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In his latest article on Substack, Jaime Harrison is talking to me when he admonishes Democrats to curb their frustration and anger and support their party.

The graphic atop Jaime Harrison's article

The problem is, he never lands on what I think is the crux of the problem with our party: that our endorsed candidates emerge from a small pool of insider, "golden" people, many of whom do not have the chops to run an effective campaign in these populist times.

I like that Harrison gave props to the most loyal demographic in the Democratic party, Black women. I wish he had given props to Black men as well, 78% of whom voted for Kamala Harris. But Harrison's main thesis—that Democrats don't revel in and build on their successes, they bulldoze them—is off target. Had Democrats delivered what voters wanted, an economy which made it easier to prosper, the revelry would be ongoing. Instead, Biden gave the country a number of very worthwhile public programs and subsidies, the impact of which was masked by high inflation and delays in the start of work. Layer on the absence of comprehensive immigration reform, and Republican appeals to xenophobia and anti-transgender sentiment. The outcome in 2024 was inevitable.

Should a charismatic presidential candidate with a compelling, populist economic message be allowed to emerge organically from within the Democratic party, its fortunes would reverse overnight. Until then, chiding Democrats for their lack of enthusiasm will earn only a single-finger salute from the base.

Don't Kick a Party When It's Down, by Jaime Harrison, Substack.

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Link: https://halwrightnewtown.info/blog/Dont-Kick-a-Base-When-Its-Down-55/

August 5, 2025
Person, Woman, Man, Progressive, Annoyance

The het cis man / het cis woman cultural divide is hurting Democrats and helping Trump.

I'll get to the topic at hand in a moment. But first...

Is it possible that Democrats actually won in 2024, and "by a wide margin?" Almost anything is possible. In social media, conspiratorial hypotheses abound about tampering with the election count, fueled in part by Trump's clumsy statement that, for some, implies he knew of such tampering.

Conspiracy-minded Democrats are hanging their hats on Substack articles like this one to bolster claims that the 2024 election was stolen from them.

Ex-CIA Whistleblower: "The NSA Audited The 2024 Election, Kamala Harris Won"

"[Elon] knows those computers better than anybody, all those vote-counting computers."

Trump speaks to supporters prior to his inauguration in 2025.

C-SPAN Clip: Trump Talking About Elon Musk Knowing About Voting Computers

Of course, those inclined to believe this claim must also believe that a deep fake of multiple polls since the election has occurred. Those polls show that the Democratic Party remains less popular than the party of our adjudicated-rapist, convicted-felon president. Its own members see the Democratic Party as weak and ineffective.

Historical precedent, from both near and far into the past, buttresses the prediction that claims about the 2024 election being stolen, whether supported by evidence or not, will go nowhere. What will improve Democrats' chances in 2025, 2026, 2027, and 2028 is repairing the fractures within our party and constructing unifying messages which appeal to mainstream, heartland Americans. For affirmation, see: Bill Clinton of Arkansas, Barack Obama of Illinois; Joe Biden of Pennsylvania and Delaware. All of these winners crafted moderate platforms with broad appeal to Americans damaged (quite intentionally) by Republican policies.

Today, in the absence of a compelling Democratic leader with thoughts that don't involve resistance to Trump*, voters endure Trump's shock and awe media campaigns on one side and commentary from self-appointed progressive surrogates on the other. Too often, those surrogates veer into performative outrage over cultural trends. And no cultural battleground is more emblematic of how progressives hobble Democrats than the relational chasm between het cis men and het cis women.

*Pete Buttigieg, to his credit, is starting to message on picking up the pieces after Trump and what that may look like. Stay tuned.

Exploiters of the Man-Woman Divide Hurt Democrats and Help Republicans

Various iterations on this basic progressive theme (women>men) are ubiquitous on the Internet, as are memes carrying the predictable right-wing backlash.

Perhaps some of those composing and posting these memes have given up hope of finding a political solution to our shared problems. Perhaps they are in it for the attention. Or perhaps they are stirring the pot to get more progressives to say the kinds of things that alienate male voters from the Democratic party.

Source: The Philosophers Boner, Facebook

Most het-cis men aren't incels. They aren't abusers. They aren't lonelier than the rest of humanity. And as voters, they are persuadable, given the correct messaging and underlying policy—which doesn't have to be MAGA horseshit to succeed. This meme and many others like it, with their broad condemnation of men, hurt Democratic politicians.

On the other side of the ledger, 52% of white women voted for Trump. They weren't bothered enough by men's behavior to pick a Black woman over an adjudicated rapist and convicted felon. Toxic femininity? Sure, if we're in the mood to alienate another persuadable group of humans.

~ ~ ~

My making statements like these on social media, uncontroversial though they ought to be in the face of relevant statistics, has been enough to send proud progressive keyboard warriors after me like wolves to red meat. For example, a Facebook friend posted the above meme, I commented, and her friend group ran through every white-woke-sanctioned talking point in response. As a typical man, I was "fragile," "whining," "unwilling to be held accountable," and had succumbed to "not all men" excuse-making. One person said I was abetting violence by men against women.

When I pointed out that white women broke for Trump, I got three responses. One, a commenter said many more men voted for Trump than women, so don't come for women. Two, a commenter inferred that white women were duped or cowed into voting for Trump by overbearing, violent white men. And three, what about non-white women? When I said that responses such as theirs were why I can no longer operate along side them as an activist in support of women—it's futile to align with a losing strategy—I was accused of leaving my granddaughter to suffer the consequences of Republican cruelties.

There is a staggering degree of political ineptitude revealed in these standard-issue progressive reactions. Should we be surprised that men gravitated to the party that held a seat open for them? (Tim Walz was too late and too muted to have the desired effect.) How incompetent must Democrats be when white women, a natural constituency in post-Roe America, broke for Trump? And how tragically clueless would it be to blend non-white women, who voted overwhelming for Harris, into the same demographic group as white women, merely to make things look better for women and for Democrats than they might otherwise look? The first step in persuasion is to know whom to persuade.

As the most reliable of Democratic voters, as someone who shares the humanitarian goals of progressives, and as someone who regularly calls out Republicans on their abundant horseshit, it's fascinating to me that I encounter more wrath from progressives than from MAGA cultists. As comedian Marc Maron has wryly noted:

Progressives have really gotta figure out how to deal with this buzzkill problem. I know these are important issues, but do you realize we annoyed the average American into fascism?

What the left does not understand, or does not care to know, is that posting a meme and commenting on a meme are political acts, whether intended as such or not. Some things are worth saying, consequences be damned. But not this dreck.

Marketeers Join In for Fun and Profit

Always down to gain some eyeballs from societal trends, advertisers in the US have started to dive into the man-woman ruckus. Gone are the days when a Super Bowl ad featured migrants at the Southern border wall to elicit sympathy with their travails, and increased sales of lumber. We now have Sydney Sweeney and her jeans/genes. The left went apeshit, the right mocked the left, and Trump couldn't resist chiming in. American Eagle's marketing team are very good at what they do.

The ad; performative outrage ensues on the left, and pushback on the right

Trump chimes in, because of course he does

American Eagle Stock Surges After Trump Praises Sydney Sweeney For ‘Hottest’ Ad

The Eagle soars

One can only hope that men's and women's relations soon start to heal. That day doesn't seem on the horizon though. The latest trends in my social feed are: (1) women, feeling burdened by all they are told to do to enhance their appearance, demanding that men do something about their balding heads, and (2) men mocking WNBA players for wanting to be paid more than the janitors in their arenas. We have descended into an emotional and spiritual desert of our own making.