The fascism of stay-at-home moms

As the Democrat party becomes ever more radically left-wing, I often wonder how they get half the population to vote for them. I mean, not everybody is a lesbian sociology professor at Amherst. How do anti-American radicals maintain the support of people who are neither stupid nor communists?

Another interesting feature of the modern Democrat party is how it presents its radical agenda. Thirty years ago, Democrats spoke mostly in euphemisms, avoiding clear explanations of their goals. Now that their goals are widely understood to be destructive and crazy, they have to be even more careful about discussions of specific policies. They avoid those discussions if possible, of course. For example, Kamala Harris really never clearly explained what she intended to do if she were to be elected president. She wanted to get elected, so she couldn’t, obviously.

But what if you work for the Democrat party? What if your job is to explain to American citizens what Democrat policies are, and why they are superior to the Republicans? What if it’s up to you to explain away the catastrophes which result from Democrat policies, and distract attention away from the successes of Republican parties? I refer, of course, to journalists. What if you are a journalist?

It’s easy for Kamala to refuse interviews. But if you write for The New York Times, you do have to say SOMETHING. And everything you say has to present Democrats in a positive light, and it has to make at least some sense.

Now THAT is a challenging job.

I read many different news sources, and I’m often impressed with the quality of the propaganda. I admire good writing whenever I find it. And I found a great example today: An article in Mother Jones about the “Trad Wife” phenomenon.

I don’t know much about the topic, but my understanding is that Trad Wives are an Instagram trend in which attractive women make videos of themselves doing housework or cooking, wearing pretty clothes, etc. They apparently are promoting a return to traditional gender roles. And this is apparently popular. Although, again, I've never seen any of these videos (I'm not on Instagram), and I don’t know much about it.

The Mother Jones article begins by explaining the phenomenon using snarky descriptions of behavior that is obviously below the standards of author Morgan Jerkins. I was learning about a new topic, but wondering why she was writing about it. But like the outstanding author she is, she not only explains her topic, but also explains why the reader should care about it:

But while it might be easy to write off the trad wives as a silly meme or a guilty pleasure, they should not be taken lightly. Given the misogynistic messaging and white-centric ideals some of these influencers peddle, they are indicative of larger forces at play—henchwomen in an ongoing effort to functionally erase modern women from the public sphere.

Golly. I thought these were just videos of attractive women baking or something.

Note how she does that. She doesn’t accuse any specific Instagram actress of doing anything racist. But she associates all of them with racism and misogyny. They are part of the evil master plan of “erasing women from the public sphere,” even if none of them are aware of their own nefarious plans.

Watch her do it again. Now she is going to go from vague eye-rolling at “images of wife- and mother-hood” to accusing all participating to taking part in white nationalism. Again, without specifically accusing anyone of anything. It really is well done:

But then the vibe shifted. In 2016 and 2017, when Seyward Darby was doing research for her 2020 book, Sisters in Hate: American Women on the Front Lines of White Nationalism, she noticed an ominous subculture gaining prominence, one in which women were performing this highly curated image of wife- and motherhood. “It was aggressively anti-feminist, anti-diversity; some of it was proudly pro-white,” Darby says. Trump’s rise helped give these women a larger megaphone.

Of course, many influencers bragging about being stay-at-home moms are not white supremacists, but, as Darby points out, “it is a slippery slope—and sometimes there’s no slope at all—between ‘I’m just a nice woman who wants to be a wife and mom’ and having a very white nationalist agenda. Whether they realize it or not, those are the waters they are swimming in.”

Check out the first sentence of that second paragraph: “Of course, many influencers bragging about being stay-at-home moms are not white supremacists.” Wow. Well, I’m glad she cleared that up. Very impartial of her, making an effort to see things from the other side, despite her understandable discomfort in giving the benefit of the doubt to forces of evil such as * shiver * stay-at-home moms. The horror…

I’d like you to read the whole thing – it really is remarkable. Although I hesitate to send clicks to The Democrat Party Marketing Department. If you also hesitate to wander into such places, I'll offer you one more example:

Watching trad wife content can pull viewers into territory they didn’t expect. “What’s scary is that there is a subtext in all these videos,” Washington Post tech columnist Taylor Lorenz tells me. For example, a trad wife might advocate for “natural living” or homeschooling, and then veer into anti–birth control rhetoric or religious indoctrination. “When you engage with these videos, because they are so adjacent to fascist, far-right content, you are quickly led down a rabbit hole of ­extremism.”

First, why does a Mother Jones columnist who is writing an article about Trad Wives on Instagram getting quotes from a tech columnist from The Washington Post? Second, why suggest that a trad wife might veer into bad things? Why doesn't she give a few examples? Like I'm doing in this post. Wouldn't actual quotes have more impact than vague possibilities? I wonder why she doesn't give examples? I could guess why. But I don't know. So I won't speculate. Unlike the author of this piece. And her sources.

But forget that. Check out that last sentence: “When you engage with these videos, because they are so adjacent to fascist, far-right content, you are quickly led down a rabbit hole of ­extremism.” Again, she does not specifically accuse anyone of anything. She just very strongly suggests that stay-at-home moms are “adjacent to fascist, far-right content.”

Stay-at-home moms. Adjacent to fascists. My goodness. So Democrats aren't radicals. No, of course not. Democrats are reasonable people who value good old-fashioned common sense and are concerned about dangerous new fads.

Fads like stay-at-home moms. It's these new-fangled stay-at-home moms who are the real extremists. OK.

The whole article really is well done. Note how she gives her audience an excuse to hate not just Trad Wives on Instagram, but stay-at-home moms in general. Without pointing to any misbehavior on anyone’s part.

She never mentions one example of white supremacy or misogyny. After all, her topic is attractive women making videos about baking cookies. People probably watch these videos because they don’t want to see anything evil. But thankfully, she doesn’t need to give examples of evil to convince her audience that stay-at-home moms are evil. Because she’s a good writer, and her audience wants to believe.

Or at least her audience is willing to suspend their disbelief in an effort to feel virtuous despite supporting horrifying things, like Democrat policies.

It doesn’t have to make sense. It just needs to appear sort of plausible. Pretty much.

Imagine if similar propaganda for Republicans was as ubiquitous as The Washington Post technology writer, to CNN, to The New York Times, to 60 Minutes, to The Today Show, to People Magazine, to nearly all advertising, to our entire educational system, to Hollywood, to social media, to Mother Jones Magazine, to nearly everything else everybody sees every day. Imagine all of them promoting Republicans to this degree.

Who needs propaganda? Just use all those outlets to compare the results of Republican policies to the results of Democrat policies. Presto. No Republican would ever lose an election again.

But Democrats can maintain their destructive policies because talented writers find ways to make them seem more palatable, and they find ways to make Republicans - even stay-at-home moms! - look like the real tyrants.

This stuff is powerful.

Really well done. I’m impressed.

But powerful. And dangerous.