SERIOUSLY. In the last six months, there have been three ongoing coversations in the blogosphere and left commentariat in which people have been grappling with issues of how Democrats are protrayed in the cultural imagination. Chris Bowers now brings these three threads -- about machismo in politics, about what it means to be "serious," and about the lingering fear of the 1960s counter-culture -- together into the freshest, smartest bit of thinking I've come across on these questions. It's really worth reading the whole thing, though I've also excerpted the most original part below the jump. It's long for a blog item, but well worth reading and thinking about.
Suffice is to say, I think we could also fruitfully understand a fourth conversation -- the one about anger -- in light of what Chris is saying below, as part of the ongoing accusation of a disqualifying, feminine emotionalism that the right makes against the left.
--Garance Franke-Ruta
