W hen FOX heard about a college which had offered kittens to cuddle to stressed out freshman, FOX ran with it.
Who knows what the real story is? Did a real college actually do this? Or did FOX simply invent it because it is so perfect for the FOX narrative?
Mad Dog was intrigued to watch the FOX ladies, on their white leather couches, crossing their legs conspicuously and inveighing against these colleges where elite, effete liberals try to raise and groom snowflakes.
Kayleigh McEnany asserted that when she was in college, all she needed was a cup of coffee and a library. Another panelist said all those kids needed was a slap in the face.
How very FOX.
Of course, Mad Dog has been appalled by the very notion of "safe spaces" in colleges. Colleges are not supposed to be comfortable or safe, in the sense of this is where you get your ideas challenged and must learn to defend them. College is about conflict and learning to resolve conflicts. So Mad Dog had some sympathy for the cant, even if he doubted the veracity of the actual kitten story.
But this whole episode is so characteristic of what FOX and MAGA sells: We are the tough guys, the realists. Democrats are soft, unworthy of leadership.
Watching political ads on TV, Mad Dog hits mute and tries to guess if it's a Republican ad or a Democratic ad.
If there is a person holding a huge gun, showing some arm tattoos: it's Republican.
If there is a soft focus of a woman, or especially if she is cradling a baby or hugging children: that's a Democratic ad.
Republicans are the party of warriors, manly men, violence, shoot 'em up and you don't need no friggin' education to understand what they stand for.
Women like these manly men; these men make them feel safe. And they know they can control boy/men like this, because often those are their boyfriends and husbands. Big backs, small brains.
Pete Buttigieg, Eric Swalwell, Adam Schiff, Corey Booker--none of these guys is threatening. They are all soft, speak in complicated sentences and appeal to the warm, soft side of women. There are no hard edges among Democratic males, except for John Fetterman, and he's so hard edged he refused to take coumadin despite having been warned his atrial fibrillation could cause a stroke.
In fact, this is why Obama scared the beejesus out of the Republicans: He was just so lean, hard, fit and Black! Could not accuse Obama of being soft and, in fact a little soft in a Black man is ok, because it runs against the grain.
In fact, Democrats eliminate manly men from consideration. They discourage the bold and insist on the meek. They begin their introductions with, "Hi, I'm Sally, she/her."
(But that's another story: How Democrats charged headlong into the transgender trap laid by Republicans.)
When Chris Pappas ran among 10 other candidates for the open US House seat there was another candidate, Terrence O'Rourke, who stood out among all the others. O'Rourke is a lawyer for the town of Rochester, a tough, blue collar place. He had won a Bronze Star in Iraq as an officer. (Unlike Ron DeSantis who struts around in his camouflage fatigues, but who was a military lawyer and never had a shot fired in anger at him, O'Rourke took fire and returned it.) But local women Democrats recoiled from O'Rourke. "He just seems too angry!" Several of my Democratic women colleagues told me.
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| Terrence O'Rourke |
"But we NEED angry," I told them
Made no difference. Democratic women aren't looking for a warrior, they are looking to cuddle kittens.
So the house cat, Chris Pappas got elected.
Now, we're hearing, "He's not tough enough."
So, we'll have Kevin McCarthy as Speaker, Mitch McConnell back as Senate leader, Jim Jordan running Congressional witch hunts for Dr. Fauci and Hillary and Ms. Boebert, Marjorie Taylor Greene and Matt Gaetz flouncing around posing with big guns on Twitter for the next two years.
The Supreme Court will kill affirmative action, and that may not be all bad. There will be a national abortion ban, but the pro choice people, who all the pollsters have told us for eons are in the majority will simply have to deal with it, as Mr. Bolduc has suggested. Abortion may be embraced by 60% of Americans, but it isn't nearly as important to them as gas prices, inflation, talk of crime and the "border crisis" and having trans people playing on girls' high school teams.
The big question is whether that will be enough exposure to undermine the resurgence of Trump in 2024. If the Republicans get enough sunlight, they may get disinfected. But Hitler, after whom Mr. Trump fashions himself, made good use of his time in jail after his attempt at a coup failed, and we'll see how closely Mr. Trump can make US history imitate German history.
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