I’m really and truly searching for good ethics topics that haven’t been raised by politics, and its hard right now. This entry in the Ethics Alarms Hollywood clip archive is appropriate…
This time, I was pulled back in by an alleged news analysis story in the New York Times. If it had been an op-ed column, then its thrust would have been slightly more excusable. This was supposedly fact analysis, not opinion, and the article could do nothing but make its readers dumber and more resistant to harsh truths. The piece was headlined, “Will the U.S. Ever Be Ready for a Female President?”[Gift link!]
Morons. The question itself is dunderheaded and insulting in a vacuum, but as analysis of Kamala Harris’s well-deserved defeat, it is a throbbing neon example of “my mind’s made up, don’t confuse me with facts” as well as how rationalizations are lies that we tell ourselves when we want to be deluded. Of course the U.S. will be ready for a female President, as soon as one of the parties nominates a woman who is a strong candidate and who doesn’t run a terrible campaign. Imagine writing this garbage without giggling…
While few will say so aloud, some Democrats are already quietly hoping their party doesn’t nominate a woman in 2028, fearing she could not overcome an enduring hold of sexism on the American electorate. Many others anticipate another — perhaps even more aggressive — round of questions and doubts about female presidential candidates that have plagued the party for the better part of two decades..
“People feel pretty stung by what happened,” said Liz Shuler, the first woman elected to lead the A.F.L.-C.I.O., the largest federation of unions in the country, who supported Ms. Harris and believes she made no significant missteps in the race….
Anyone who believes Harris “made no significant missteps in the race”is an idiot, lying, or in denial. Why is the Times citing such an individual as an authority? Harris made too many “missteps”—let’s be honest and call them epic blunders—to list, and I’m personally sick of listing them. Later we get…
As they process the second defeat of a female nominee, Democrats are divided over the question of how much Ms. Harris’s gender actually contributed to her loss, making it hard to divine what exactly that could mean for their party in 2028….after her defeat, few Democrats dispute that sexism was a factor in a race against a man who had been found liable for sexual abuse — a verdict Mr. Trump called a “disgrace” — and has long made hyper-masculinity part of his political brand.
If “few Democrats” really think that, then the party is doomed. Sure, voters are moved by all sorts of biases that are, at their core irrational when choosing leaders. The partisan bias itself is often irrational, but strong. Some black voters don’t want to vote for whites, and some whites prefer a white candidate over one “of color.” Some women are biased against men, and vice-versa. There is a general bias toward tall candidates over short ones, good speakers over poor ones, likeable people over serious and remote ones. My mother’s family voted for Nixon in 1968 and 1972 for no other reason than the fact that Spiro Agnew, Nixon’s VP, was Greek. When it comes to leaders, we also want to see proof of mythic American values like courage and defiance. If Harris had been the candidate winged by an attempted assassin’s bullet and then stood up to say, “Fight, fight fight!,” do you think it would have changed the vote? I am certain that such an event would have elected Harris, notwithstanding the rest of her terrible campaign.
Somehow, the Times reporters manage to twist this fact—“Harris won the lowest level of support from female voters of any Democratic nominee since 2004, according to an analysis by the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University” into an assertion that the “results indicate that, yet again, voters were not particularly motivated by a desire for greater female representation.”
No, they indicate that many female voters are not going to vote blindly for a woman to be President just because they are so fond of abortion that the apparent competence and capability of the woman running doesn’t matter to them.
Focusing on presumed gender bias to explain Harris’s loss is destructive denial. It will prevent the Democrats from accepting and dealing with their party’s deep problems and its lack of responsible leadership. If the party wants to elect a female President, the solution is to find better women to run, not to blame gender bias for voters making responsible choices based on experience, ability and policies rather than group identification.
This self-destructive attitude from many on the Left reminds me of an experience that I have related here before, but it bears repeating. I was directing a production of “H.M.S. Pinafore” at Georgetown Law Center, and had finally cast the show. The callbacks were unusually competitive, especially for the lead tenor role of Ralph Rackstraw, the operetta’s romantic hero. I had called back four students who seemed possibly capable of playing the role, and one of them, as is often the case, made it clear that he was the best of the lot. Two of the bested students accepted lesser roles in the production, but the fourth, who was black, rejected my offer. When I asked him why, he told me, “I don’t think racial discrimination should be a factor in casting.”
I did not react well to that reply. I told him, accurately, that he had finished fourth in a field of four because the other three students, all white, were not just better singers, but much better singers. If he were not so determined to avoid the correct conclusions he should have taken from the experience, it would have been obvious to him, since it was obvious to everyone who witnessed the auditions. I told him that if he was going to default to racial prejudice as an explanation for all of his failures, rejections and defeats in life, he was not only condemned to regarding himself as a perpetual victim, he would never make the necessary effort to improve his skills and abilities.
The student was 22-years-old. He was young; there was plenty of time for him to understand the fallacy of his reasoning. The Democratic Party and their enablers in the news media have no such excuse. The reason the party hasn’t been successful running female candidates is that they need to find better female candidates.
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Coda: In an article mentioning that awful and justly defeated Democratic candidate, the Victory Girls blog asserted, “Never has so much been handed to one person who didn’t deserve it.” I’m trying to think of competition for that distinction, and so far, I haven’t been able to think of anyone. Ann Richards memorably said of George H.W. Bush that he had been “born on third base and thought he had hit a triple.” Compared to Harris, Bush I was Ichiro Suzuki (soon to be a unanimous selection to baseball’s Hall of Fame) Any suggestions?
Ethics Alarms 
Finding others to blame is the mantra of the Democrat party. It stands to reason that it must be external factors beyond their control that causes their failures. Every single demographic group finds itself oppressed by white men. A similar ideology is prevalent in low information Republican voters who believe every time they get bested by a minority it is because of affirmative action. It is so easy to blame others when a gaze in the mirror will reflect a harsh reality.
It really depends on how far back in history you are willing to go. I could name you at least 10 monarchs who were handed a whole lot they didn’t deserve for no reason other than accident of birth without even putting on my thinking cap:
If I put on my thinking cap, I could probably triple that list. The fact is that when you hand someone power based on something other than merit, you throw the dice and risk ending up with someone who’s either useless or a puppet for the unscrupulous.
Swinging back to American history, it’s true that most Vice Presidents who have followed the Presidents they served under into the White House have ended up being one-termers, however they got there. At least four that I can think of, three of whom were chosen successors: Adams, van Buren, Johnson, and Bush the elder, all had impossible acts to follow. That said, at least three who had to pick up the fallen banner: Teddy Roosevelt, Harry Truman, and LBJ, proved to be just as consequential as the men they followed. Thomas Jefferson is in a class all his own, since he was elected Vice President under the original rule that the runner-up in the presidential election would become VP, and reluctantly served as VP under John Adams, who he was the opposite of in most ways.
Ann Richards was not some kind of great natural talent who came out of poverty and obscurity like Lincoln. She was a teacher from a relatively middle-class background who campaigned for liberals until she got her shot at statewide office, then gained wider attention with her loud mouth at the 1988 Democratic Convention attacking Bush the elder for being “born with a silver foot in his mouth.” Well, Bush went on to swallow Michael Dukakis whole and spit out his shoes. She became governor by holding back against a nasty campaign in the primaries by Jim Mattox and a gaffe-filled campaign in the general election by Clayton Williams. As governor she really wasn’t any great shakes and actually signed a law that criminalized homosexual conduct. Having apparently learned nothing, she attacked Bush the younger as “some jerk” “shrub” and “that young Bush boy” and was booted from office in 1994 after one term. She continued to basically suck wind until her smoking like a chimney and drinking like a fish gave her esophageal cancer which sent her down for the dirt nap in 2006. Her opinion on the last WWII vet to serve as president, who was also the youngest pilot in the United States Navy, who served as ambassador to China and Director of the CIA as well as Vice President, poles above anything she ever accomplished, means absolutely nothing.
Harris had a more accomplished resume than Ann Richards, but the fact is it was tainted because she bought her initial access with sexual favors and had greater chance of being elected as a leftist woman of color in the far-left state of California. She wasn’t, however, any more accomplished than any other candidate for Vice President, and everyone could see she was a failure in that office who had to be hidden and silenced. There is no way she would ever have been chosen as the candidate if Biden had kept his promise not to run for a second term. There are at least a dozen Democratic governors and Senators who would have been better choices and had a better shot at preventing a Trump comeback. However, he and the powers that be in the DNC decided that race and gender were paramount over merit. The rest is history.
Unfortunately, the Democratic Party doesn’t seem to want to read this recent history or learn from it. Like the Bolsheviks and the academic community that gave us Howard Zinn and Noam Chomsky, they refuse to admit they might have been incorrect and instead blame wrongthink both on the other side and by the ordinary people who just won’t see the light and get with the program. Then again, they are the party that believes in rewriting and tearing down history that they don’t like, so maybe this shouldn’t come as a surprise.
Our first woman President could have been Condoleezza Rice, but she did not want the job.
Our first black President would have been Colin Powell, but he wouldn’t run. Although it would have been a big mistake and she has literally no valid qualifications, Michelle Obama would have won in 2024, simply because she could form a coherent sentence expressing a clear thought.
I’m not sure that Rice could have won in 2008, although I’d vote for her (still!) in a heartbeat. The more I see of her, the more I like.
She has done an excellent job leading the Hoover Institute. And, while it may be disqualifying for Jack and others, she is obviously having a great time being part owner of the Broncos. How many women could be picked for the College Football Playoff committee — without any opposition that I know of.
Hoover did a podcast a few months ago — growing up in Birmingham in the Jim Crow south. It featured Rice and two of her accomplished contemporaries, both a few years older. It was excellent.
I must admit, I was not a Rice fan, though I would have voted for her over Hillary or Harris. She strikes me, and always has, as being a perfect deputy, #2, top aide, but not a leader by nature or temperament. Proof of that is that she clearly doesn’t have the drive to lead (leading a research institution is very different from political leadership.) I believe this is one of the obstacles to a woman becoming President. They are acculturated in our society to achieve through collaborations, behind-the scenes persuasion and manipulation, and other traditional female techniques made necessary over the ages by their forced subordinate roles in society. The women who break that pattern are 1) rare and 2) often overbearing, overly aggressive (that is, in ways that seem unattractive in a woman), or worse, nuts. Society’s leadership model is one based on male character traits. The successful female leaders lead like men, and the women who try to lead like women usually fail. It’s a problem. I think it is solvable, but it’s going to take a while. Who is a successful female leader that a young girl today can emulate with confidence?
Yes, it’s been obvious for some time that Condoleezza had zero interest in politics or at least in being an elected politician. That’s fine — not everyone needs to be and she’s made quite a contribution as it is.
Who is someone who would make a good president? That is not a simple question. There are so many bad examples out there.
I know you won’t agree, but I still like Nikki Haley. She is flawed, but might be as close as we can come right now. At one time I would have said Kristi Noem, but there have been a number of issues there, including but not limited to the dog issue.
What about Kim Reynolds of Iowa? She’s not young — will be 69 in 2028, but she seems to have done good things there.
Or, staying in Iowa, there’s Joni Ernst.
I like Tulsi Gabbard to an extent, but she seems like she might belong in a hypothetical moderate party than either Democrat or Republican.
I just looked her up and saw that a former head of the FBI and CIA named William Webster is objecting to Patel and Gabbard as unqualified. I’m not sure he realizes that from the perspective of anyone who distrusts the existing intelligence apparatus (i.e. anyone sane and not blinded by bias) his objection is a positive indicator.
I’m of the opinion that neither agency should actually exist, and they definitely are NOT trustworthy. The NYT had the gall to try and paint Hoover as a better FBI director than Patel would be. https://instapundit.com/692631/
Sorry, the New Yorker, not the NYT.
Yeah, there’s a lot of folks who believe that what we need is someone not traditionally qualified to run the FBI. A new broom to sweep out all the cobwebs and all the nasty detritus hiding in the corners and under the beds. Maybe then we’ll be ready for a ‘qualified’ director.
I have also seen persuasive arguments that Hoover was the man who politicized the FBI from its very origins, and that it’s returned to its roots after a brief hiatus as a relatively impartial police force.
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I’ve been more of a fan of Gabbard than I am currently. Her enemies commend her to us, but I fear she has moved a lot towards being a one issue politician. No one wants ‘warmongers’ running the country, but when you expand that definition to include almost all of Washington — I think you’ve gone too far.
I’d throw any of the Kennedys into the coda bin of undeservings.
I think there’s a pretty strong strain among feminists who consider themselves to be in a sisterhood that women MUST vote for any woman who runs for any office. But I think lots of women aren’t buying what these feminists are selling. Lots of women have had bad experiences with bad women bosses. And by the way, the signs that Harris is a classically really terrible boss were everywhere over the last four years.
The ideal female candidate would have the same qualifications as the ideal male candidate….integrity, a proven understanding of history and the constitution, relevant experience, an ability to verbally make her case clearly and logically on issues beyond abortion, and avoiding the “vote for me because I am a woman” mantra.
Hillary and Kamala each set the serious desire for a woman President back decades through their failure to project true national leadership qualities. Running just to be “the first” isn’t a winning strategy anymore.
But…but… inclusion! Diversity! Equity!
Hmmm, I guess that rules out qualifications such as merit, competence, transparency,, ,etc. Sigh.
Tulsi Gabbard would have easily won this time around. But she’s the type of moderate the Democrats run off instead of picking to win it all.