Elizabeth Warren's 2004 book "The Two-Income Trap: Why Middle-Class Parents Are Going Broke" might hurt her with feminists...

... Ezra Klein muses at Vox.

The “two-income trap,” as described by Warren, really consists of three partially separate phenomena that have arisen as families have come to rely on two working adults to make ends meet:

• The addition of a second earner means, in practice, a big increase in household fixed expenses for things like child care and commuting.
• Much of the money that American second earners bring in has been gobbled up, in practice, by zero-sum competition for educational opportunities expressed as either skyrocketed prices for houses in good school districts or escalating tuition at public universities.
• Last, while the addition of the second earner has not brought in much gain, it has created an increase in downside risk by eliminating an implicit insurance policy that families used to rely on....

A certain strand of the American right has long expressed quiet admiration for the book, since its thesis can on some level be boiled down to the idea that feminists were too optimistic about the implications of women’s mass entry into the workforce....

[The book is] a realistic portrayal of the fact that most people have jobs rather than careers and that for most modern mothers, working is less a choice than a practical economic necessity....

[The book suggests] a version of Warren that could be more broadly electorally appealing... Two-Income Trap...  speaks to the questions... as to whether unfettered capitalism is undermining the traditional family....

I'm very interested to see this. It gets my "single-earner household" tag, and you can click on that and see it's a subject that's been important to me for years.

I have 62 posts on that tag, beginning with an April 2012 post, "The Hilary Rosen flap shows the way to a new bipartisanship premised on the value of single-earner households" (Hilary Rosen had mocked Ann Romney for never having "worked a day in her life"). I said:

"For the first time, Jamie’s getting irrational criticism from her fellow liberals, who think that if you represent anyone associated with the other side, you must be a Republican in hiding."

"Jamie is obviously a liberal Democrat, but this is not a betrayal. Jamie is being patriotic and heroic and consistent with the best traditions of the bar. We have to resist zealotry on both sides."

Said Alan Dershowitz about Jamie Gorelick, quoted in "When a liberal power lawyer represents the Trump family, things can get ugly" in The Washington Post. Gorelick took on Ivanka Trump and Jared Kushner as clients.

How did "things... get ugly"? Well, obviously, it's people who are being ugly. Here are the 3 examples of ugliness given in the article:

In the most public slap, Hilary Rosen, a prominent Democratic strategist and lobbyist, tweeted, “Hey Jamie Gorelick, you’ve just poured that ‘Complicit’ perfume on yourself,” a reference to a “Saturday Night Live” parody ad that imagined an Ivanka Trump-branded scent. (Rosen declined to elaborate on the tweet, saying only, “It is what it is.”)

“Representing Jared and Ivanka is a case of pushing the ethical envelope, helping a wealthy family on the brink of using the presidency to further enrich themselves,” said David Halperin, a speechwriter in the Clinton White House and former counsel to the Senate Intelligence Committee. “Gorelick is a Clinton supporter embracing the family that wanted to put Hillary Clinton in jail. People in Washington are all too willing to forgive that.”

This being Washington, some of Gorelick’s critics tuck their attacks behind the cloak of anonymity. “Do you want to be seen as a fixer available to all or a fixer for principles you believe in?” said a lawyer who has worked with Gorelick on campaigns since the Clinton and Gore era. “One probably pays better than the other, but every step you take has consequences.”

Here's that parody ad, which I'd known about but never watched before just now:



Speaking of ugliness, what dominates that SNL clip is beauty. You get completely caught up in the beauty of Scarlett Johansson (as Ivanka Trump). That makes it very funny when she glamorously puts on her lipstick and the reflected image in her mirror is Alec Baldwin (as Donald Trump). So, suddenly ugliness. You think you're pretty but you are really ugly.

Interesting that another woman, Hilary Rosen, chose that idea to discipline Gorelick, the metaphor of outward physical beauty to represent inner virtue.

ADDED: Hilary Rosen... why did I already have a tag for her? Ah, yes! It was back in 2012: Rosengate. Remember that?

"Adviser to Obama, DNC Attacks Ann Romney"... DNC advisor Hilary Rosen, trying to say that Mitt Romney "doesn't connect" on the issue of women struggling economically: He's "running around the country, saying, well, my wife tells me that what women really care about are economic issues, and when I listen to my wife, that's what I'm hearing." She pauses, then blurts out the unfortunate line, which she clearly thinks is a great zinger: "Guess what? His wife has actually not worked a day in her life."...

Women attacking women. Ha. I heard about a special place in hell...

"Bus, under."

"Top EPA Official Resigns Over 'Crucify' Comment."

Imagine your career wrecked over a slightly edgy analogy.

Meanwhile, Hilary Rosen — who said something much more inopportune — was back on "Meet the Press" yesterday.

ADDED: Based on the comments to this post, I'd say the problem wasn't so much that the analogy was edgy, but that it was too true. He said something that can't be said so openly. The setting wasn't really too open, which is why he said it, presumably, but the analogy was so vivid that it busted out into the internet-o-sphere.

"The comments that Hilary Rosen made today certainly have awakened many Mama Grizzlies across the nation."

Sarah Palin weighs in on the issue.

"Why is it that some on the left choose to divide, to incite with comments like that instead of just respecting women’s choices and what they want to do with the gifts that God has given them?"

By the way, do we just respect men’s choices and what they want to do with the gifts that God has given them?

AND: Judith Warner says Democrats owe Hilary Rosen an apology! The Democrats, she says, are "like the Romney campaign itself" "cynic[al]" and "out of touch":

We all know, on the one hand, that there’s a certain portion of the population that feels not just left behind but generally dissed by what they identify as the evolution of attitudes and mores in our era: they’re the Sarah Palin constituency. But these conservative women were never going to vote for Obama anyway.

What we learned from the Rosenflap is that lots of women (and men) want to see respect for women who choose the traditional role. Since when is it politically savvy to insult the groups that don't vote your way?

"Class warfare" and "the war on women" — 2 wars or 2 fronts in the same war?

A question that came to mind as I was reading this comment, from Yashu, on last night's "Rosengate" post:

What happened was, in their efforts to attack Romney, the Dems suffered a strategery malfunction. Crossed wires caused a short circuit.

Crossed wires: i.e. two separate tactical strands of the Obama 2012 campaign against Romney momentarily met in Rosen's soundbite and short-circuited.

1. GOP "war on women" (Dem pandering to women)
2. Class warfare (spurring resentment of Romney's wealth)

Rosen was predictably going along on #1 (that's the meme the Dems are pushing now, #2 will come to the forefront later). But because they had to defend themselves against Romney's counterattack (Obama's economy hurting women), for a moment #2 came to the fore: i.e., Ann Romney's a rich bitch who's never worked a day in her life, so what does she know about the economy or jobs?

Short circuit. Because the "rich bitch" was tacit, implicit; what was explicit, what everyone heard out loud was: stay-at-home mom never worked a day in her life, so what does she know about the economy or jobs?

A stupid sneering insult to stay-at-home moms, i.e. a large number of women. Short circuit.

Do Democrats need to be careful to fight these 2 wars separately, or is there a way that the 2 wars could be merged successfully? Rosen merely lost a battle. That doesn't mean her side has lost the war or that it is not capable of a war on 2 fronts. You might not want them to win, but that doesn't matter for the purposes of this discussion. Whichever side you are on, you will want to understand this.

"Romney fundraising appeal off Rosengate..."

It's the turning point in the presidential race... strangely, and yet not surprisingly. The trajectory changes right here. Today.

Because it's all about the women. Everything is all about women.

ADDED: Dialogue at Meadhouse:

MEADE: Why Rosengate? What's the scandal?

ALTHOUSE: The scandal is: They let the mask slip. They let it show.

As we'd talked about earlier: The Democrats don't really believe anything. They're just working on various voting blocs. They started this "war on women" theme, but it was a means to an end. Women were out there, so numerous, so richly exploitable. The campaign made its move. And then... the slip.

Framefail in the "war on women" — reframed by Drudge.

This has been up all morning at Drudge:



Let's look at those links. 

The first small-print one — "Adviser to Obama, DNC Attacks Ann Romney" — goes to this video clip of DNC advisor Hilary Rosen, trying to say that Mitt Romney "doesn't connect" on the issue of women struggling economically: He's "running around the country, saying, well, my wife tells me that what women really care about are economic issues, and when I listen to my wife, that's what I'm hearing." She pauses, then blurts out the unfortunate line, which she clearly thinks is a great zinger: "Guess what? His wife has actually not worked a day in her life." She ends with "He seems so old fashioned."

That's the framing of Mitt Romney that the Obama campaign wants: Who are these out of touch people? Ironically, it was profoundly out of touch with the many women who work in the home (and with the many women who've professed to respect the choice that some women make to devote themselves to homemaking). This is the problem with these framing efforts. You have to brainstorm, imagining all the ways in which your opponents can use it against you. Framefail.