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In American politics gender lines are drawn not only between male and female politicians but Republican and Democratic politicians and the GOP and Dem parties.

Many of societies rules that codify women’s second class status also codify the Democratic party’s second class status within American politics-think of it this way: girls behave in general much better than boys but when they do misbehave they’re punished much more harshly-the same applies to Democratic politicians-regardless of gender

Jess Zimmerman pointed this out after the Kavanaugh hearings. A good point is what when you saw all that weird faux outrage with Kavanaugh and Lindsay Graham at that hearing where was the anger of the Democrats?

What I haven’t seen discussed, though, is the way these same restrictions have constrained the entire Democratic Party. The left—even the moderate left—is feminized in this country to a degree that I have come to believe actually restricts its avenues for acceptable self-expression.

“Everyone is mocking Lindsey Graham for expressing the kind of outrage Democratic Senators should’ve been expressing daily over Merrick Garland,” tweeted writer Isaac Butler after the hearing. He’s not wrong, but it’s worth imagining a similar tweet reading, “Everyone is mocking Brett Kavanaugh for expressing the kind of outrage Christine Blasey Ford should have expressed daily since this debacle began.” What would “should” even mean in this case? She would have been justified, yes, but she absolutely never, ever could have. Crying, screaming, blaming, complaining—Brett Kavanaugh can get away with it. She can’t. This thought experiment isn’t just sophistry; the pressures are the same on the party at large, and for similar reasons. Lindsey Graham can get away with it; Kamala Harris would be pilloried. Even Chuck Schumer would be pilloried. The gender of the legislator is significant, but so is the gender, if you will, of the party. And though we don’t really discuss it, the Democratic Party is a girl.

Even now where is the anger of the Democrats? I mean Russian interference was to be sure an attack on the integrity of our democratic process itself-but it was also a frontal attack on the Democratic party-not just Clinton but the Dem Congressional candidates.

FN: Which is why I miss Harry Reid. Nothing against Schumer but Reid was one Democrat who had no problem with righteous anger and indignation.

Michael Bennet sounds interesting but is he playing to an old Dem trope-that we can win without actually beating Republicans?

https://www.politico.com/story/2019/05/02/michael-bennet-presidential-run-1297181

His claim that we don’t need Dems to win everywhere to achieve progressive goals is ahistorical-all major progressive legislation in American history was passed by Democratic party supermajorities.