Alternate theories

Actually not mutually exclusive, but synergystic. Our friend Chucky, inspired by "Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents" by Isabel Wilkerson, notes that:

"Nobody wants to be the person, or part of the group, that is at the bottom of the pecking order. Trump tells folks that there are creatures at an unbridgeable distance below them who they will always be superior to. They're brown, and other dark skin shades, and their goal is to turn the tables on the white population. Once you buy that message being able to accept his warts just moves you farther into the club. You can't argue with them because he is talking directly to their lizard brain, buried under the one we think defines us."

 

This is reminiscent of Lyndon Johnson's observation: "I'll tell you what's at the bottom of it. If you can convince the lowest white man he's better than the best colored man, he won't notice you're picking his pocket. Hell, give him somebody to look down on, and he'll empty his pockets for you.

 

So yes, but we can still ask why people need people to look down on. Amanda Marcotte in Salon points to the right-wing freakout over Doug Emhoff's daughter Ella, who is a model and fashion designer, and Tim Walz's son Guz, both of whom are white (well, if Jewish counts as white). 

 

Last week, Ann Coulter and other Republican bottom-feeders grossed normal people out by mocking Guz Walz for getting emotional during his dad's speech at the Democratic National Convention (DNC). The insults didn't just prove that the self-appointed protectors of "family values" wouldn't know a loving family if they saw one. It was a reminder that the Trump campaign's strategy continues to be appealing to ugly, bitter people with a message of resentment.  . . .

 

Harris' family has drawn ire, as well. Especially her stepdaughter, 25-year-old model and designer Ella Emhoff, whose creativity, beauty, and easygoing love for her family has sent many on the right into paroxysms of rage. The daughter of Harris' husband, Doug Emhoff, triggers the incel-minded online right by being a Brooklyn hipster who rejects the tiresome conservative rules for how women are allowed to dress or behave. In response, Donald Trump's fanboys are in a total meltdown, unable to accept the existence of a woman who doesn't care what they think of her. And they can't hide that they're furious that she looks great doing so. In the real world, Ella Emhoff, who graduated from Parsons School of Design and has a modeling contract with IMG, is being declared "a fashion icon" for her effortless pairing of high fashion with her quirky tastes. 

Despite his pretensions to speak for the majority, Hanania, a major contributor to Project 2025, is yet another MAGA weirdo. In the past, he's denounced "race-mixing and sneered about the "ugly, secular and barren White self-hating and Jewish" women he believes are betraying their feminine duties to be obedient helpmeets whose only ambition is having lots of children. “Women simply didn’t evolve to be the decision makers in society,” he wrote in one piece, arguing “women’s liberation = the end of human civilization.” His comments echo the much-panned, repeated griping of Trump's running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, that childless women are "miserable cat ladies" and "sociopaths."

 

So yeah, there's racism, but there's also all those pathetic men out there who can't stand the idea of independent, empowered women. Obviously they aren't going to vote for Kamala Harris but I'm hoping there aren't enough of them.