It used to be the far right was the part of the spectrum that shamed sex. Today, Democrats have jumped on the bandwagon. Look what spell-check said about Kavenaugh!
Back in the 1960's and 1970's, it was the era of "free love" and "do your own thing." Ideas we thought were outdated - about sex and marriage - were tossed aside in what was to become a new liberated era. Or so we thought, anyway. By the early 1980s, gay men started getting sick, and the spread of various venereal diseases was on the rise. Many started to wonder if maybe this was why our forbears had such contradictory ideas about sex - desiring it, and shaming it at the same time.
Nevertheless, while Anita Bryant and Jerry Falwell and his "Moral Majority" attacked this new era of libertines, the Democrats defended our rights to defile ourselves. Fast-forward a few decades and a new Jerry Falwell is embracing a conservative GOP President who is something of a libertine himself. Meanwhile, the Democrats are realizing that the intersection of women's rights and sexual liberation is a difficult crossroad to traverse. You can't support "free love" and "me too!" at the same time, particularly when free love wasn't necessarily free for everyone involved.
And in the interim, our society changed as well. Times Square went from a collection of seedy porn shops, XXX-rated movie theaters and live sex shows, and of course, prostitutes and pimps, to a G-rated Disney experience. We embraced the sexual revolution, but only if it was kept behind closed doors and not talked about. We embrace gay politicians, so long as they are gay only in theory, and don't do that icky stuff.
We are more liberated than ever, and you can go online using your phone and "hook up" with a partner who is interested in the same sexual fantasies as you are - at least in theory. Because many of these "hook ups" amount to little more than "sexting" which has replaced intimate contact. Despite our liberation - or maybe because of it - some are reporting that young people today are having less actual sex than young people in the past did.
It is an interesting conundrum.
The Democrats, trying to work up some sort of majority that would actually win elections, are trying to woo the female vote, and thus embracing the "me too!" movement over, perhaps, the interests of the sexual libertines. The Democrats have gone from free-love advocates to scolding schoolmarms, chastising those naughty males for being, well, male.
Of course, this scolding doesn't end there. They tell people in the Midwest States - which they derisively refer to as "flyover States" - that their big pickup trucks are ruining the environment, their cattle business and hamburger drive-ins are causing global warming, and that they will have to surrender their guns because, well, they're the problem - beastly males with their big diesel pickups and rifles and cheeseburgers and penises!
It is an odd way to try to sell yourself to voters in those States. Because while most women appreciate the "me too!" movement sentiments, there are also women who are sexual libertines as well. And there are women who are conservative and see through a lot of this as posturing rather than actual action. And I think a lot of women see it is as a good thing taken too far.
Make no mistake about it, sexual harassment is no joke. Rape isn't funny. But then again, the sort of accusations being raised against Justice Kavanaugh are almost stupid. Someone says he put his wanker in the hand of a woman when he was in college - decades ago. When asked about it, the woman in question wants nothing to do with it. Kind of hard to have a "me too!" moment without the "me!" in it, unless his fellow fraternity brother claims to be horrified at the sight of Kavanaugh's penis. Yet, we are told with a straight face, this is grounds for impeachment.
The Democrats have been on a losing streak. They've lost governor's mansions, State houses, and even the Senate and House. Sure, the mid-terms allowed them to pick up a few governorships and the House, but with Trump as President, the gains should have been much higher.
The problem is, the message the Democrats are selling isn't a positive one. They are telling the electorate that they are worthless pieces of shit and moreover that they are the problem in the world - by merely existing in time and space. If only those "baskets of deplorables" would just off themselves, the world would be a better place! Meanwhile, Trump tells the electorate they are beautiful people and the problem is someone else - a heady and toxic cocktail that has instant results, but usually results in an extended hangover.
The problem with the Democrat's message isn't just that they will continue to lose "The Flyover States" - which they need to win the electoral college. And by the way, that is the exact reason the founders created the electoral college - so that populous States would not outvote the less populous ones. Our entire government is structured this way - ever wonder why Rhode Island and Delaware get the same number of Senators as Texas? Same deal - but you don't hear noises about changing the Constitution to appoint Senators on the basis of population, doya?
So no more loser talk about the electoral college or how the Constitution should be amended - it simply isn't going to happen. You want to win elections, then win over the voters - all of them, not just those on each coast.
But the problem is deeper than that. You see, while many on the left think the "deplorables" that are being shamed are other people and thus support this platform, what they fail to realize is that they too may be tossed in that basket, by mere dint of making too much money or owning a disposal in their kitchen.
Torch and pitchfork is a fun game to play, until you realize the peasants are coming after you. The French Revolution and rein of terror was a jolly good time and all, until it turned upon itself, and the executioners became the executed. This is where we are heading. Those who fail to pass a party purity test will be purged. And you think you may be safe - but you aren't.
THIS is why Trump is so popular in the heartland of America. The snake oil the Democrats are selling just makes no sense - that convicted child molesters should get free sex changes, but that a fraternity brother who boorishly exposes himself at a drunken beer bash should be shamed for life. There has to be some sort of middle ground here. There has to be a policy that makes sense and isn't just some pander to various demographic groups.
The Democratic platform can't just be a collection of apologies and promises of free money. It just isn't going to sell!
