Big "John McCain tapping Sarah Palin in hopes of Pokemon typing away Barack Obama's perceived diversity edge advantage" energy here.
Thousands of MAGA chanchuds who unironically post about barefoot women making sandwiches and regularly declare "feminism is cancer" are going to declare him the most feminist president ever. They'll slam this stunt down on the table like it's a winning card.
At least one person thought this was an autocorrect error. Nope. I said "Pokemon typing away" and that's what I meant.
McCain very clearly thought Black Man Candidate would be weak against a White Woman Candidate, but it was not very effective.
McCain very clearly thought Black Man Candidate would be weak against a White Woman Candidate, but it was not very effective.
The day before McCain unveiled his VP pick, he released a campaign video where he suddenly and without preamble or pivot was all smiles and very smugly congratulating Senator Obama on "the historic nature of [his] campaign".
I thought: he thinks he has something up his sleeve.
I thought: he thinks he has something up his sleeve.
And the next day, there he was with his own "historic" pick.
Of course the stuntcasting of Sarah Palin didn't help him and if anything utterly sandbagged the rest of his campaign, preventing him from finding a clear message or gaining traction.
Of course the stuntcasting of Sarah Palin didn't help him and if anything utterly sandbagged the rest of his campaign, preventing him from finding a clear message or gaining traction.
It's one of the rare moments in US electoral history where someone went bust counting on the racism of white voters, and if he'd paid more attention to anything *but* identity, it probably would have worked.
The world is full of white women he could have picked and a lot of the "would have voted for Obama a third time" segment of the electorate would have grabbed the chance to vote against him and feel good about themselves with both hands.
But Palin presented enough reason to give those voters pause, and so the gambit failed.
And this is the thing that usually happens when conservatives try to "use the tools of [liberals/progressives/leftists] against them."
They fail because they don't know what the tools are.
And this is the thing that usually happens when conservatives try to "use the tools of [liberals/progressives/leftists] against them."
They fail because they don't know what the tools are.
They can't actually rope us in by using the things we care about because they don't understand what we care about, why we care about them, or even how and in what ways we care about them.
They reduce all of critical theory to a gameable hierarchy "where the most 'intersectional'/oppressed person automatically wins" because hierarchy is all they understand.
Yep. And every single one of them, they try to "expose liberal hypocrisy" by yelling it's misogyny every time we criticize them, because to the extent that they are able to comprehend liberal values, that's what "misogyny" is.
I talked about this yesterday in terms of Trump, the idea that words are just cards you play, labels you slap on things to show they're good or bad.
As usual, Trump is a funhouse mirror of his party: bigger and distorted, but reflecting the same face.
As usual, Trump is a funhouse mirror of his party: bigger and distorted, but reflecting the same face.
These tropes - the one of seeing words as labels for dividing the world into good and bad, and of failing to understand why you can't bind your opponent by the rules you assume they're using - sum up a weakness of conservative thinking: you can't understand someone without caring
If you don't care enough about a person to see them as a person, you will never come close to understanding what happens inside their head, or even that something happens inside their head.
See: the meme where progressives get labeled as "NPCs".
See: the meme where progressives get labeled as "NPCs".
If you either implicitly fail to understand that your political opponents (or targets) have individual internality or explicitly deny that they do, then all you can do is shallowly parse what you see happening on the surface.
And if you have a strong governing assumption that everybody else is like you, that they would do the same things you do if they were in your shoes, then you'll be able to parse those external actions only in ways that would make sense if you were in theirs, doing them.
See: the meme of calling anybody who cares about things you don't personally care about "virtue signaling" and "political correctness".
That's a person who would only pretend to care about someone out of self-interest or fear, assuming that others are doing just that.
That's a person who would only pretend to care about someone out of self-interest or fear, assuming that others are doing just that.
There's an exchange at the tail end of the series of Angel, which I have referenced before and will again:
"Why are you even fighting?"
"People like you, people who don't care about anyone or anything, will never understand the people who do."
"Yeah... but we won't care."
"Why are you even fighting?"
"People like you, people who don't care about anyone or anything, will never understand the people who do."
"Yeah... but we won't care."
And the world does not divide neatly and cleanly into Evil Trumpists Who Don't Care And Never Understand and Good Virtuous People Who Care And Thus Always Understand.
Most people hate "political correctness". They just locate it somewhere vaguely to the left of themselves.
Most people hate "political correctness". They just locate it somewhere vaguely to the left of themselves.
Which works out well for the people further to the right, because they can badmouth anything they don't care about as political correctness and immediately get the sympathy of a lot of people.
Anyway.
That's what I meant when I said McCain was trying to use Pokemon types to edge out Barack Obama. If you don't care and you don't understand, then "inclusion" and "diversity" are just moves in a game to you.
That's what I meant when I said McCain was trying to use Pokemon types to edge out Barack Obama. If you don't care and you don't understand, then "inclusion" and "diversity" are just moves in a game to you.
McCain thought he had a winning move but because he didn't care enough to understand, he lost.
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