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Are Republicans shamelessly sexually-humiliating their opponents enough to win this election?
I’ve long held the belief that the opposite of slut-shaming is incel-shaming. A woman's reputation is damaged if she sleeps around, but a man's reputation is damaged if he is deemed a weird incel who can’t get laid. Recently, the Democrats launched a “weird incel" attacking strategy against JD Vance. Tim Walz alluded to a fabricated story about JD Vance fucking a couch in his first speech as VP. This is wholly fabricated: the origin is a twitter user who made up a paragraph from Vance's book, something easily checked. But the meme was astroturfed regardless, and Walz shamelessly referenced it in his first speech. Last night, 5 of the top 10 default posts on Reddit’s /r/All were references to Waltz’s remark.
The strategy is in line with the Democrat push to label Trump “weird”. But it actually seems to cross a line. It is bullying in an especially purified form. It’s the sort of thing you would hear in a middle school, where a bully ostracizes a student by making up a story wholecloth and having his friends repeat it. The bully knows the accusation is false, but the point is to say it confidently and shamelessly where others can hear it and join the ostracizion to protect their reputation. There’s talk about Trump being a “bully”, but nothing he has said has come close to the shameless slander against Vance. Calling Hillary “crooked” is par for the course of political messaging and doesn’t actually impact her reputation. Making fun of McCain for being captured as a PoW also doesn’t really affect McCain’s reputation, and if anything harms Trump’s. Trump usually exaggerates something true, but the attack against Vance is wholly false in origin.
I checked in on the incels over at 4chan to see what were saying about this. And I actually found an insightful analysis:
It can also be noted that the attack against Vance has an element of sexual harassment. What would our “cultural elites” (D) say if Republicans went all-in on a story about Kamala Harris violating the intern’s Oval Office laundry machine? Or that she used a priceless piece of White House memorabilia as a dildo without cleaning it off after? This would just be shameless sexual harassment, right? But so is the official DNC strategy against Vance. It’s harassment for the purpose of humiliating someone sexually to change voter perception via shame response.
Yes.
I continue to favor Trump in the election at this point, because I believe that things will keep happening, and that there are many things that can harm Harris and few things that can harm Trump. Any economic downturn, any personal scandal, any international crimes by armies equipped by the Biden Administration. [Oh look, Netanyahu just bombed a hospital and even Reuters is inching towards the active voice. Oh look, Ukraine just invaded Russian territory, hope they behave themselves (and Putin isn't ballsy enough to pretend that they didn't even if they do). And stocks closed down again. A lot of people, myself included, emotionally thought the race was over after the shooting. Now people suddenly think Kamala is inevitable. I maintain the opinion that Kamala is shithousing, playing dirty for a draw. She's trying to win one news cycle at a time, keep her base invested in the process, and at least keep the national popular vote and the House in the D column. She's not trying to forward an overall plan, or make advances on policy, because that's not her goal. As long as Trump doesn't somehow manage to implode, he's still got this.
Reading the replies, I'm realizing anew that so much of the online right consists of right wingers stranded in left wing professions and social circles. To wit: I see tons of content sexually shaming Kamala, from online to T shirts and signs walking around to bumper stickers in traffic. The attacks have been constant, including the sexual shaming of men who would vote for Kamala or of Walz for working with her, all previously discussed on this forum. I've encountered way more "Kamala is a whore" memes than I have "JD Vance fucked a couch" memes in real life. They haven't carried much weight outside of a slur for people who already hate her, because despite the obvious advantage of actually happening, they haven't been that effectively spread outside of existing right wing spaces because they aren't all that interesting, but they're all over the place.
The couch jokes have spread so effectively precisely because they are so low stakes. Virtually every guy has a weird masturbation story, and they're a staple of the "coming of age memoir" genre, from Tim Allen to Angela's Ashes to Lena Dunham to David Sedaris. Interrogated Socratically, nobody would really say it mattered. It's not that damaging, the couch jokes are just an expression of dislike in a generalized sort of way. The only way the story can become serious is if Vance replies in a self-serious way. Here Vance replies to a question about what makes him happy by venting his rage about being asked stupid questions. I continue to rate Vance higher than the crowd, but if he fumbles the couch question similarly, it will be ten times as effective as it is now. The worst thing you can do is show that they're getting under your skin.
The "Weird" attack is similarly effective because of the responses produced. The bizarre disconnect between the political elites and the average voter is one of those ongoing crises, like illegal immigration or gun crime, that can have attention drawn to them by the media at any time and made into a Big Deal. Your average American doesn't have well thought out consistent philosophical opinions, and the simple fact of having them on a large range of topics makes one weird. The attack can equally be turned on lefties, with similar results. Righties on Twitter have replied to accusations of weirdness by: calling it "feminine behavior," going off about trans people, talking about how they watch a lot of police bodycam footage and actually that's a new usage of "weird" among black youths, this is exactly how all the popular kids bullied me in school. In other words, in weird ways. Please, I'm begging everyone here, don't respond to this idea outside of the motte by talking about how masculine sexuality is shamed. It's not a good look.
The only Republican that can effectively respond is Usha Vance, joking in an interview that "I might be the first political wife to have to sit her husband down and ask him, 'did you really make love to a couch?' Because I don't want to end up like Hillary Clinton, or Huma Abedin, or John Edwards' wife, where I'm denying it and then it turns out to be true!"
I'm not as convinced as you about Trump's chances, but I needed to read something positive today and your post definitely hits the spot. Thanks!
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