Women doing what women do so well.
Using social pressure to bring down their opponent.
It worked before - when Nixon was brought to the point of resigning, it was largely due to unrelenting pressure brought upon him by men giving in to pressure by women:
- Katherine Graham's Washington Post
- Barbara Jordan
- Judy Hoback (now Miller) - the bookkeeper who talked to Bernstein and Woodward about the Committee's finances
- Debbie Sloan, who pressured her husband, Hugh, the committee's treasurer, to talk to the reporting pair
- Martha Mitchell, the alcoholic wife of the US Attorney General and campaign manager, who was always available for gossip - true or not
In fact, it could be reasonably argued that Republican women were largely responsible for Nixon's 1974 election in the first place. These were traditional women, not feminists. At that time (late 1960's to early 1970's), many women opposed feminism for its goals that promoted single women over married, career women over housewives, and were shredding governmental protections of their financial stability.
In Congress, the first women flooding into the House and Senate immediately started 'support organizations' that leaned - HEAVILY - Left. As you can see from the list in this link, although Republican women were well represented in the early days after women's suffrage, by the mid-1960's, most of the women in Congress were hard-core Democrats, and what I would call East Coast "Nice Republican Ladies" who also favored birth control and abortion. An example of that type was Millicent Fenwick, whose type was featured in Doonesbury's comic as Lacey Davenport.
For such women, Nixon was simply that 'terribly middle-class' person who occupied the White House. They had no loyalty to him, and were callous about their part in bringing him down by their 'dignified' failure to support him in crisis.
An argument could be made that Nixon's having had daughters, rather than sons, made him uniquely vulnerable to pressure of the kind that women specialize in. He was surrounded by women who just wanted to stop the pushback they were receiving from their friends.
That was then. Trump is now, and he is NOT going to gracefully give in to pressure. He is pushing back, not only on counter-smears (which work, as they are based on truth), but also on aggressively moving forward on his plans for the nation - economic, international, and anti-bureaucratic.
Rush Limbaugh points out that the Democratic plan, at this point, is to use Republicans to muscle the President to give up and gracefully resign. They are operating under an old playbook, that tells them the GOP will give up a lot - EVERYTHING - to keep from being associated with distasteful, crude people and actions.
Not now. Even the normally quiet-spoken and meek Lindsey Graham has come out swinging. Don't be fooled by his opposition to Trump on the Mideast. Graham is principled, but fair. He WILL support the President.
And, in other news, the Tired Old Battleaxe is gunning for another competitor she might wound and destroy with proxy attacks.
But, Tulsi isn't having any of it - she's calling the Hill OUT!
From now on, when I reference something on social media, I'm going to take a screenshot, as well as add a link - too many inconvenient posts are disappearing.
Speaking of disappearing, and referring to my comment moments ago on your piece with that guy on Conan, I remember in 1999 when people were worrying about Y2K* going to some gun shows and seeing all the survival manuals... on DVD.
ReplyDeleteROFL! How are you going to read these if your electricity is off???
Which reminds me, this week I need to start printing off all the prepper stuff and organizing them into a binder.
Anyway, modern electronic communications and posts and such are now fulfilling Orwell's Ministry of Truth where reality gets edited and rewritten to ensure The Party is always right, and was always right, even if said reality contradicts what The Party said last year. Which is why I need a good youtube downloader; there are lots of instances of the Palestinians letting truth out accidentally about Gaza, etc., that are caught... but vanish after they realize they're being used against them. (One notable one was a kids' birthday party at a posh Gazan restaurant that gave lie to the whole "concentration camp Gaza" meme.)
Forgot the *.
ReplyDeleteLots of people have commented on what a bust Y2K was. That's because, IMHO, people poured huge sums into heading it off.
For example, at the factory where I worked, we did a test: we set the clocks to see what would happen at Y2K rollover. No, we didn't expect robots to uproot themselves and go rampaging through the facilities but... what did happen is that they petulantly shut down.
The company I was at, and countless others, spend megabucks to fix things ahead of time.
Imagine if that had happened to the electric grid worldwide.
"An argument could be made that Nixon's having had daughters, rather than sons, made him uniquely vulnerable to pressure of the kind that women specialize in. He was surrounded by women who just wanted to stop the pushback they were receiving from their friends."
ReplyDeleteVery poignant. An observation, Trump's last Supreme Court pick, Justice Kavanaugh, is surrounded by women. He has his wife, two daughters (but no sons), and his mother is/was a judge herself if I recall. So all the continued vilification that continues AFTER he has been seated, is really aimed at his family to moderate him. So he doesn't cast a potentially decisive vote to curtail abortion.
Ryan, I hadn't thought of Kavanaugh, but you're completely right. Perhaps one of the things Trump should look for in nominees is at least ONE son.
ReplyDelete