The point of politics

Here are two things that I think are true that seem contradictory:

1. I am a feminist.

2. I want the Democratic Party to say less about women and do less for us.

Here’s the thing that I think a lot of people forget a lot of the time. The Democratic Party is a political party. Success for a political party begins and ends with winning elections. I want Democrats in office to do the stuff I want them to do. I want the Democrats who are running for office to say the things I want them to say. But at the end of the day, if Democrats aren’t winning elections, they’re not succeeding at the one thing they really need to do.

Sometimes saying the right thing, doing the right thing, and winning the election all coincide. Those times are great. That usually happens when swing voters happen to be right about something.

Unfortunately, most voters know almost nothing about most issues. Most of what they do know is totally wrong. This goes triple for swing voters, who are, on average, even dumber and less-informed than voters broadly.

When swing voters are wrong about an issue, the winning move for the political parties is to shut the fuck up about it and guide the conversation back toward the winning issues. Talk about your policies that represent swing voter preferences better than the opposition.

In terms of gender, Biden and Harris just declared the Equal Rights Amendment the law of the land and then found out, in public, that that’s not how any of this works.

Democrats need to stop this kind of shit.

I cannot imagine many women were like, “I wasn’t sure who to vote for, then this happened and now I’m voting straight Democrat.”

In fact, people with any knowledge of this incident are not, statistically speaking, “persuadable.”

To the extent that the ERA stunt will have any effect whatsoever, it will further exhaust and demoralize Democrats (hello) and serve as grist for the mill of right-wing scaremongering. “Democrats are trying to force you into a matriarchy!!!”

The same is true of trans rights.

Here is a clear case wherein voters are, by and large, ignorant, bigoted shitbags.

Case-in-point:

source

When voters are wrong, parties have three moves with any real likelihood of success: