this post was submitted on 14 May 2026
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Most of our fellow Americans are massively misogynistic and its been highlighted twice in the last 10 years by the fact that Trump won the presidential election against women. I'm saying this as a massive fan of AOC. I identify pretty strongly with her open aggression towards backwards thinking.
This is such a bad, and bullshit, take. Half of male candidates lose too. The odds of 2/2 female candidates losing is pretty damn high, and one of those candidates didn't even have 99% of the campaign, and she still wasn't that far off.
Those two candidates were just shit candidates. They were even more shit than the average Democrat candidate. They didn't lose because they were women. They lost because they campaigned on status-quo, neoliberalism, pro-corporate ideas that inspired no one. AOC isn't that. The only thing they have in common is being women, and it's a complete fabrication to say there's any solid evidence those other candidates lost because they're women.
Ah, yes, because Biden had such radical forward thinking progressive views. He was in no way a status-quo, pro-corporate candidate that didn't inspire anyone....
Biden ran on a lot of progressive policy. Childcare, revisiting the public option, family leave, rescheduling cannabis. They were all lies that killed the party's credibility and made the 2024 bid a hard sell even before the genocide, regardless of which democrat was the candidate.
Biden actively pilfered Bernie's platform after winning the primary, so he was a forward thinking progressive compared to Harris and Hillary. Harris in particular explicitly ran to the right of Biden; she wasn't exactly subtle about this. Perhaps more importantly, however, he had COVID on his side. The 2020 election pretty much came down to whether voters prioritized the economy or COVID handling. If COVID didn't exist or happened under Biden's watch Trump would've wiped the floor with him.
Now that people are talking about a progressive woman running, women can't win. Until such time as Harris announces her candidacy for 2028, then we all must get in line to vote for genocide again.
We weren't given a choice in the matter when Harris was running. I wanted a primary but didn't get it. I had the same sentiment when it was rumored Harris would be the nomination. When it was official, I unenthusiastically supported her campaign and put aside my pessimism to avoid another Trump presidency.
And she's not running now so I'll appreciate it if you don't try to pre-emptively lecture me about how I need to vote for genocide again.
I disagree, I think Hillary and Kamala were bad candidates and covering it up with blaming it on misogyny is actively harmful.
Hillary and Kamala were bad candidates. I didn't cover that up because I agree. They were the equivalent of a hangover fart in a sauna far as presidential nominations go, but I disagree that their loss wasn't spurred at least partially by a growing amount of misogyny in society.
"Growing amount of misogyn" compared to what time exactly?
We never lived in a female utopia, but there's an alarming trend of teenagers that are being influenced by the man-o-sphere so 2015 onward.
Ah yes and those teenagers vote in elections right? It's not the boomers who mainly vote?
There's also a not insignificant amount of millennials that are becoming more misogynistic and pessimistic due to the loneliness epidemic coupled with popularized misogyny on social media. Look, if you want to totally ignore the ground swell of underlying issues that got us to where we are, you're more than welcome to. It worked so well when we ignored former Confederate supporters and open racists for a hundred years.
I'm not the one ignoring the reality of the situation, blaming voters for not electing bad candidates and blaming it on misogyny is idiotic and unhelpful.
The reality is the majority of the US has always been misogynistic and those are actively being stoked and amplified by a confluence of factors mostly down to the fact that peoples lives are getting worse /harder and being told x/y is the problem when the true problem is capitalism and its effects/capture of our government.
Compared to when a centrist woman was running. Americans are only conveniently bigots against whichever progressive is running at the time. Sanders in 2016? "75 is too old! No one will vote for him!" Biden in 2020? "How DARE you say that 78 is too old!"
I think it's more along the lines of Hillary and Kamala were just too meh of a candidate to actually get people out to vote. I think AOC even though generally not as big tent as the previous two will still perform really well because of the amount of billing willing to go out and vote for her.
Hilary and Kamala was dogshit candidates.
Hard agree.
Factually incorrect, as evidenced by the fact that Hillary won the popular vote.
The problem isn't running women. It's running women who are unscrupulous and/or shitty at politics.
Beware of ANYONE going around spouting the “we can’t run AOC because WOMEN ALWAYS LOSE! Just look at the LAST TWO TIMES!” bullshit
As if Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris were perfect candidates offering anything more than “imagine how bad Trump would be!”
“The Most Lethal Millitary”
“Nothing will fundamentally change”
“Pokemon Go!-to-the-polls”
I mean come the fuck on.
Centrists are happy to hold back all women in order to stop one woman.
"Pokemon Go to the polls" was just a silly meme. I think voters wanted somebody to the left of Obama, and Hillary felt like a big step back to the '90s.
Dissing Bernie's platform didn't help. One key moment I remember was her saying that Medicare For All was something that would "never, ever happen". Instead of adapting her platform to win over Bernie's voters, she just dismissed it completely as foolish pipe dreams. Just really tone deaf and smug about it.
I honestly hope it happens in my lifetime. Just for the sheer delight of gloating at centrists that the default is no longer "siphon your paltry amassed wealth to billionaires and then die."
Agreed. It's like people think these candidates were above reproach despite the very obvious flaws.
George W Bush once said that if the popular vote mattered he'd campaign in Texas.
No shit it doesn't matter, but it does demonstrate a flaw in LDF's point.
Not really. That's kind of the point of the quote. If the popular vote actually counted it would radically change the way elections are run and campaigned in. There's no telling how that election would change if the popular vote mattered.
That election is pretty interesting for instance because Hillary made massive mistakes in not campaigning in certain swing States. Or at least campaigning enough. Michigan being the main one. Now maybe that means in a universe in which popular votes mattered she would when. Or maybe it means in a universe where popular votes matter, Trump would campaign in places that he didn't before and get a lot more votes. The entire concept is alter dramatically by that key fact.
Either way the point is you can't just assume it would be the same because clearly it would not.
Thank you for sharing your opinion. Have a nice evening.
Confidently incorrect. Popular vote doesn’t win elections and red state men don’t vote for women.
I say this as a huge fan of AOC, I think she should be Veep and have the POTUS leave at the start of the second admin. Then let her run once (twice?) more.
Red state men don't vote for democrats either. Maybe you should try to win gettable votes instead of making excuses for shutting out candidates you don't want.
Anyone else not buying this?
Given that they're a well established right wing Zionist, no, I'm not buying this
Aight. Cool. Wanna bet democracy on it?
Always with the platitudes.
You were fine with democracy being flushed down a toilet when Hillary was rigging primaries against Bernie.
Was I? Cause I'm pretty sure I strongly campaigned for Bernie during the primaries even after Super Tuesday when the race pretty much ended. My voting didnt take place until the 15th and I still put his name on my ballot. Then when the presidential election rolled around I voted for Bernie again as a write-in.
You can try to put me into some nice little predefined box, but I've its not going to prove your point. My point is simple. If we for some reason need to run against Trump again in 2028 do you feel confident beyond doubt that swing state voters are going to support AOC or any other female candidate? Cause in case you haven't learned this yet, unless you live in Florida, Georgia, Iowa, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania or Michigan...our votes don't really matter. And quite a few of those states are pretty rural.
I mean you also see conservatives vote for people like Boebert and MTG. Misogynists, surprisingly, will reliably prioritize their other ideals over whether to put a woman in power.
Interesting point. I do think there's a sort of power dynamic at play there. They see the way they campaign against women's rights and label them as one of the "good ones" that will show women that they can have higher positions in society if they submit. Maybe, hopefully, my assessment is off base.
Women won senate races in three of the swing states Kamala lost, so clearly gender wasn't the problem.
I am confident beyond a reasonable doubt that AOC would beat Trump, if only because Trump would be an incredibly weak candidate. I'd love for him to try.
I'm also confident that the Democrats are at risk of losing an entire generation (both in the short and long terms) the longer they keep offering uninspiring candidates and refusing to give any policy concessions to the left, especially those popular with young voters.
Your argument about female senators winning in swing states has the most merit I've seen so far. I've got to give that too you. But it does worry me that those are elections that are localized to some degree. A national election is going to garner way more negative sentiment from the Bible belt.
In a perfect society I would absolutely love for AOC to be the first female president in 2028. The realist in me understands that if you were to take everything about her and put it into a white male, they would garner more votes and be more likely to win. I care deeply about being able to elect the first female president in history, but I care more about saving the lower and middle class. I don't care who does it. Just that it gets done and we can start to leave predatory capitalism behind.
Sure, and that's valid, I'm just not sure who that white male version of AOC would actually be.
I think people put to much weight on two data points. Relevant XKCD.
Nor do I. It was a hypothetical, but its not our job to find that person. I think the closest we currently have is still Bernie but he needs to be able to retire. I don't want him in the presidential office at 84. Then maybe Graham Platner who has his own "controversial" past. Ro Khanna(not white). Mamdani(not US born). Pritzker(Billionaire. I love what he's done in Illinois, but I feel as though his status as a billionaire puts him at odds with what the message for 2028 should be). Talarico(Maybe? But people find issue with his framing of progressive policy in religious values).
The way I see it, there's an ever-widening gap between what is considered permissible or possible within the existing system, and what actually needs to happen to avert collapse. How much the DNC is willing to allow and what messaging a candidate goes with may matter just as much as who the candidate is.
Note that as a commie I expect most politicians to be self-serving opportunists and I'm skeptical that it's at all possible to bridge the gap between what's possible in the system and what needs to happen. But tactically speaking, they need to find someone who will at least promise to try to do good things rather than just maintaining the status quo.
And if Trump gets the outrageous military budget he wants, I'm not sure I'm going to envy whoever inherits the debt crisis. They need to call out military spending as the source of the problem and strongly condemn the Iran War. What we absolutely don't need is someone doing austerity policies and trying to balance the budget by cutting social spending even further, which I expect to be the DNC's agenda, and it'd be the fastest way to lose what should be a layup.