A recent poll found that, among Trump voters, there is a belief that men are the most discriminated-against group in the United States. Trump supporters think men have it worse than people in LGBTQ communities, African-Americans, or Mexican-Americans. In the past, I’ve written a lot about conservatives seeing themselves as victims and how that mirrors trends in popular culture. There is a significant portion of white people, and especially white men, who are frustrated about what they don’t have and what others might get, and who see their equalized status within society as a slight against their worth as a person. These are the people nodding when black athletes are castigated for exercising their rights to protest. These are the ones watching Tucker Carlson every night when he denounces the value of diversity. And these are the people who get coddled with long news segments and think pieces excusing support for the despicable, lecturing critics about how these fools need to be understood with “civility.”
Just as some journalists have a problem using the word “liar” when it’s warranted, there is a tendency within the media to not like calling racist behavior the work of “racists,” even when Nazis with Tiki torches may be involved. Some months back, Meghan McCain defended Trump voters’ strained grasp on reality on The View by saying these are people who “didn’t have any other choice.” And therein lies the great truth about white privilege: White people who act like horrible assholes get a certain benefit of a doubt and an active defense of rationalizations that people of color and other minority groups never do.
But what’s also a fascinating aspect of this puzzle is how some people enable their own discrimination and actively defend it. Whether out of greed or abject stupidity, it’s always a sight to behold when some black people and gays side with white nationalists who think they’re subhuman, or when women defend the conservatives who want to take their rights away. This has been an especially confounding conundrum after a majority of white women supported Trump in 2016, and polling shows Republican strength with the group going into the midterms.
The Megyn Kelly story seems to hit all of these bases, notably how someone can both be affected by harassment and still be either too sheltered or too dumb to see how others can be discriminated against and marginalized. Not only is it a situation where someone in the media with a history of carrying water for and excusing racial dog whistles said something incredibly stupid about blackface. Not only is it a case where Kelly’s colleagues and major news networks either ignored or excused her views, giving her a contract worth $69 million, until things became untenable. But it is also an example of a white woman with a pretty face getting away with saying dumb, racist things for a long time, and who probably at this moment thinks she’s a victim of political correctness.
And the rub of it all is she will probably land in another multi-million-dollar contract somewhere soon saying more stupid shit.
From David Sedaris' latest book, Calypso:
We pass a Trump sign on the road and Michael acknowledges it, saying, sourly, “I just feel that for guys like us, white guys our age, if we need any help—housing or food stamps or whatever—it’s the back of the line. You know what I mean?”
Well isn’t that sort of where the line forms? I think.
Recent research and ponderings attempting to identify why white women support Republicans and conservative policies more than their non-white sisterhood have largely explained the difference through gender roles and subservience to their partners. For example, during the recent hearings for Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, Republican women (who are for the most part white) were the only demographic for which support for Kavanaugh increased as the process went along.
Why is that?
Republican women are “loyal to party” rather than caring about any criticisms about sexism, threats to women’s rights, or discrimination against females as a group. Beyond this:
- Women earn less money and hold fewer positions of power than men as a whole, making them more dependent on men for financial stability. White women voters are more likely to be married than black and Latino women and still most often marry white men, who lean heavily Republican in voting. Therefore, the argument goes, white women support conservatives out of support for their husbands’ views.
- If white women are voting in support of the views of their Republican husbands, then a (mistaken) belief that Republicans are about “helping white men” get ahead appeals to the economic interests of white women in support of their husbands’/families’ financial situation.
- Both religious and long-standing cultural traditions emphasize family and the woman’s place as a supporter of her husband in a sort of “benevolent patriarchy.” So supporting conservatives becomes an extension of supporting one’s husband and family, to the detriment of the individual.
For instance, in 2008, vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin set the example of the strong Republican woman who could raise five children, maintain a professional career, and hold her own in the combative world of politics. She called herself a “hockey mom” and “Mama Grizzly” who would protect her cubs at any cost.
During the Kavanaugh confirmation hearings, Donald Trump provided a culturally acceptable “out” along these lines for conservative women who wanted to support the Republican judge but worried that doing so might be seen as a betrayal of female survivors of sexual assault.
Despite the fact that studies conducted in the past 12 years indicate that false reporting for sexual crimes is rare, Trump constructed an imaginary choice, urging Americans to protect their sons against “false accusations” by women. Pretending to be a wrongly accused son about to lose his job, he said, plaintively, “Mom, what do I do? What do I do?”
Republican women who wanted to support Kavanaugh could stand firm in their roles as mothers and, just like Palin’s “Mama Grizzly,” fiercely protect their cubs (sons), in this case against “false accusations.”
Now, whether these points explain Republican women’s behavior is a matter of debate. They seem reductive and posit white women as victims of their circumstances, and figures stuck in prescribed roles instead of people making decisions with agency. Because it’s been my experience that it takes effort to be an asshole. It takes effort to support the policies of this administration full of assholes. And the types of people who support Trump, the people I’ve talked to at rallies, men and women both, actively support these policies.
The people out in Iowa, men and women both, who vote for a racist like Steve King know what they’re supporting. They’re not stupid or misled, no matter how much that might make us feel better to believe. And they can rationalize their votes as being about abortion, taxes, or fucking corn subsidies, but they know what they’re voting for, and they have to own that choice.
Megyn Kelly used the platform of Today to defend Kavanaugh through much of the debate over his confirmation. It’s this sort of inability to either empathize with someone else who says they’ve been hurt or recognize how out of touch she is with mainstream opinion that has made Kelly less than popular at NBC offices and follows a history of being out of touch. Well that and the fact she’s an overpaid idiot who doesn’t bring anything distinctive or noteworthy to the table. Does she have an interviewing style that’s either interesting, incisive, or effective? No. Does she bring an entertaining viewpoint that delivers the news in a way that’s demonstrably different and better than any of her colleagues? No. Add into this NBC took away this block of airtime from Al Roker and pushed out Tamron Hall in order to make room for Kelly’s show.
So when someone who’s attractive but not the sharpest knife in the drawer, and is getting a huge pile of Scrooge McDuck money for ostensibly being a pretty face on a crap show with sucky ratings, when they fuck up, things are going to get interesting. Kelly’s inability to understand the inappropriateness of blackface puts her on mental par with college frat boys looking to party with potential date rape victims. And Kelly’s “apology” seemed to do her no favors, especially her implication this is in part a problem of political correctness created by changing standards that Kelly —a supposed journalist— was somehow unaware of.
This is another rationalization and excuse offered up for why a pretty white lady acts like an asshole, in the hopes others will say: “Oh, okay. She’s suffered enough.”
Yesterday, after days of insider leaks indicating Kelly’s position with NBC News was deteriorating rapidly, the network announced the cancellation of her show and gave indications her departure from the network was imminent, which will involve NBC Universal having to argue with her lawyer to buy out her contract. Some reports claimed Kelly’s lawyer had demanded Ronan Farrow be present to witness the negotiations. This seems to have been a trial balloon floated by Kelly’s people who may have wanted to link her troubles to some of the issues NBC, and particularly NBC News Chairman Andrew Lack, has had with sexual harassment allegations. It was Lack who threw millions at Kelly, even knowing she didn’t think Santa Claus or Jesus can be non-white and other racial issues, even though he didn’t have a good venue or overall idea of how she would produce viewers for the network. But it seems Lack’s relationship with Kelly soured when she used her position at Today to cover the harassment allegations against Matt Lauer, Tom Brokaw, and the contention by Farrow that his reporting about Harvey Weinstein was spiked by NBC and Lack. It should also be noted that during the 2016 presidential election, it was Lack who sat on the Access Hollywood (“grab them by the pussy”) tape of Donald Trump, even though NBC actually owns the footage, allowing other news organizations to report on it first.
Add it all up and it paints a picture of NBC being a mess behind-the-scenes.
Megyn Kelly's lawyer, Bryan Freedman, one of Hollywood's top talent-side litigators, will meet with NBC News executives in New York as soon as Friday for what are expected to be talks about the terms of her status at NBC News, sources close to the situation tell The Hollywood Reporter … A key part of his discussion with NBC News executives is expected to involve what Kelly views as some hypocrisy on the part of NBC — that it was OK for a sister property (Bravo) to show a woman dressed in what appeared to be blackface. Kelly and a panel of contributors were talking about Real Housewives of New York castmember Luann de Lesseps' Diana Ross costume, which caused a stir earlier this year because de Lesseps appeared to have darkened her skin for the costume, which included a white evening gown and sky-high wig. De Lesseps apologized after the episode aired last spring.
Oh, by the way, Fox News does not want Kelly back. Where she might end up is anyone’s guess.