Any Democrat who assumed this is an idiot. An opponent’s sound bite, taken out of context, has been a staple of political campaigning for centuries.
I don’t agree with the defeatism in this piece about the House passing the bipartisan infrastructure bill without Build Back Better, but I do agree with the point relevant to this thread: couldn’t this have been done a week or two ago before the Virginia gubernatorial election? 
But that is not what was said. That is what was disingenuously “paraphrased” in order to make the claims that are being made.
So to say that they should not simply say something that they did not say makes no sense. How about people listen to the actual words that are used instead?
No, it would be more like saying, “If McDonald’s wants customers, they shouldn’t use horse meat in their burgers.” When McDonald’s doesn’t use horse meat in their burgers, it’s just a lie that people keep telling.
Right, I base my opinions on facts, rather than lies and innuendo, as is the nature of you and your fellow Republicans.
Yes or no question for you. If a parent wants the school to teach that the Earth is 6000 years old, is that what the school should teach?
It’s actually less confusion, and more a very good understanding as to what actually is meant by such a phrase.
It is the Republicans who are easily swayed by such simplistic propaganda.
No, that is in response to the racist and homophobic stuff that the Republican party does.
Unfortunately, the racist and homophobic stuff is the bread and butter of the Republican party these days, and beating that drum does get your people to the polls quite effectively.
Pretty much, they just repeat the quote without context,or even more often, paraphrase the quote in order to make it even more disingenuous.
But it works, they aren’t wrong about that. There are plenty of weak minds that are persuaded by such hateful propaganda, and no shortage of allies that will propagate it.
We actually have a close example of this. Gilette hired a ‘woke’ advertising person, who created their infamous ‘Men, we can do better’ ad, in which they showed a series of the most ridiculous examples of bad male stereotypes as representing their customers, then said, “Men, we can do better”. Somehow, this was supposed to get men to buy their product.
What actually happened is that in a normally very stable industry (men’s grooming products) Gilette lost 5% of their market share almost overnight - and it didn’t recover. I don’t think that ad person works for them anymore. That ad cost them hundreds of millions or even billions of dollars.
The ad person probably went to work for the DNC, judging by their messaging.
Seems like two weeks before the Virginia election, the Congressional Democrats from everywhere else were telling themselves one of two things:
(a) “oh, sure, the race will tighten, it always does, but look at what Joe’s numbers were in 2020 there’s no wayTerry can blow this; and anyway, it’s not my state”
(b) “eh, it’s Virginia, it will keep swinging back and forth(*), it always turns against the new President, we have our issues to focus on”
(* IMO, at least they do have a point in that Virginia = Swing/competitive, NOT Presumed Blue.)
Ummm… they sell products to women as well.
If the net loss of 5% was due to the campaign then I guess it backfired. But it’s wrong to assume they were aiming it at: a) their customers, and, b) men exclusively.
Could also be something else: Men are sporting more beards and the perpetually rugged (unshaven) look. I’ve been sporting a perpetual 1-week shadow for years now and my wife likes me that way. I used to clip in a new blade every week or so. Now I use close cropped clippers and shave only the edges when we’re going out. A new blade lasts me for three months or better. I’ve not bought refills in a couple of years and probably can go two more at this rate of (dis)use. So the decline in shaving related products may be attributed to the popular grooming trend.
The ad was aimed directly at men. It actually said, “Men, we can do better”. It was targeted at potential customers, like pretty much all ads.
They lodt 5% of market share in the ‘blades and grooming’ segment in one year, from 65% to 60%, and it hasn’t recovered.
That would affect sales across the industry, not the market share of one razor against another.
Gilette has faced a loss of market share from new online razor companies like Harry’s and Dollar Shave Club. But that’s been going on for a while. The huge drop they took in 2019 after that ad aired is pretty hard to explain as ahything other than a backlash. Their sales and market share had been relatively stable since 2016. They took another hit in market share in 2015, which I think is attributed to the sudden rise of the ‘shaving clubs’. Then they were stable for four years before the ad. Then they took a 5% drop in market share.
As you say, there are multiple market forces at play so I’m not convinced that the ad in question had the deleterious effects you claim. I confess that this is the first time I’ve even heard of that particular ad campaign. However, I don’t have the market research numbers to back up my skepticism and I’m not so interested in this conjecture to go digging for them.
I haven’t seen the ad either, but reading about it on wikipedia, I can see how those who take pride in their toxic masculinity would have their fragile egos bruised by it.
It’s actually a pretty good sociological data point. Not sure if the math works out right, but I guess that means that around 5% of men can’t stand for it to be suggested that they not be bullies or misogynists. I’m actually impressed by that number, I would have thought it would be higher.
But Sam does have a point, that there is a growing trend of people who cannot stand to have any implication that they are not the bestest ever, that they have room to grow and improve. These are the same general cohort of people who are offended when history is not whitewashed to show white straight christian males to not only not be the hero of every story, but sometimes even the villain.
If people will vote for conservatives because they can’t stand for their children to learn about historical facts like slavery or racism, I’m really not sure what can be done about that. Do we cater to their insecurities, and teach their children the lies they want taught, or do we lose their votes in order to accept reality?
Don’t fall for Sam’s 5% number. Without a cite, I’m going to assume it’s a number he pulled from an unreliable source and uncritically accepted because it fit his narrative.
What he’s claiming is simply not possible. Not enough people saw this ad to make that big of a difference.
Fair enough, it would be interesting to see where the number Sam has got pulled from.
In any case, I don’t see why someone has to actually see the ad in order to be offended by it. The usual suspects are simply told to be offended, maybe shown brief clips out of context, and they follow the line that they are fed. I’m sure Fox News had a bunch of stories about how Gillette is emasculating men, and their viewers simply believed them without question.
And it goes to the usual distortion of messaging. You say something to the effect of “men can do better” or “you should be conscious of privilege” or “you should recognize the effects of racism” or “designing education/medicine policy requires expert knowledge” and there will be a faction that will announce that there’s no need to look into it, it’s obvious to any right-thinking person what that really means is “YOU are toxic, and should be condemned for it”; “YOU are privileged and should be brought down”; “those other races have the right to get revenge against YOU”, or “YOU are dumb and we are going to teach your children to reject your beliefs”.
From the Atlantic article cited above:
The idea that critical race theory is an academic concept that is taught only at colleges or law schools might be technically accurate, but the reality on the ground is a good deal more complicated. Few middle or high schoolers are poring over academic articles written by Richard Delgado or Kimberlé Crenshaw. But across the nation, many teachers have, over the past years, begun to adopt a pedagogical program that owes its inspiration to ideas that are very fashionable on the academic left, and that go well beyond telling students about America’s copious historical sins.
In some elementary and middle schools, students are now being asked to place themselves on a scale of privilege based on such attributes as their skin color. History lessons in some high schools teach that racism is not just a persistent reality but the defining feature of America. And some school systemcarranza-held-doe-white-supremacy-culture-training/) denounced virtues such as “perfectionists have even embraced ideas that spread pernicious prejudices about nonwhite people, as when a [presentation to principals of New York City public schools](https://nypost.com/2019/05/20/richard-m” or the “worship of the written word” as elements of “white-supremacy culture.”
I agree with this. The Dems have done a great job of handwaving the leftist teaching in schools by telling people what CRT is not and chiding people for being ignorant about CRT. It is purposeful. If you ask what it is, it is described in vague, high-minded ideals that nobody really disagrees with, but in practice it is nearly exactly what people are complaining that it is. Minor differences between “true” CRT and what people are complaining about are simply exaggerated and highlighted to show that there is no CRT being taught, when the crux of the complaint is true. It is just linguistic sophistry; people are not up in arms over absolutely no change in the school curriculum.
Right, CRT is an academic subject.
But the right has redefined CRT to be anything that doesn’t hold the white straight christian male up as the pinnacle of moral, intellectual, and virtuous superiority.
At least be honest about it. It’s not CRT that is being objected to, it is a frank and honest discussion about the historical and contemporary effects of racism. To call any discussion about race CRT, and then to get offended by any discussion of CRT is simply to demand that these subjects not be discussed at all.
Anything that threatens a white man’s fragile ego is CRT, and should be silenced, and anyone who would dare speak otherwise cancelled.
Nobody objects to this. Nobody. It is the left wing indoctrination that is being objected to. What does this “frank” discussion entail? And although it is not technically CRT, that has become the shorthand phrase for the indoctrination.
I went to school in the 1980s, in the south. I wasn’t taught any such thing as you describe in your second paragraph. I was taught how evil slavery and Jim Crow were. The left wing additions to that is the objection.
I really don’t think that’s the argument at all. At least not one made by those who aren’t demonstrably white supremacists. What I think they are saying is that they had no choice in who they were born, nor did they participate in setting up society to be how it is. So they understandably resent being judged or condemned for something they had no control over.
It should be discussed. But not in terms of “oppressed” and “oppressor”. Don’t take my word for it. Listen to what Glenn Loury & John McWhorter have to say in their own words.
We often argue about bad messaging or framing by the left. I think this is one of those badly framed arguments that is blowing up in our faces.
Agreed. Take a white voter who lives in the non-urban areas of Virginia who makes 10 or 11 bucks an hour working at Wal-Mart and hears that his kids will be taught in school about how “privileged” they are. That guy, from his world view, is going to be outraged. He will correctly point out that he is living a rather meager existence and that neither he nor his family has ever owned a slave or refused service to a black person. So why are his kids, all born in this century, being blamed for stuff that happened decade before they were born?
Sure, there can be an academic discussion and the point the hypothetical white voter is making is overly simplistic and does not account for various things. But it is one that will provoke a very strong response from that voter. And McAuliffe’s “gaffe” plays right into the idea that school board officials are ivory tower elites who do not care what “regular” people thing and want to indoctrinate their kids.
Yes, it has become a “shorthand” made by the right in order to be disingenuous about what it is that they are talking about.
And what was the reason for the civil war?
If you can answer that as being about slavery, then you are in a minority among your peers.
The left is not adding anything to it. The right is doing its damndest to whitewash it, and the pushback from those who believe in teaching history rather than fairy tales is what is being called CRT.
The term is technically incorrect, but they are accurately describing the ideas that they are opposed to being taught in the schools. It is disingenuous for the left to fall back on the “there is no CRT being taught in K-12 schools” when everyone knows what the real debate is.
I’ll concede that. I got the whole “it was about states rights and a little bit about slavery, but the North owed slaves too, the Yankee bastards!” teaching. No question there. I have no problem with teaching the history accurately.