November 1, 2024

"The media is doing its best to play down Joe Biden’s casual insult of half of America as 'garbage'.... Why on earth would anyone assume Mr. Biden would..."

"... again show derision for voters he’s labeled 'semi-fascists,' 'MAGA extremists' and proponents of 'Jim Crow 2.0'? Of course it wasn’t a gaffe. It’s the latest injection of toxic Democratic arrogance—and it explains the party’s electoral struggles. It’s of a piece with the open dismissal by the media and elites of critics as idiots, yokels, deplorables. The men accused of 'toxic masculinity.' The women written off as 'handmaids.' The religious 'fanatics.' The millions the left scorn with a long list of 'ist' and 'phobe' words. If you don’t bow to progressive dogma, you are a fascist. Sexist. Racist. Nationalist. Insurrectionist. Domestic terrorist. Extremist. 'Far' rightist. And a homophobe. And a Nazi. Who is bitter. And clinging to a gun and a religion...."

Writes Kimberley A. Strassel, in "Democrats Trash-Talk the Voters/From ‘deplorables’ to ‘garbage,’ contempt doesn’t seem to be a winning message" (Wall Street Journal)(no subscription needed).

And thanks to Strassel for giving me the push I needed to actually watch the ad they got Julia Roberts to do the voice-over for. I laughed a lot:


You can really see how stupid they think the ordinary men and women of America are. I guess it's possible that they meant to exaggerate their low opinion in an ironic way that could make everybody laugh. 

Maybe somewhere in America women have been under men's thumb. I think of P. Diddy parties, things like that.

But also, why would you insult the people you want to influence?

And another thing: I don't believe many men are bullying their wives about voting the "right" way. I think it's a lot more likely that a woman might see how important the election is to her husband and simply choose not to cast a vote that effectively cancels his vote.

55 comments:

DINKY DAU 45 said...

Hey knuckleheads! You dont like Bidens statement about the foul comedian and his followers DONT VOTE FOR HIM! Lord the mental decline of the right is mind numbing!

rehajm said...

Who are these women cowed into voting like their husbands? Are they as big a voting block as guys what tuck?

rehajm said...

…by most accounts that seems to be happening…

Captain BillieBob said...

"It’s hard to like a party that views you as trash."
Exactly

BUMBLE BEE said...

Fortunately dink is exempt - lacking in numbing material.

Political Junkie said...

Ann - Your last paragraph caused me to tear up a bit. Sweet. I wish my wife felt that way. Alas, she does not.

BUMBLE BEE said...

Professor, you deserve a better class of troll.

rehajm said...

Think of it as cancelling someone else’s vote…

BUMBLE BEE said...

Has-Beens for Harris. Hollywood on it's knees.

John henry said...

What happens in the booth stays in the booth

Really?

What I saw there were not booths. they were tables with a little bit of a cardboard position.

Ccertainly not private in Puerto Rico. We have booths they're cardboard they're three-sided about the size of telephone boothst lookand have a top over them and have a paper curtain on the front so when you go in you're completely enclosed

Looks like bullshit to me.

Secret ballot? Yeah, right.

John Henry

Rory said...

Wow. That's a purely distilled Marxist message - that people of some demographic have more in common with and more commitment to each other than they have to their own families.

Randomizer said...

Early in the ad, when the guy said, "Your turn, honey", it seemed like he was a poll worker. I thought that was going to be the issue. At the end, she touches the guy's shoulder in a familiar manner, and says "sure did honey". She doesn't leave with him, but with the woman in the red and white sweater. I don't get it.

The line, "In the one place in America where women still have the right to choose", is nonsense. Does Harris think we have sharia law or are living in Handmaid's Tale? That's the part that stuck with me.

This ad was supposed to be about men forcing women to vote a certain way? In a country with 350 million people, many people are under many people's thumbs, but women generally aren't weak and passive.

I don't understand most of the Harris ads I see.

Dave Begley said...

“ Maybe somewhere in America women have been under men's thumb. I think of P. Diddy parties, things like that.” Althouse pounces!

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Don't overlook the overrated Mark Cuban's contribution top the scolding of America. Turns iout he's not even majority owner of the Mavericks team anymore and the lady who is majority owner just wrote $100-million check to the Trump PAC.

"Strong Republican women" indeed!

boatbuilder said...

Imagine the converse: An ad in which a submissive husband says "yes, dear" while his overbearing wife, confident that he will vote for Harris, hovers over him. He exchanges a wink with another submissive guy who's voting for Trump but not telling his wife.

Would that ad change one vote? Other than away from Trump?

The progressive fantasy world is bizarre.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Yep. There is strong "deception" theme in these Hollywood attempts by Roberts and Clooney to "help" Kamala.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Dang. I meant "to the scolding of America" above. TGIF

DINKY DAU 45 said...

Trump ending his campaign by enjoying the thought of Liz Cheney being lined up by 9 people with guns and her face shot at.This is a very sick person and his violent rhetoric is a big problem This perp wants to be president! Never gonna happen he is sick!

MartyH said...

I see some foreshadowing. Or did I miss a post?

tim maguire said...

why would you insult the people you want to influence?

It's who they are, it's what they do. They are incapable of understanding that someone might disagree with them in good faith and so they can only insult people who think differently.

My wife and I regularly cancel out each other's votes. I'm mildly amused by it, she's exasperated by it. I am far more likely to avoid talking about it than she is (fortunately, I'm not a very political person and am just fine not talking politics unless forced to).

Shouting Thomas said...

Go ahead. Abort your baby without your husband’s consent or knowledge.

The purpose of feminism is to incite hatred between men and women.

Shouting Thomas said...

I haven’t even read the story, and I know you’re lying.

Leland said...

I’ve been called worse. “Scum of the earth”, “filth of creation”, “gone from bad to worse”, “a dirty son of a bitch”.
Hell, I’ve been made to put that to song and sing it loudly in public places.
“Garbage” is no big deal.

Leland said...

I’ve been called worse. “Scum of the earth”, “filth of creation”, “gone from bad to worse”, “a dirty son of a bitch”.
Hell, I’ve been made to put that to song and sing it loudly in public places.
“Garbage” is no big deal.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

Biden (inadvertently) presented Harris with a golden opportunity to go big and she failed, miserably. I'm not sure whether to attribute that to stupidity or cowardice.

Lilly, a dog said...

I like to imagine that Joe Scarborough secretly cancels Mika's vote.

Christopher B said...

Same

Christopher B said...

Unlike Josh Shapiro who immediately threw Biden under the garbage truck.

Rusty said...

I think married women with children are voting for Trump. They realize what they've lost in the last four years and don't want to go backwards anymore. Most of the women for Harris are single and childless. They don't care if your kids are pressed to go fight in Ukraine. The vast majority of men voting for Harris aren't men.

Quayle said...

Oh yes, the "oppressed women" canard. That is the same attitude shown by 19th century opponents of the Latter-day Saints and the LDS' offensive and immoral polygamy. The opponents said the Latter-day Saint women were all oppressed by the "Mormon" patriarchy - the patriarchy that kept sending polygamists as territorial delegates to Washington DC. (My great-grandfather was one. They refused to seat him because of his immorality. He noted that the only difference between himself and many in Washington DC was that he married the women with whom he slept.)

Brigham Young called the bluff and in 1870 women in the Utah territory were given the vote. The voting in the Utah territory didn't change much. LDS men were still elected.

17 years later, in a typical display of hypocrisy and irony, the Utah women were disenfranchised by the U.S. Congress itself in the Edmunds-Tucker Act of 1887, Washington DC's final crackdown on polygamy, They didn't get the vote back until 1895 when statehood was pending. Utah became the third state with equal sufferage.

So, calling women oppressed is a handy tool of argument, but many times those very women being called oppressed don't consider themselves to be so.

Kate said...

Ew.

Ew.

Wince said...

I actually subscribe to a version of the "apostrophe" defense: I believe Biden did not intend to say what he said out loud, but he meant it.

Kate said...

There's so much wrong with that ad, so much skin-crawling creepiness, that I'm speechless.

JMS said...

Ann asked, "why would you insult the people you want to influence?"

The assumption in the question is likely false. This ad seems to be targeting (single?) liberal women . In essence, get out and vote against the Trumpers that would make you subservient if given the chance.

Steve said...

I find this line of attack ironic since a week or two ago they were brow-beating black men to listen to their women when deciding who to vote for.

Quayle said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Tank said...

Very interesting last sentence Mrs. Meade, whose husband attends Trump rallies.

Quayle said...

Yeah, with marriage relationships like that, who needs marriage at all. Certainly not a Hollywood star. She only needs the man (Danny Moder) she wants. The fact that the man's then-wife is devastated by the affair and his subsequent abandonment and divorce, is not the Hollywood star's problem. So much real viciousness and devastating pain inflicted on another person, under the guise of gentle kindness and "love."

Wince said...

Why did they choose a couple with what appears to be a post menopausal wife?

I think it's a clear signal that Democrats have already written-off middle aged men as a lost cause, and wanted to avoid any suggestion that younger men might be Trump voters.

Ann Althouse said...

"I see some foreshadowing. Or did I miss a post?"

You may be talking about the post where I said I did the "in-person absentee" voting.

Hassayamper said...

I am registered with the Libertarians and have been since college. While I normally vote a Republican straight ticket, there have been many times over the years when I voted for one of my party’s candidates because I detested the Republican almost as much as the Dem. This gets me in trouble with my wife, who is a loyal Republican.

tim in vermont said...

If you identify as a "knucklehead," Democrats say that you shouldn't think for yourself and vote for Harris. I don't think that DD's post makes any news.

rehajm said...

That’s a bingo

Amadeus 48 said...

Disliking Trump is not a reason to cast a vote for Harris. We are talking bad and worse here.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

"Omaha. Omaha."

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

The stink of desperation is so obvious.

Dixcus said...

Althouse wrote: "... A woman might see how important the election is to her husband and simply choose not to cast a vote that effectively cancels his vote."

And now we know who Althouse voted for.

Nobody.

So as not to cancel out Meade's vote.

Dixcus said...

why would you insult the people you want to influence?

Althouse doesn't get how fixed elections work. They don't need to "influence" us. They know they're going to win irrespective of how we all vote. Our elections are fake.

Insulting us is their way of rubbing it in our faces.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

Harris's response was very strange, telling a reporter who asked if she spoke with Biden since his "garbage" statement, "He called me but that subject didn't come up."

As with many DNC operatives cosplaying "reporter" the obvious follow-up ("You didn't bring it up either?") went unasked by the ninny on the tarmac.

Dixcus said...

Funny, isn't it? How it's the woman's baby. She can choose to abort it. It's not the man's baby.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

He doesn't even get to see what she puts on his mail-in ballot once he signs it and hands it over to her. Not that it will matter this year in Florida.

jim said...

Will there be poll watchers enforcing right-voting? We wouldn't a bunch of frivolous women messing things up because of their hormones.

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

We know your mind is numb, we just don't believe the root cause you cite.

EAB said...

I don’t know any woman who has a husband who bullies her on voting. If anything, the haranguing comes from women toward their husbands. (I have a sneaking suspicion my BIL quietly votes the opposite of my sister.) I’m so very, very tired of women and their petulant tantrums. I came of age in the 1970s. Feminism. What was once an honorable cause has become whining.. Maybe, just maybe, we should look inward instead of pushing men to change or step aside. I was disgusted by Gloria Steinem’s defense of Bill Clinton. And I’m disgusted today by AOC claiming Emhoff is a model of masculinity. And I’m deeply, deeply offended they think so little of women to presume, assume that because my vote is different from theirs, I’m somehow bullied. Cate Blanchett once said her moral compass is in her vagina. I’m supposed to listen to a woman who says that?

Mike (MJB Wolf) said...

The most oppressed women in America are the sex slaves imported under Border Czar Harris's nose, followed closely by the many young women who worked their asses off all their formative years to play sports in HS and college yet are now losing matches to dudes with a dress-up fetish. Not one Democrat at any level has defended these two sorely oppressed groups of women.