The “joy” is fading in the Kamala campaign as the latest polls show that the gap is closing.
And Kamala’s biggest problem is the men. White men. Black men. Young men.
Gen Z has the largest gender gap of any age group with young men supporting Trump by margins similar to those of older men. Black men and Hispanic men have been the hardest minority groups to persuade into the Kamala camp. A New York Times article last month blamed lagging black male support for Kamala on the ‘misogynoir’ that black men were suffering from.
Why is Kamala doing so poorly among men? One hint comes from polling numbers showing that white men went from supporting Trump by 13 points before the DNC convention to 21 points afterward. “Joy”, “brat summer” and all the efforts to brand a presidential campaign like the Barbie movie backfired making Kamala into ‘Barbie’ and Trump into ‘Oppenheimer’.
It’s not just the vibe, climaxing in Oprah’s convention appearance, that’s turning off men, the vibe is a symptom of the real problem not only with the campaign, but the candidate.
Kamala is a lightweight politician running on feelings at a time when men need something more solid. The “joy” theme told votes to turn off their brains, join the party and stop worrying. TikTok dances make a certain kind of voter gush while completely alienating another kind of voter.
Having “brat summer” inflicted on you when you’re cutting back on groceries is salt in the wound. A trivial campaign is insulting to those who are suffering and falling behind on bills.
But TikTok dances are the whole reason why Kamala is here.
Swapping out Biden for Kamala wasn’t about shifting the issues, but the personalities. Despite her disavowals of most of her past views, like banning cars, health insurance and plastic straws, and the random adoption of some Trump economic proposals, the Democrat presidential ticket is still fundamentally the same on the issues as it was in May 2024. All that’s new is the vibe.
In polls, men are statistically more likely to vote on issues, and women on personal characteristics. The Kamala coup offers new personal characters, but not issues.
The DNC had no new platform. Its platform was considered so irrelevant that no one got around to editing it to remove mentions of Biden’s second term. The Kamala campaign only added an ‘issues’ section to its website days before the upcoming presidential debate. The message is that issues don’t matter, what does matter is that Kamala is like the best friend you never had.
And Trump is a mean old man.
Kamala is hardly the first politician to run on personality, not issues, but in the middle of an economic crisis, a crime crisis, and record low levels of public insecurity about the future, her glib positivity and shallow narcissism have fired up upscale liberal women while turning off men: especially working class men of all races concerned about being able to earn a living.
The 2024 convention and the campaign’s Zoom groups, like the DNC 2020 convention, felt like a party for members of the laptop class, a pep rally for a clique convinced of its specialness, rather than an address to the nation. That’s why not just white men, but many black men feel uniquely disconnected from a campaign for a woman seeking to be the second black president.
Obama branded his campaign as a larger racial and national achievement, but Kamala’s campaign, like Hillary’s, never feels like it’s about anything except her. Very few black men buy into the idea that Kamala in the White House will mean anything for them. That would be bad at the best of times, but it’s catastrophic during an economic crisis and crushing inflation.
The unhappy truth about Kamala is that she has no idea how to talk to anyone outside the upper class social strata in which she began her career. Her fake persona as everyone’s best friend was ideally suited to Nob Hill socialites but wore out its welcome in any contested election. Fortunately for her it’s been a long time since Kamala had to run for public office in a truly competitive election and never in an election that people were actually paying attention to.
Putting together her campaign like a Taylor Swift concert series created the illusion of populism. Republican ineptitude kept her opponents from being able to define her, but instead she disastrously defined herself around vacuous cheerfulness and TikTok memes.
Kamala locked in Gen Z women and locked out male voters.
Democrats and their media are busy blaming sexism, but the issue isn’t resentment of women, but a candidate and a campaign incapable of talking to voters outside of her very narrow social circle and circle of preferences. Biden’s campaign trail behavior could be bizarre, but Kamala’s is just that of a blue city shut in who can’t help condescendingly speaking to everyone else.
Kamala compensates for her inadequacies not by getting to know other people, but by accusing them of racism and sexism. Toward the end of her failing primary campaign, Kamala Harris had complained, “Is America ready for that? Are they ready for a woman of color to be President of the United States?” Whenever Kamala’s campaign hits a wall, it still brings out the same line.
Rather than considering how Kamala could better reach beyond her circle, the campaign’s political allies demean men, even black men, as bigots. Americans are not there to empower the narcissistic political ambitions of any candidate regardless of which groups she belongs to.
It’s the other way around.
Political fandom, cults of personality whose members convince themselves that they’re part of something bigger, are un-American and were rejected as evil by the Founding Fathers. Political representatives exist for the sake of people, people do not exist for the sake of politicians.
Celebrities turn people into fans by manufacturing a false sense of intimacy. Kamala acts like she’s running to be America’s best friend, not the person tasked with fixing its problems. Some have been won over by the “joy” routine, yet others, especially men, are not interested in pretending that a millionaire politician who notices them every 4 years is their best friend.
Kamala’s fake smiles, fake laughs, and fake friendship are turning off men of all ages and races. And there’s no joy in Coconutville as “brat summer” turns to falling poll fall.
{Reposted from FrontPageMag}
