“We are losing the white male vote in droves,” said former Democratic New Mexico governor Bill Richardson. And the issue is — wait for it — “economic inequality.”
How does this Bill, a hopeful Latino presidential candidate from 2008, wish to woo them back? Charging women a higher discrimination tax? Is it because white women went from 59 to 78 cents in three generations, and he thinks that’s moving too fast? Or is it because the SLAMs (straight, liberal, Anglo men) are starting to identify only with the SCAMs (straight, conservative, Anglo men)?
Since they are just 5 percent* of the American population, why should any politician coddle them? To be sure, 5 percent is not 1 percent, but really. (Five percent is the figure given to represent those who the police regularly, repeatedly serve when they’re fighting crime.)
And in identifying with SCAMs, are the SLAMs also going to become more obsessed with our bodies? Is this really only about money? Or is there a cultural fear permeating here?
I mean, another recent New York Times headline was about how women and their daughters can start sharing uteruses with temporary transplants, so that more women can give birth. Now isn’t that cool? Rent a uterus. What does Hobby Lobby mean for this reproductive transplant, particularly if it’s temporary?
Being temporary also means it facilitates women having their own biological children, and keeping this part of the process “in the family.” At the very least this should please Jeb!, who eschews that state, particularly when it comes to the family.
This Bush argues for “parental consent over government intrusions into families.” He knows about being neotribal, making sure who in each family retains supremacy and remains “chief.”
Talk about neotribal, and women, girls, boys, and the 95 percenters fear. What if “family first” puts them in danger? No, safety first, family second, or so I say.
Listen to this anti-LGBTQ rhetoric (warning: not for PG ears!)
Maybe these white Democratic men should start beating on drums again to gain a bit of perspective, if not consciousness. Male consciousness-raising might help them out of this self-esteem progressive pity party, so that they don’t have to increase my discrimination tax to make themselves feel better.
Maybe SLAMs and SCAMs should spend more time in male-dominated China — domination defined here in sheer population numbers, though the nation finally loosened its one-child policy (read one-boy policy). Hillary Clinton’s “it takes a village” leadership clearly scares the former heads of the village, particularly since this village contains a rainbow umbrella that Obama, after all, built.
* Italian men are part of the 95 percent, being in a protected class in some locales, such as New York City.
Ruth Frick O'Brien 