… it’s this:
If you listen to the whole thing he’s not saying “please like me” he’s saying that women need to STFU and get with the program and he doesn’t have time to explain why because he’s very important and much too busy for that bullshit. This is what women hear from him because we’ve heard that stuff our whole lives from domineering men who think they don’t have to address women as human beings.
His misogyny goes much deeper than the repeated sexual assaults. His paternalistic attitude in general, the “I’ve done more for the women/Blacks/etc” is grating. He thinks he’s the Daddy in Chief of the American people and he’s doling out favors for which we must be properly grateful. And he doesn’t want to hear any complaining.
I heard that line last night and I saw red. And I’d guess I’m not the only one. His misogyny has likely sown the seeds of his own destruction:
Michigan is looking less competitive by the day, and there’s a growing likelihood of Joe Biden blowing out Donald Trump here come November 3.
All three Rust Belt states that Trump improbably won in 2016 — Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin — are problematic for the president this year. But Michigan is where things look bleakest.
His support has diminished among the white working-class. Black turnout appears certain to rebound after a dismal showing in 2016. New laws that allow for early voting and no-excuse-absentee balloting are expected to push voter participation to historic levels, with Democrats the expected beneficiary of low-propensity Michiganders flooding the ballot box.
But the simplest explanation for the president’s trouble here is that he’s continuing to hemorrhage support from white, college-educated women in the suburbs of Detroit.
It’s hard to overstate just how badly Trump is performing with this crucial demographic. Over the past several weeks, a raft of internal polls have produced numbers that political professionals here are struggling to comprehend. In Oakland County, the second-biggest voting area in the state, Gongwer reported that Democratic polling shows Biden leading Trump by 27 points; Republicans pushed back with a survey showing Trump down only 18 points. (For reference, Trump lost Oakland County by 8 points in 2016.)
“I cannot in good conscience vote to keep this man in the White House.”
Karen Kudla, a Republican single-issue voter
Why? According to her campaign’s most recent internal poll, she’s an eye-popping 35 points above water, in terms of net favorability, with college-educated white women. This came as a shock to Slotkin, a veteran national security official, who was worried that Trump’s law-and-order messagewas going to scare women away from voting for Democrats this fall. But what her polling revealed — consistent with surveys done elsewhere in the state — is that Trump’s messaging has backfired.
“Honestly, all the moms I know, we are really nervous about our kids, what kind of future they’re going to have. And Trump is the one making us nervous,” Jessica Morschakov, a 38-year-old ballet studio owner, told me in the wealthy, ultra-conservative township of Brighton. “He’s just so angry all the time. I really believe that he brings out the worst in people, the worst in situations.”
It’s this sentiment, from this voting demographic, that’s echoing all across Michigan — especially in its rich white suburbs. Even voters who describe themselves as single-issue, pro-life Republicans, such as Karen Kudla, have said they’ve given up on Trump. “I cannot in good conscience vote to keep this man in the White House,” Kudla told me in Lake Orion.
What does this all mean?
It’s actually pretty simple. The thinking among Republicans has always been that if Trump can keep his losses inOakland County to single digits again, it will be proof that he’s holding his own with suburban women around the state, and therefore he will remain competitive. If, on the other hand, that margin balloons closer to 15 points or more, the president is doomed.
It’s a similar if inverted calculus in neighboring Livingston County. Trump won the longtime Republican stronghold by a whopping 30 points in 2016 — more than double John McCain’s margin over Barack Obama in 2008. It is widely believed, however, that Trump’s rout of Clinton represented the high-water mark for Republicans in Livingston, and that his numbers will come back to earth in 2020. Once again, it’s a matter of scope. If Trump can once again juice his margins in areas like Brighton, and push close to that 30-point margin, it would suggest that conservative women in traditionally Republican areas are sticking with him. But if Biden cuts that spread down closer to 20, it will mean the math has become unworkable for Trump statewide.
Let’s hope so. God, let’s hope so….