Latest news with #TrumpCoalition
New York Times
6 days ago
- General
- New York Times
Our Regression on Gender Is a Tragedy, Not Just a Political Problem
When Donald Trump stormed into the White House in 2016, horrified Americans debated, almost endlessly, whether the shocking result was an expression of widespread racism (backlash to a Black president resulting in the election of a birther) or economic anxiety (the industrial Midwest especially feeling abandoned by globalization and the China shock). Each was probably a factor, then, and each strand is still present in the Trump coalition, reflected in tariff wars and efforts to redirect civil rights law on behalf of whites. But in 2025, MAGA seems much more distinctively molded by gender politics. Gender backlash is here, and before we think through the implications for partisan politics, we need to recognize it as a phenomena that goes beyond them. On the surface, the Trump coalition might appear powered by an unapologetic, rakish U.F.C. party-bro energy — think of the glimpses we've gotten of Pete Hegseth's naked torso or the way his confirmation hearings were meme-ified as a hard-ass man, accused of sexual assault, staring down a hectoring panel of hysterical grandmas. Or for that matter, the time when the White House press secretary, Karoline Leavitt, invited her Instagram followers to observe her working out in a sports bra. And there may not be a more representative clip about the vibe shift of 2024 than the comedian and podcaster Andrew Schulz explaining his supposed defection from the Democrats by explaining that he liked the dudes that have sex — using a crude term for female anatomy — and say whatever they want. Of course, in the aftermath of Dobbs, Republicans have pushed further to limit reproductive rights, state by state, and a bill recently introduced in Congress could ban online pornography outright. With a case threatening sites like Pornhub pending at the Supreme Court, 17 states have already instituted pre-emptive blackouts of the site. Questions have risen as to whether the White House intervened to lift travel restrictions on Andrew Tate, who faces rape and human-trafficking charges in Britain and a trafficking and money laundering investigation in Romania. More recently Trump didn't rule out a pardon for Sean Combs. 'It's so odd how there are internal contradictions that are explained by 'powerful men get to do whatever they want with impunity,' is there a word for this,' the writer Irin Carmon noted sarcastically in December. In case you missed her meaning: 'It's called patriarchy.' It's not just in policy or party leadership where you see the shift. In 2022, fewer than 30 percent of Republican men believed the proposition that 'women should return to their traditional roles in society,' according to the Views of the Electorate Research Survey assessed by a group of political scientists writing for The Times. Two years later, that number was 48 percent. Republican women underwent a similar surge — from 23 percent in 2022 to 37 percent in 2024. And over the past few years, Democrats, too, have been trending in the wrong direction, though those shifts have been smaller. Today, the political scientists note, 79 percent of Republican men and 67 percent of Republican women say they believe American society has gotten too 'soft and feminine,' with 43 percent of the country overall agreeing. (In 2023, the number got as high as 48 percent.) According to Pew, the share of Republicans who say American society has gotten too accepting of men taking on traditionally female roles — like nurses, presumably, or schoolteachers — has grown by 40 percent since 2017. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Fox News
22-05-2025
- Politics
- Fox News
Trump critic admits the president put together a better working-class coalition than any Democrat
MSNBC analyst John Heilemann, an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump, admitted the president has put together a working-class coalition that should make the Democratic Party jealous. During a panel discussion on MSNBC's "Morning Joe" on Wednesday, panelists talked about how the Democratic Party has failed to truly reckon with why Trump has consistently won over so much of the working-class even 6 months into his second term in office. "Certainly Democrats have struggled to handle Donald Trump, but they've even been worse at sort of identifying themselves and pitching a message going forward. A few exceptions. We know we see the crowds that Bernie Sanders and AOC have drawn, but as you speak to members of the party, you know, what are they saying here?" Morning Joe co-host Jonathan Lemire asked Heilemann. "Because some of the Democrats I've talked to are frustrated that - Even though they're still doing it, there's a party right now is still consumed with the past and not looking for the future and a new message." "It is true and also not true that Democrats - and when I say Democrats here, I don't mean the party, but liberals, the left, the left of center, whatever - aren't part of the cultural conversation," Heilemann suggested. While he said there are multiple major conversations occurring in the country, Heilemann offered one key reason why so many Americans feel alienated by "mainstream" culture. "One of the reasons why the cultural conversation on the right has gotten so much traction is because of the fact that the left, the Democrats, whatever you want to call them, has been seen as dominating the mainstream cultural conversation for so long. Who controls Hollywood? Who controls the media? You'd have to be kind of nuts to think that the mainstream media and the mainstream entertainment establishment in America isn't largely left of center." The Democratic Party, he said, is now having to reckon with how it alienated so many of the very same working-class voters that propelled Trump's victory once again in 2024. "Right now, somehow the Democratic Party finds itself in a place where it is no longer the home of working Americans, largely," he said. "And if Bobby Kennedy, the coalition that Bobby Kennedy was trying to put together in 1968 before he was killed, that coalition of working-class Whites, working-class Latinos, working-class African-Americans, that coalition has been put together more effectively by Donald Trump than by anybody in the Democratic Party. That's a huge problem." Heilemann reiterated his point that "Bobby Kennedy's coalition is being put together by Donald Trump more than by any of our leaders," and asked, "How do we fix that problem? What does the Democratic Party have to do to become what it, in many respects, what it was at its most effective over the course of the last 40, 50 years?" Heilemann argued that where such conversation occurs, it is only happening at "the most performative level." "You hear Democrats all across the spectrum saying, 'We need to change, we need root and branch reform. We need to moderate. We don't need litmus tests anymore.' We have Elissa Slotkin, who I really like and respect, but who is out there saying, 'Well, we can't be woke and weak anymore.' No one is talking about what that actually means."
