You're Only Un-Electable or Un-Likable Until You Get Elected.

It's no secret my top two choices for the Democratic nominee were Elizabeth Warren and Kamala Harris.  Megan Garber unpacks exactly how the fraudulent "electability" or "likability" arguments get weaponized, over and over and over, against women like them but not so much the dudes:

"And, still, you won’t be able to prove it. The thing about internalized misogyny is that it is internal. 'Likability' is in a very broad sense a foundational requirement of any candidate. So is that other deeply subjective data point, 'authenticity.' The plausible deniability is baked into the logic of campaigning. Sexism, like racism, is both exhausting and exhaust-like: It is so common that people sometimes forget to be indignant about its presence. 'Electability' finds refuge in the fog. Instead of a woman, just not that woman, its explanation of things is I’m not sexist; other people are. Did they not vote for the woman because they have low opinions of women, or because they assume that other people do? You can litigate the question endlessly. That is, in some sense, the point.

In late 2008, the researchers David Paul and Jessi L. Smith published an article examining what happens when women run against men for the presidency. 'Although some polls indicate that 81 percent of Americans would personally vote for a qualified woman candidate from their party,' they wrote, 'other [2005] polls imply that nearly one‐third of Americans believe their "neighbors" are unwilling to vote for a woman.' And in a poll conducted in June and published in The Daily Beast, 74 percent of independents and Democrats claimed to be personally comfortable with the notion of a female president. Only 33 percent thought their neighbors would be similarly open-minded. In a New York Times article last summer, a voter said about Warren, 'I love her enthusiasm. She’s smart, she’s very smart. I think she would make an amazing president.' The voter added: 'I’m worried about whether she can win.'”

I like the specific focus on language here -- electability and likability really are incredibly vague concepts that masquerade as objective currency stamped by Chuck Todd or Chris Matthews' (RIP) omniscient political instincts.

"I don't think he / she is electable / likable" is literally just a statement of opinion.  It's just that David Brooks gets paid millions for saying it, and you don't.

Donald Trump was un-electable (pussy grabber, obvious racist, charlatan).  So was Barack Obama (too young, too black).

But somehow history will look at them as long-shots who got lucky.  (True!)  But somehow Warren and Harris (and Hillary four years earlier) will be remembered as too ambitious and too cold and let's be honest, too damn bitchy and uppity.

It's as if internalized misogyny in America is as terrible as internalized racism, if not worse!

(Also fuck Chuck Todd forever.)