On Nov 3, 2007, at 6:33 PM, Michael Pollak wrote:
> On Sat, 3 Nov 2007, Doug Henwood wrote:
>
>>> I think this is why this British term doesn't fly in an American
>>> context. It's the flipside of our having no class consciousness.
>>
>> The feminization of Kerry in the '04 campaign was a class insult,
>> even
>> though Bush was less of an athlete and just as upper crust.
>
> But that's just the point -- it's not a class insult because it
> doesn't
> implicate both of them as members of the same class the way an
> ethnic slur
> insults everyone who is part of the group. It's personalized.
No. The Bush people were trying to portray Kerry as upper class, as opposed to their common man candidate. It's the standard Republican playbook - liberal elites who eat fancy food and like the French. Upper class = effete and feminized. It's an old American trope that goes way back.
Doug