Tuesday Open Thread [8.11.15]

Tuesday Open Thread [8.11.15]

4 Comments
Joan Walsh on the innate sexism of conservatives.
So many in the media are shocked at the rise of Trump and the piggishness he represents. I can’t understand why. From the dawn of the Obama administration some of us have experienced the surge of racism and misogyny personally. Within days of Obama’s inauguration, I had former House Majority Leader Dick Armey tell me on “Hardball,” after I’d criticized Rush Limbaugh, “I’m so damn glad you can never be my wife, because I surely wouldn’t have to listen to that prattle from you every day.” A lot of folks on the left were outraged; on the right, they laughed and cheered Armey. One of those who laughed was Fox News Sunday host Chris Wallace, a debate moderator along with Kelly Thursday night. On conservative Mike Gallagher’s radio show, Wallace said he found feminist anger over Armey’s insult “pretty funny.”
Walsh cites other examples, such as personally being the recipient of misogynistic swipes from GOP and conservative stalwarts such as Gordon Liddy and John Kasich. My mother was a diehard Hillary supporter in 2008, while I was a diehard Obama supporter, and she said to me that Hillary's loss proved that sexism was more prevalent than racism in our society. I disagreed with him, at least to the point that it explained while more liberal Democratic voters chose Obama over Clinton. But we can now see that those who are racist against blacks, bigoted against gays, are also sexist against women. And most of those voters make up the GOP base. This reality has always been true, but the media refuse to acknowledge. And now they are being forced to by Donald Trump's unexplained resilience in the polls after his racism and sexism was exposed. Jeb Bush says that Donald Trump is a threat to the GOP Brand. That is not true. Exposing the truth about the GOP voter is a threat to the GOP Brand.