Can A Man Beat Trump? Some Democrats Wonder If It's Worth The Risk!

We found people willing to say this, so it must be true.

Democratic voters say that more than anything, they want to beat President Donald Trump in 2020. But some worry that means putting their hope of electing yet another male president on hold.

"The last white male Democrat to get >50% of the vote was JIMMY CARTER. Imo we just can't chance it with another white man," said noted Twitter user Abby Spice-Danvers. 

"Considering that every single *losing* presidential candidate has been a white man except for one (the lady who got more votes than any white guy ever) I don't understand how 'electability' is a white man's game," said publicity specialist Leslie Hermelin, "If the data tells us anything it's that for every white man who wins, there are scores of others who lose."

"Also," she added, "the last time Democrats elected a white man as president it was the mid '90s. We have folks voting for president today that weren't even born then!"

And she is not alone in her thinking. In conversations with dozens of Democratic primary voters — men and women — across several states, voters told Wonkette that Hillary Clinton winning the popular vote in 2016 made them rethink how willing Americans are to vote for a man for president, especially when pitted against Trump. For some, the risk of four more years of a Trump presidency is not worth another attempt to put another white guy in office.

"I wish I could believe a man could beat Trump in 2020, but I just don't know if America is ready. Everyone I know is pretty done with men," one Twitter user told me in a direct message, "I think it's time to get Warren or Harris in there and really clean things out. Maybe we can give men a chance again in like a decade."

"After so many failed male presidencies, can we feel safe putting another man in the oval?" asked Chicago writer Julia Weiss.

"Men seem pretty divisive. And SO prone to identity politics. I mean, they can take ANY subject and turn it back to 'what about men,' said Rowan Beckett-Grigsby of Washington. "I don't think that kind of singleminded focus and constant invocation of the victim card is doing them any favors."

Many voters across the nation are just not sure that they would. And even if they feel comfortable electing another man, they have to wonder if the rest of the country is willing to go along with them on that. No one can say for sure.

The Facebook page Man Who Has It All recently polled its subscribers, asking them if they would ever be able to vote for a man. Only 12% of the 10.9K people who voted said yes.

It sure looks like it's going to be an uphill climb for any of the men in this race.

Is this all -- or mostly -- in jest? If you say so. You could also say it's "in response to an article published on NBC.com yesterday titled, 'Can a woman beat Trump? Some Democrats are not so sure.'" 

NBC set up a premise and found four women from four different states in order to demonstrate that "voters across multiple states said that they recognize the 'electability' question is often unfairly aimed at women running for office — but stressed what they said was a need to be realistic." I stole their premise. And I stole their language.

Democratic voters say that more than anything, they want to beat President Donald Trump in 2020. But some worry that means putting their hope of electing the first woman president on hold.

"I can hardly think about it. It makes me sick thinking about how nasty this could get for a woman," Marianne Mason said, clutching her stomach as she waited for Sen. Kamala Harris of California to arrive at a town hall event at the University of Iowa on a recent Wednesday night. "How are they supposed to rebut someone like Trump? I want to see a woman in the White House, I really do. But I just don't know if it can happen against him."

Mason, 67, of Iowa City, is not alone in her thinking. In conversations with dozens of Democratic primary voters — men and women — across several states, voters told NBC News that Hillary Clinton's loss in 2016 made them rethink how willing Americans are to vote for a woman for president, especially when pitted against Trump. For some, the risk of four more years of a Trump presidency is not worth another attempt to break the final glass ceiling for women.

Who the hell decided this shit was necessary and why? Who is it helping?

The gist of this article is to persuade people into believing that they are better off voting for the man they can settle for over the woman they actually want. That this is the smart thing to do -- and look at all the people out there who agree with it! Voters! Across the nation! Clearly, this is the popular wisdom that will define this election.

It is, unfortunately, not all that hard to create "popular wisdom." If you say something over and over again, people eventually believe it and then repeat it themselves. It's how things that are not true become "true." It is how Paul Ryan, an idiot, became a "policy wonk."

If there were as many articles that looked like the first half of this post as there have been that looked like the NBC article, the "popular wisdom" around this race might look a lot different. If all of the articles about the candidates focused exclusively on their policies and their ideas, that might change the conversation as well.

If we want people to be "ready" for a female president, we must stop going around asking if people are "ready" for a female president. Take it off the table entirely. Stop "just asking questions" that are in fact loaded questions.

I'm gonna get a little inside baseball here, folks, and tell you something completely obvious -- you can use this kind of formula to write an article on literally anything. 

If the internet has taught us anything, it is that if you can think of an opinion, you can find at least three people to go along with you. Then, all you need to do is phrase your opinion in the form of a question, get some quotes from those people, refer to them as a monolithic or mostly monolithic group and BOOM, there's your article -- and it's not an op-ed anymore, it's an objective, reported piece. Your opinion is no longer just your opinion, it is the opinion and it is sweeping the nation!

And "the people" need to know.

[ NBC ]

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