hard work getting rid of the icky orange man, who's got the energy to pay any attention to what Brandon is doing to the country?
Personal experience with those around me: Some women who were intensely upset by Trump's crudeness and rudeness now recognize that Biden's tone and proposals are little different and in some ways worse. Some women indeed think the border situation is a farce, Afghanistan was a sad joke, characterize $3.5T in social spending as "infrastructure" as a lie, and believe that demanding vaccinations to work or travel is a characteristic of a dictator.
One woman described Biden as a "gentleman bully."
Perhaps they look upon what they've done and are ashamed.
There must be a relevant biblical quote.
Apropos that this was written by a Karen.
I found some old newspapers in the walls of a house I was fixing up, don't know why they were there. It turned out that reading a 35 year old newspaper wasn't much different than reading a current newspaper, and just about as relevant.
Given that politically active women tend to be statists, I guess that's good news for those of us in the pro-freedom camp.
It was fun to hate on Trump - via instructions and marching orders from the on air-talent at MSNBC and Colbert+Kimmel+SNL, but now that wonderful Joe biden is King - things are rather crappy. what to do?
Tune it all out. Keep blaming Trump.
So, Althouse, women gave us Joe Biden (and vaccine mandates and inflation and the prospect of a bleak Christmas with empty shelves in the toy stores) and then they throw up their hands and leave it for men to clean up the predictable mess? How is the 19th Amendment not a terrible mistake?
They're withdrawing from politics to spend more time trying to find a new job.
It's funny how easy it is to tune out when your team is the one that's screwing up. The three monkeys are alive and well.
I'd be surprised if the effect were limited to women. A lot of the most overheated rhetoric probably comes from people who don't usually pay much attention to the government, and thus are able to hold romantic illusions about how it ordinarily works. This causes them to mistake its normal muddle and abuses for some new thing that Trump brought in.
This demographic did the Democrats’ bidding. Now they aren’t needed. They are tuning out the stories of growing disaster under Biden and his horde of flying monkeys. And so long as they do, they won’t bother to vote; certainly not for Republicans. So in many races, where the cheating has been well-practiced, the Democrat will get enough of a boost to win.
My former boss used to go home for lunch everyday and would watch cable news while he was home. When he returned to the office he was always churned up about something he had seen while eating his lunch.
We started calling it the "Outrage of the Day"
It was always supplanted by something else the next day.
Tumulty is a good name for someone writing about a lack of tumult.
“I review the news every day because I have this blog, so I have to see the headlines and quotes from politicos — all these things that are obviously designed to crank us all up”. I’m sixty, and this constant shriek, shriek, shriek for the home team is the most important change I’ve seen in politics since I was young. In politics, you are always trying to persuade people to your view, and keep committed those who already share your side. When I was young, there was an understanding that many voters were changeable. For example, both Johnson and Nixon won landslides, separated by only eight years, and both their landslide victories were followed in the next presidential election by a win for the other party. This understanding shaped the tone of public discourse; politicians, journalists, and commentators felt they needed constantly to shape their arguments to persuade voters who did not share their fundamental assumptions. Politics then was much more about winning converts to your side. Now, the perception is that most voters are committed to a side, and politics is much, much more about motivating your side and dismaying the other, with a little heresy hunting of your own side for spice.
This is also the big difference in media bias. The press is more biased now, but not that much more biased – they really hated Nixon, almost as much as Trump, for example. What’s really changed is the tone of the bias. It used to be mostly about manipulating the middle to support the left. Now, they have added inspiring the left to berserker rage, without seeming to be aware that the second tack is counterproductive to the first.
“If women are leading the way withdrawing from political activism, good for us. I bet many sensible men are doing the same thing”. I’m doubtful. If people withdraw from political activism because, having faith in their fellow citizens and the government, they wish to devote themselves to other things, that would be well. But if they are withdrawing out of disgust and frustration, that may well be something else. The withdrawal in that case might be like the withdrawal of the ocean before the tsunami comes in, wreaking many things.
I thought it was white men who voted a lot less for Trump
The truth won't do well with WAPO's focus groups.
"I bet many sensible men are doing the same thing."
I am not!
Oh wait. You said 'sensible'. Nevermind.
This is a serious misdirection play.
What is happening in Washington is important to the prosperity of the next generation. The Dems are hoping to sneak their plans through with no mandate (they lost seats in the House in 2020) and without any significant debate, with the consequence of burying in advance the incentives and opportunities of today's children.
Given their track record, I should be glad that the Dems' most loyal voters have become disengaged, but I am also concerned that they have drunk the waters of Lethe and forgotten the hard-learned lessons of the Sixties, Seventies and Eighties. Maybe Gen. Garland's ridiculous memo on school boards terrorized by parental involvement will wake them up in a constructive way.
Incentives matter.
Chappelle - not misogynist.
Rhhardin - complete misogynist. But allowed to be! No one really cares.
Who want's to be on the Crazy Progressive train?? People are waking up and seeing that the mob runs the progressive agenda, and if you don't agree...YOU will get cancelled. Progressives are regressive. Just look at how they want to segregate by race again. Lot's of "black graduations" when there shouldn't be. WE are all one race. Remember when THAT used to be a Liberal ideal?? Good times. Too bad those times are past...and we are stuck with the hateful angry party of lefties.
This is nothing new; it's been going on for decades. Women believe they are safe and protected under a democrat president, even if he's a lying predator, so they're comfortable with ignoring politics. They may also be tuning out the news in order to avoid hearing anything that contradicts this belief. The same thing generally holds true for many blacks.
Female voters, whose engagement and activism fueled the gains that Democrats made during Donald Trump’s presidency, are increasingly tuning out . . . . This was particularly true among female Biden voters who are independents, under the age of 35, college graduates and city dwellers.
Overturning Roe v Wade should fix that.
It doesn't matter now whether they are engaged enough to follow now, or not, they will vote Democrat in the next election. They don't need to be as engaged because Trump, or any other Republican, is not in office.
The same themes run through every passing cultural controversy, so like watching a soap opera, it's not hard to figure out what's going on or how we are expected to feel about it. The more obscure topics covered in the Style pages of the Times are harder to remember, but that's because they were never real controversies to begin with. The 24 hour news cycle has lodged the controversies that could plausibly have had serious political or cultural conflicts deep in our consciousness.
There's a natural letdown of interest in politics between elections. Between Trump and COVID there was a lot for the media to work with last year -- and a lot they actually wanted to work with, rather than simply ignore. As the next elections approach and the dog whistles get louder, interest in politics will grow and reassert itself.
They see the catastrophe they have wrought and choose to pretend that it isn't actually happening. Or at minimum, that they didn't have anything to do with it. What better way than to abruptly "lose" interest in what is going on in Washington!
It's like when a woman dates a douchebag and then spends her time complaining to her friends: she's looking to be the center of the story. Trump was that douchebag. As long as he was in office, these women could define themselves by their brave "resistance" to him.
Rhhardin - complete misogynist. But allowed to be! No one really cares.
Derrida's first translator, Gayatri Spivak, was very angry at Derrida for his subsequent book _Spurs_ ("What if truth is a woman?"), which she took as misogynist.
He nevertheless continued the line of thought in the interview Choreographies, which seems to me anti-misogynist but also anti-feminism as it's now received.
Read the first five pages, tolerating what is not understood in favor of what is understood as you go.
What is woman's place? She does not have a place, she creates places. Sort of reminding women of what feminism wants them to forget. Both pro and anti woman, in different senses.
Be careful what you wish for.
BTW, I think that line from "As Good as it Gets" was intended to make the Nicholson character look bad. Just like Alex Keaton was supposed to make conservatives look bad, but instead they end up being the reasonable ones in a collection of oddballs. Supposedly the school superintendent on The Simpsons was supposed to be that person. Not sure who the "not actually crazy" one was on Gilligan's Island, maybe Mary Ann?
If people withdraw from political activism because, having faith in their fellow citizens and the government, they wish to devote themselves to other things, that would be well.
Or maybe they have so little faith in our political system that they view activism and even caring to be a futile activity. What's the point of caring if realistically nothing will change? Why not opt out? Spend the rest of your short life sharing laughter with family, singing hymns on Sunday morning, going to museums, reading books, travelling, or learning a new hobby?
Anyone notice how the budget exploded under Trump (and Bush before him) and republicans didn't say a peep? Anyone notice that children are in cages at the border and democrats don't care as long as Biden is in office? How gullible must you be in 2021 to believe in your heart that if we can only elect the right shithead then things will change?
Is there anyway to get female voters under 30 to stop voting altogether? WHen it comes to politics: they're the dumbest, leasat informed, most emotionally driven demographic. Its bad enough we let young men vote.
Or here's a suggestion. Everyone over 30 gets 2 votes. Everyone else gets 1.
It must be a source of great embarrassment and anger for these ladies to realize they’ve been gamed and lied to.
Gooder and harder, ladies.
Given their track record, I should be glad that the Dems' most loyal voters have become disengaged,
Maybe they know very well what's going on and want to distance themselves from the disaster that is Joe.
That too would account for so many people who are "too exhausted" to follow the news.
Althouse would have us pick an old week from the past to see what the political posts were about to determine what people were angsting over back then. Supposedly we would struggle to remember what the thing was that we were most worried about.
Personally, even without reading from commentariat articles, it is easy to figure out that one year ago we were confronting the most important national election of my lifetime in just three weeks, wherein my party was attempting to have a confirmed racketeer reelected as POTUS.
Sadly, one year later, my supposed conservative party, nothing now but an unthinking populist movement, continues to push the unfounded Big Lie that #45 really won.
It is only a matter of time before this angst is blamed on Trump being back on the political stage, such as he was in Iowa.
I think it is buyers remorse…
‘Unrelated’: So I know a guy who worked in the Obama administration in one of those jobs that needs months and months of vetting. Since January he’s been in the vetting process for a position in Biden The White House. This go round is taking much longer and there are far more government actors involved. More interesting- rumor is this guy would now prefer not to make the cut…
He has something in common with these women…
I went back to five years ago this week to see what you were posting. I found this:
https://althouse.blogspot.com/2016/10/trumps-gettysburg-address-did-you-get.html
Then I found this prescient comment by Michael K.
"The people who think this is over are going to get a big surprise.
First, if the polls start to turn as they may be doing now, the left will go apeshit with riots and lots of vandalism."
Just a few months in and I expect that the Biden/Harris regime represents effectively kneecapping the next couple generations of youngsters. At the rate the "Fundamental Transformation" is progressing, a recognizable version of America will not exist. The welfare costs alone will be suffocating. A phrase coined in this blog rings out prominently. A sad ending to the Republic indeed.
The WaPo Op-Ed pages are a hellhole these days. I keep willing myself not to dive into the comments and then do it anyway. Take my better self's advice: They are a pit of slime. Today there was a piece by George Will, excoriating Robert E. Lee. A few people actually remarked on this, albeit trashing Will for not saying the same thing every week ("stopped clock," &c.) A larger number accused Will of being a Lee apologist, which means that they didn't read the article at all. A third group threw in irrelevancies (OK, but what about climate change?). A fourth group complained about Will's writing style, which they do whether he's agreeing with them or not. And so forth.
One of these days I hope the WaPo removes -- just for a week or two, maybe -- everyone who might be viewed as conservative -- Will, Hewitt, Abernathy, Thiessen, McArdle, Olson, maybe a few others -- and leaves only the hardened Lefties. What ever will the commentariat do then? Not that the WaPO would countenance such a thing; they have conservative columnists for reasons, one of which is to deflect the rabid commenters from other targets. But it's fun to think about.
It doesn't matter anymore, we can all hear the body positivity Lady singing. The Dems own the vote counting machines. You people had your chance to save the country on January 6, 2021 and were AWOL as usual for macho braggart cowardly followers of Trump except for a few brave souls that no one will defend. In fact, you people call them tourists.
"wherein my party was attempting to have a confirmed racketeer reelected as POTUS."
And they succeeded!
Living as close to Loudoun County as I do, the thought does cross my mind that maybe these women are paying less attention to Washington, DC, because they are more tightly focused on local school boards, teachers who cannot write a single note home without it containing least one grammatical error, boys who temporarily "identify as female" following their daughters into rest rooms before raping the girls (the real girls), etc. The Democrats might wish that they weren't focused on such topics, but the Democrats picked the fight with that demographic, not the other way around.
Looks like Meade won't be voting either:
“If We Don’t Solve the Presidential Election Fraud of 2020,” Republican Voters Will Stay Home in 2022 and 2024"
Statement By Donald trump
10/13/21
rhhardin's link is great.
"If I can't dance I don't want to be part of your revolution." - Emma Goldman
Also, who knew that matrix came from 'womb,' kind of gives a new spin on the title of the movie.
"It must be a source of great embarrassment and anger for these ladies to realize they’ve been gamed and lied to."
Iman is feeling pretty perky these days- just got his unintentional recurring contribution refunded by Trump.
"How Trump steered supporters into unwitting donations"
" The tactic ensnared scores of unsuspecting Trump loyalists — retirees, military veterans, nurses and even experienced political operatives. Soon, banks and credit card companies were inundated with fraud complaints from the president’s own supporters about donations they had not intended to make, sometimes for thousands of dollars. The sheer magnitude of the money involved is staggering for politics. In the final 2 1/2 months of 2020, the Trump campaign, the Republican National Committee and their shared accounts issued more than 530,000 refunds worth $64.3 million to online donors."
https://www.sandiegouniontribune.com/news/politics/story/2021-04-03/how-trump-steered-supporters-into-unwitting-donations
The Poor Man's LLR Chuck: "Personally, even without reading from commentariat articles, it is easy to figure out that one year ago we were confronting the most important national election of my lifetime in just three weeks, wherein my party was attempting to have a confirmed racketeer reelected as POTUS."
As LLR Chuck's minime, gadfly also goes the "true conservative"-online persona FakeCon route.....and as with LLR Chuck, to no effect.
Unexpectedly.
The Poor Man's LLR Chuck: "Personally, even without reading from commentariat articles, it is easy to figure out that one year ago we were confronting the most important national election of my lifetime in just three weeks, wherein my party was attempting to have a confirmed racketeer reelected as POTUS."
As LLR Chuck's minime, gadfly also goes the "true conservative"-online persona FakeCon route.....and as with LLR Chuck, to no effect.
Unexpectedly.
tim in vermont: "BTW, I think that line from "As Good as it Gets" was intended to make the Nicholson character look bad. Just like Alex Keaton was supposed to make conservatives look bad, but instead they end up being the reasonable ones in a collection of oddballs."
Norman Lear once relayed his great surprise at the Archie Bunker character being the one that most viewers identified with.
There was a well known quote (spoken to Meatbead during one of their arguments) episode in particular that resonated: (I think this pretty close)-"I know I've got some things going against me, like I'm white, hardworking and middle class, but aint there no rights that lrotect me?"
"You'll probably struggle to remember what was that thing that I was supposed to get so worried about?"
I've probably mentioned this before. I have a ski buddy who is a critic of the Democratic Party from the left side. Sincerely on the left, but refreshingly non-doctrinaire. It's juts where he finds himself. Very smart guy, a little flaky.
Someone mentioned a meeting with Truitt Cathy, and he had to be reminded of the then-recent Chik-Fil-A protests. It went like this:
"A lot of people are upset with them and don't want [our university] doing business with them."
"Ohhh - they were the ones who wouldn't serve gays, right?"
"No, that wasn't it."
"Oh, I remember now," he said more confidently. "They wouldn't hire gays."
"No, not that either."
Pause.
"OK, what were we so upset about again?"
I loved him for that sincere bewilderment at the end.
I'm not less engaged now, but I am more weary. I resonate with the word 'enough'. Weary of Covid, weary too of the other crises, weary of how each thing is presented as a crisis demanding 'engagement and activism'. I'm weary of advocacy journalism itself.
"I went back to five years ago this week to see what you were posting. I found this: https://althouse.blogspot.com/2016/10/trumps-gettysburg-address-did-you-get.html"
Too bad the video AND the poll results are no longer available.
Looks like an excellent poll (to me!). I love the options.
I am an older, male conservative and I came to this decision over a year ago, before the election. The news and public discussions are mostly trash and I decided that I did not want this toxic material entering my mind. My mood and disposition have improved immensely since then. So, turn away from this nonsense for your own mental health; not for your party; not for your country; but for yourself.
Paul
Sadly, one year later, my supposed conservative party, nothing now but an unthinking populist movement, continues to push the unfounded Big Lie that #45 really won.
Hilarious. gadfly, I would never have put you down as an LLR. Just an old lefty.
Blogger Yancey Ward said...
By Spring, everyone will admit no one voted for Biden
fify!
The comments on that old thread were interesting- particularly Bruce Hayden's- I had to check to see that he really wrote it in 2016.
Ahem.
https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2021/06/30/behind-bidens-2020-victory/
Not all "women" are wealthy liberals. Most of the "white women" who voted, voted for Trump.
So those of you who voted for the current disaster, don't try to pretend that your sex excuses you. Or that your specialness as a woman somehow exonerates you for the catastrophe you enabled.
White women's hatred of Trump was personal, not political.
My wife of 30 years never showed any interest in politics until Trump came on the scene. Then she spent 4 years repeating every complaint that her Facebook feed presented her, red faced and emotional.
As soon as the election was over she returned to normal. I doubt she could tell you anything Joe Biden has done since taking office.
“ As long as he was in office, these women could define themselves by their brave "resistance" to him.”
Oh, yeah. The sudden explosion of Social Media Democrats the day after the 2016 election was wondrous. The formerly apolitical and utterly ignorant tripping over each other to let each other know that they were outraged! Rhardin may be a chauvinist but he’s certainly not wrong.
"I doubt she could tell you anything Joe Biden has done since taking office."
At long last I'm now getting my mail delivered on time.
"If you won't leave us alone to do that most of the time and you manipulate us into a continual agitated state, our humanity will deteriorate and then what's the point of democracy? You're asking for the choices of people who shouldn't be trusted. If women are leading the way withdrawing from political activism, good for us. I bet many sensible men are doing the same thing."
Is it that or realizing they fucked up and would really like to not think about that?
Liberal, unhappy, women. (look at them...have they EVER been happy or do they always have that mad face on??) Conservative happy women voted for Trump and would vote for him again in a heartbeat. He was the best president in my lifetime. He did more for the little people than anybody else ever has. The haters can suck eggs. I don't care how and why you think of him. I have eyes and ears, and I know who is lying to me and who is telling the truth....and I stand with Trump.
I call bullshit on this whole story - it is likely designed to explain why 20 million or so of the "votes" Biden received disappeared in 2022/2024. It is not that these "votes" were produced out of whole cloth (or at least out of whole Xerox machines), it is just that they "tuned out."
"He did more for the little people than anybody else ever has"
I don't like little people-I like big people.
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