She's A Woman!

In this era of identity politics and #MeToo, progressive politicians who are women are always victims of misogyny, while in the view of far too many left-leaning politicians and commentators, conservative women either: (1) don't qualify as "women" at all, or (2) are under the thrall of males in their life and simply do their bidding. This entire proposition is insulting to everyone involved, including progressive woman who are deemed unable to defend their political positions on their own without hiding behind "they disagree with me because I'm a woman."

Peter Beinart exemplifies this idiocy when he writes:

Read enough news reports about Elizabeth Warren’s declaration that she is running for president, and you notice certain common features. In its story on her announcement, The New York Times noted that Warren has “become a favorite target of conservatives” and that, in a recent national poll, “only about 30 percent [of respondents] viewed her favorably, with 37 percent holding an unfavorable view.” The Washington Post observed that Warren’s claim “that she was Native American” has “come under relentless attack from Republican opponents.” It also quoted a Boston Globe editorial that called Warren “a divisive figure.” On CNN, the election analyst Harry Enten suggested that Warren’s “very liberal record, combined with the fact that Donald Trump has already gone after her” has made her a—you guessed it—“divisive figure” whose “favorable ratings are not that high.”

These observations are factually correct. But they also help create a false narrative. Mentioning the right’s attacks on Warren plus her low approval ratings while citing her “very liberal record” and the controversy surrounding her alleged Native American heritage implies a causal relationship between these facts. Warren is a lefty who has made controversial ancestral claims. Ergo, Republicans attack her, and many Americans don’t like her very much.

But that equation is misleading. The better explanation for why Warren attracts disproportionate conservative criticism, and has disproportionately high disapproval ratings, has nothing to do with her progressive economic views or her dalliance with DNA testing. It’s that she’s a woman.

Yes, Warren is a woman, but Beinart's "better explanation" is a pathetic cover for the the true reason Warren polls so negatively among centrists and conservatives. She's a closet socialist, who unlike Bernie Sanders, doesn't even have the courage to state her big government, anti-capitalist, anti-business views honestly and directly—she hedges is the way of most sleazy pols. She's also strident, generally unlikeable, and questionably honest (think: her specious claim of Native American heritage) but all of that has nothing whatsoever to do with her gender.

It appears that Democrats and their trained hamsters in the media (e.g., Beinart) are prepping for primary season by attempting to blunt any criticism of their candidates—the majority of whom fit an identify politics mandate—by suggesting that anyone who questions a candidate's proposed policies (e.g., guaranteed income for all), criticizes a candidiate's positions (e.g., abolish ICE) or notes character flaws or questionable ethics is either a "misogynist" or a "racist" because—identity politics. That entire meme is becoming really, really tiresome.

In essence, what the Dems want are candidates who are untouchable—immune from harsh criticism. In the age of Trump, that's not gonna happen.