The weekly Daily Kos/Research 2000 poll is out and it continues a disturbing trend. While the poll shows Obama with strong favorability numbers, the Democratic Party as much less unpopular than the Republican Party, and Reid and (especially) Pelosi as much less unpopular than their counterparts, the Dems still only have a one point lead on the generic ballot question and are lagging 75%-52% on likelihood to vote.
This is a dynamic that needs to be examined. I am particularly intrigued by this:
That’s a tremendous gender gap and I’m not sure what explains it. But someone needs to figure it out because 28% is too low.
I’m going to go out on a limb here, and assign that 12% difference to the “punk factor”. While both men and women have grounds to be irritated with the Dems, perhaps men are more likely to be incensed with their general fecklessness, weakness and helplessness. We disdain punks.
I’m not betting the mortgage on that little bit of analysis, but something is different.
Darkmoth:
Do you mean this:
http://www.theatlantic.com/doc/201003/jobless-america-future
Is the reason why? It’s what I think. I’d love to hear Boo’s reaction to this piece.
assigning the difference to male reactions to weakness, versus female reactions to weakness.
Jobs are certainly one area in which Dems have underperformed, but I don’t see how that would affect the disparity in the male/female numbers.
I didn’t read it all, but I agree that persistent underemployment is damaging to the psyche, hurts long-term prospects and earnings, and generally makes people angry, selfish, and politically reactionary. People wonder how people as ‘civilized’ as the Germans could turn on their own and their neighbors with such viciousness. That’s what hyperinflation and unemployment can do to people. We have plenty to worry about.
but wouldn’t those effects reach men and women fairly equally?
Actually, no. I can’t remember where I was reading the data a couple of days ago but… Men have a disproportionate share of current unemployment. I vaguely recall it being something outrageous like 2-to-1. I pondered the meaning of this disparity and considered that in the course of cost-cutting employers will tend to lay off those who earn higher wages and/or incur higher insurance costs. Women tend to earn less than men doing the same job and are more likely to have part-time employment that doesn’t include benefits. They get to keep their jobs while men — especially older men — lose theirs.
It painted a picture in my mind of Mama becoming the “breadwinner” while Daddy stews at home, logging onto “Patriot” websites.
I also think men (who do the majority of the firing) have a harder time firing women than men.
eh?
Ah-HA-ha-ha. No.
Hubby’s supervisor (a man) cried real tears when he laid him off. Hubby was in shock and didn’t cry until he got home.
There is nothing easy about being the middle manager who gets to tell someone their life is being destroyed. In some cases, it might be a little easier to fire a woman if the manager knows her husband has a good, solid job.
would certainly make that male/female difference seem logical. Unemployed people would likely be more critical, and if subgroup X is more less employed, they might be more critical.
it sounds like kevin drum’s latest essay at mother jones, Men Without Work.
another interesting take on the overall negative phenomenon is in todays guardian, Back to apathy, via hope and change by sasha abramsky, also a regular contributor to MJ
l don’t think it’s any one particular issue, but a growing dissatisfaction with a governmental structure that cannot, or will not, reflect the will of the people. it bodes ill for the future, whatever the underlying causes.
Thank you. It was Kevin Drum who informed my impression.
And I share your ill boding.
Even if men and women lose jobs at the same rate, the fact of being unemployed will wound a man psychologically far more than it will a woman.
A woman without a job worries about how she’s going to pay the rent. A man without a job feels completely and utterly worthless. That’s when guys start drinking too much, beating their wives/girlfriends, and spiral downward.
In the realm of generalities, this is probably true. A job tends to be something a woman does while for a man it can be what he is.
this particular male also sucks at reading comprehension, because that should be 52% vs 28%, not 40% vs 28%
I think that’s insightful. At the risk of being stoned for “stereotyping”, those who live in the real world will have noticed that men tend to have shorter fuses than women, and have been acculturated to disdain shows of sympathy for the indecisive, scattered, and dithering. Women tend more toward tolerating, or even admiring, such behavior.
In our household, one of our more unfortunate “together” times is watching Desperate Housewives. There’s a character called Susan who invariably screws everything up on account of chronic helplessness, stupid assumptions, and endless seeking of “love” and “support”. I absolutely can’t stand her and with each airplane crash, earthquake or other soap opera disaster hope she’s been taken out.
The home female contingent can’t understand what I have against her, she’s so sweet and well-meaning.
Sad to say, but I just convinced myself that Housewives might be the exact metaphor for the Democratic party.
The answer is obvious. Women are more mature. 😉
This is odd. If anything, women should be most pissed off for being thrown under the bus with the health care bills.
its two things really: The Reaganism/Neoliberal consensus, which Obama has refused to really challenge, hit working class males the hardest since loss of union and manufacturing jobs really throws the collective male psyche into a weird place.
Second, to the extent lots of voters essentially follow politics the same way they follow their favority reality tv show or sports team, the dems are cast as the wimpy loser characters that nobody likes and wants to vote off the island. we consistently get punched in the face by the GOP and then say we’re sorry.
Prescription to get them back: fight back against the GOP bullies and invest in green infrastructure to get back jobs. Not super complicated, actually.
.
(ABC News/AP) – Senate Democrats scrapped a bipartisan jobs bill in favor of one they say is leaner and focused solely on putting Americans back to work, and they’re all but daring Republicans to vote against it.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.".
(MarketWatch) July 2, 2009 – Two male-dominated industries — construction (87%) and manufacturing (71%) — account for about half of the some 6 million jobs lost since the recession started in December 2007. It’s not surprising that men’s unemployment rate is rocketing past women’s rate.
The only two private-sector industries to show a net increase in jobs from the start of the recession through May 2009 are health care and education — and women workers are highly concentrated in both.
Age- and race-based differences
The differences in unemployment rates are even more dramatic when broken down by race and age. For example, white men’s unemployment rate in May was 9.7%, while black men’s was 18%. For white women it was 7.3%, and for black women, 12.2%, according to the U.S. Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."I don’t know. I also do think there’s a difference. A know a lot of women who are really up on the political situation, and very few men (offline) who are.
I also think the blogosphere disproportionately represents men because all these politically savvy women are also either too busy with activism, too technologically unsavvy, or too shy to post online. And many of them are busy raising children, so no time for this. But they read, they pay attention, and they ‘get’ what’s going on. Most of the men in my offline line don’t know or care – they’re too busy with their work and tracking sports teams to follow politics.
The overall trends don’t seem that mysterious. The perception is that the congressional Dems have had the bases loaded on balls all nine innings and then proceeded to strike out every single time. Now we’re in extra innings and some Dems are finally suggesting that maybe being conned into using chopsticks for bats by the other side might not have been such a good idea, and maybe some day we should negotiate for ski poles.
So far people are apparently not blaming Obama for the big fail. Maybe some are backing the “bipartisanship” ideal. On the bright side, I do think the Dems are set up to reap the rewards of their show of trying to “bring the nation together”. Now all they have to do is drive home the message that they did their best to be inclusive, the other side decided to just stand in the doorway, and now it’s time to get stuff done that needs to be done for the American people, come hell or high water. We’re seeing hints that they’re ready to make that happen — some of them, anyway. If they stand up and do it their way, they will be on track to win a huge and permanent bounce in the polls.
To my mind, the central mistake in this whole episode has been the Senate Dems’ failure to bring out the bills they really want and put them to a vote. Instead they’ve dithered endlessly in committees and negotiations and “courting bipartisan support”. As a result there’s no clear villain here, at least to the non-political public, so the team with the overwhelming control of everything gets the blame. Makes perfect sense, actually. Dems will get their mojo back if they are finally seen to stand up and fight for what is right on the big issues including healthcare, jobs, and corporate royalism. If they don’t, well, the bright side is that they may just take the whole system down with them.
Just guessing – not enough chest thumping.
Bipartisanship and playing nice can seem a bit of an effete luxury if you are put out of a job/house and can’t pay the bills. Many confuse leadership with a confrontational style, but the bottom line is that if Obama doesn’t achieve the promises he was elected on by negotiation he has to prove he is willing to go the confrontational route. Even if he fails he will have shown that he tried and provide a rationale for electing more dems next time around. Why elect dems if all they do is run around looking for a Republican to compromise with?