WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:03.520 Have you ever noticed how usually when we think 00:00:03.520 --> 00:00:05.160 about the English language, we sort of treat 00:00:05.160 --> 00:00:07.960 words as descriptive labels? Right, like a label 00:00:07.960 --> 00:00:10.619 on a jar. Exactly. You read it, you know exactly 00:00:10.619 --> 00:00:13.070 what's inside. But when you step into the arena 00:00:13.070 --> 00:00:16.530 of political messaging, words stop being labels. 00:00:16.730 --> 00:00:19.829 And well, they start becoming architectural blueprints. 00:00:19.949 --> 00:00:22.050 Oh, absolutely. They actually build the reality 00:00:22.050 --> 00:00:24.269 you end up living in. Yeah. And today we are 00:00:24.269 --> 00:00:27.469 taking a massive stack of sources, specifically 00:00:27.469 --> 00:00:30.269 a deeply detailed, heavily sourced Wikipedia 00:00:30.269 --> 00:00:32.570 article. And we're pulling out the mechanics 00:00:32.570 --> 00:00:35.689 of how one of these blueprints is drawn, deployed, 00:00:36.170 --> 00:00:38.880 and ultimately dismantled. It's a really fascinating 00:00:38.880 --> 00:00:41.619 process to pull apart. It is. We are diving into 00:00:41.619 --> 00:00:44.280 one of the most recognizable, explosive political 00:00:44.280 --> 00:00:47.299 slogans of the modern era. The phrase war on 00:00:47.299 --> 00:00:50.000 women. A slogan that completely dominated the 00:00:50.000 --> 00:00:52.140 American news cycle. I mean, it heavily influenced 00:00:52.140 --> 00:00:54.859 multiple election cycles. It fundamentally altered 00:00:54.859 --> 00:00:58.539 how political campaigns talk to and about female 00:00:58.539 --> 00:01:01.280 voters. Right. And before we get into it, I want 00:01:01.280 --> 00:01:03.740 to make a crucial disclaimer for you listening, 00:01:04.359 --> 00:01:07.079 because we are pulling from sources detailing 00:01:07.079 --> 00:01:11.319 highly volatile, polarizing legislation. And 00:01:11.319 --> 00:01:13.560 quotes from both left -wing and right -wing political 00:01:13.560 --> 00:01:16.079 figures, too. Exactly. We're putting our own 00:01:16.079 --> 00:01:18.549 politics completely aside today. We aren't here 00:01:18.549 --> 00:01:20.890 to tell you who was right, who was wrong, or 00:01:20.890 --> 00:01:23.290 who you should vote for. Absolutely not. We are 00:01:23.290 --> 00:01:25.769 just opening up the hood of this political machine 00:01:25.769 --> 00:01:28.810 to see exactly how the gears of this messaging 00:01:28.810 --> 00:01:31.310 actually turned. Right. We're analyzing the term 00:01:31.310 --> 00:01:35.510 not as an absolute given truth, but as a fascinating 00:01:35.510 --> 00:01:37.969 case study in political framing. Yeah. We're 00:01:37.969 --> 00:01:40.590 tracing its roots, looking at the battlegrounds 00:01:40.590 --> 00:01:43.049 where it was deployed, and examining its measurable 00:01:43.049 --> 00:01:45.290 impact on American elections. So let's start 00:01:45.290 --> 00:01:47.450 with those roots. Because you might assume a 00:01:47.450 --> 00:01:50.269 phrase, this engineered, this poll tested, must 00:01:50.269 --> 00:01:52.469 have popped out of a million dollar political 00:01:52.469 --> 00:01:54.870 consultants focus group in Washington, D .C. 00:01:55.030 --> 00:01:56.829 You'd think so, right? Yeah. But the sources 00:01:56.829 --> 00:01:58.870 show it actually started in a very different 00:01:58.870 --> 00:02:01.849 environment. Not in a boardroom. No. The origins 00:02:01.849 --> 00:02:04.650 are deeply rooted in academic and feminist literature 00:02:04.650 --> 00:02:07.609 from decades earlier. Wait, decades? Yeah. If 00:02:07.609 --> 00:02:10.569 we look back to 1989, the radical feminist Andrea 00:02:10.569 --> 00:02:13.930 Dworkin used the exact phrase, war on women. 00:02:14.120 --> 00:02:17.719 in an introduction to a book. Wow, 1989. Uh -huh. 00:02:17.780 --> 00:02:20.300 And she later used a variation of it as the subtitle 00:02:20.300 --> 00:02:23.020 for her 1997 collection of writings, Life and 00:02:23.020 --> 00:02:26.180 Death. And Susan Faludi's massive 1991 book, 00:02:26.659 --> 00:02:29.539 Backlash, also carried the subtitle, The Undeclared 00:02:29.539 --> 00:02:32.439 War Against American Women. So this terminology 00:02:32.439 --> 00:02:35.240 was brewing in the intellectual academic sphere 00:02:35.240 --> 00:02:37.819 for a really long time. It was. It was very established 00:02:37.819 --> 00:02:40.439 there. But why war? I mean, what was that specific 00:02:40.439 --> 00:02:43.639 word doing in an academic context? Well, in academia, 00:02:43.960 --> 00:02:47.000 Using a term like war is it's a structural framing 00:02:47.000 --> 00:02:49.360 device. It was an academic framework used to 00:02:49.360 --> 00:02:52.319 analyze subtle systemic societal trends like 00:02:52.319 --> 00:02:54.240 media representation things like that Exactly 00:02:54.240 --> 00:02:56.659 media representation the historical restructuring 00:02:56.659 --> 00:02:58.919 of gender relations over decades For instance, 00:02:59.099 --> 00:03:01.099 there were books in the mid -2000s critiquing 00:03:01.099 --> 00:03:03.060 the George W. Bush administration using this 00:03:03.060 --> 00:03:06.080 exact war on women framing But it was largely 00:03:06.080 --> 00:03:08.759 confined to literature and activist circles, 00:03:08.759 --> 00:03:11.340 right? It wasn't something you saw in a 30 -second 00:03:11.340 --> 00:03:14.319 primetime television attack Not until the political 00:03:14.319 --> 00:03:17.080 landscape experienced a massive seismic shift, 00:03:17.139 --> 00:03:19.840 anyway. The 2010 midterms. Yeah, the Tea Party 00:03:19.840 --> 00:03:22.400 wave. That helped the Republican Party win a 00:03:22.400 --> 00:03:24.599 sweeping majority in the House of Representatives, 00:03:25.139 --> 00:03:27.860 along with a massive influx of conservative state 00:03:27.860 --> 00:03:30.879 legislatures across the country. And almost immediately 00:03:30.879 --> 00:03:34.039 in early 2011, as these new lawmakers started 00:03:34.039 --> 00:03:37.479 proposing legislation, the phrase leaped from 00:03:37.479 --> 00:03:40.560 the pages of academic theory directly onto the 00:03:40.560 --> 00:03:43.330 debate stage. Prominent Democrats, including 00:03:43.330 --> 00:03:46.409 Nancy Pelosi and Barbara Boxer, grabbed this 00:03:46.409 --> 00:03:49.370 specific phrase to push back against the sudden 00:03:49.370 --> 00:03:51.990 surge in state and federal bills. They weaponized 00:03:51.990 --> 00:03:53.830 it, essentially. Okay, let's unpack this because 00:03:53.830 --> 00:03:56.610 this transition is fascinating to me. Is this 00:03:56.610 --> 00:03:59.550 evolution essentially taking a highly specialized, 00:03:59.969 --> 00:04:02.389 delicate surgical scalpel out of an academic 00:04:02.389 --> 00:04:04.530 laboratory? And carrying it out onto the campaign 00:04:04.530 --> 00:04:07.370 trail? Yeah, and forging it into a blunt political 00:04:07.370 --> 00:04:09.610 broadsword. That's a great way to look at it. 00:04:09.729 --> 00:04:11.830 Because when a concept moves from the nuance 00:04:11.830 --> 00:04:15.469 of sociology or gender studies into the raw arena 00:04:15.469 --> 00:04:18.470 of electoral politics, it inevitably changes 00:04:18.470 --> 00:04:21.290 shape. It has to, right? To survive. Exactly. 00:04:21.829 --> 00:04:24.889 In that transition, the term lost its academic 00:04:24.889 --> 00:04:28.550 subtlety. It wasn't about slow, structural media 00:04:28.550 --> 00:04:31.209 critiques anymore. It became an urgent, immediate 00:04:31.209 --> 00:04:33.649 alarm bell. Right. And when it traded in nuance, 00:04:33.829 --> 00:04:36.370 it gained an unprecedented mobilization power. 00:04:36.509 --> 00:04:39.250 It gave a disparate group of voters across the 00:04:39.250 --> 00:04:42.870 country a single unified rallying cry that felt 00:04:43.629 --> 00:04:46.670 Well, existential. But a political broadsword 00:04:46.670 --> 00:04:49.269 needs a physical target to strike at. You can't 00:04:49.269 --> 00:04:51.509 just shout war into the void and expect a new 00:04:51.509 --> 00:04:53.790 cycle to sustain it. No, you need actual ammunition. 00:04:53.990 --> 00:04:56.329 And according to the sources, this slogan exploded 00:04:56.329 --> 00:04:59.189 precisely because there was an actual unprecedented 00:04:59.189 --> 00:05:02.389 wave of state -level policies introduced in 2011 00:05:02.389 --> 00:05:05.750 and 2012. The sheer volume of legislation introduced 00:05:05.750 --> 00:05:08.290 during that narrow window is staggering. Just 00:05:08.290 --> 00:05:10.490 how much are we talking about? In 2011 alone, 00:05:10.649 --> 00:05:13.509 State legislatures across the United States introduced 00:05:13.509 --> 00:05:16.129 over 1 ,100 individual provisions related to 00:05:16.129 --> 00:05:19.509 women's reproductive health. Over 1 ,100 provisions 00:05:19.509 --> 00:05:22.610 in a single year? In one year, yeah. What does 00:05:22.610 --> 00:05:25.290 that actually look like on the ground for a voter? 00:05:25.769 --> 00:05:27.829 Well, a massive portion of these were focused 00:05:27.829 --> 00:05:30.769 on restricting abortion access, fundamentally 00:05:30.769 --> 00:05:33.149 changing the landscape of reproductive health 00:05:33.149 --> 00:05:36.339 care. You had states pushing for strict new gestational 00:05:36.339 --> 00:05:39.160 limits. Like Arizona, right. Yeah, Arizona passed 00:05:39.160 --> 00:05:41.639 legislation banning abortions occurring 20 weeks 00:05:41.639 --> 00:05:44.259 after a woman's last menstrual period. Other 00:05:44.259 --> 00:05:46.379 states started testing the waters with bans in 00:05:46.379 --> 00:05:48.819 six weeks. But perhaps the most mechanically 00:05:48.819 --> 00:05:53.180 effective tactic was the rise of TRAP laws. Targeted 00:05:53.180 --> 00:05:55.680 regulation of abortion providers. Right. And 00:05:55.680 --> 00:05:58.899 the mechanism of a TRA law is crucial to understand 00:05:58.899 --> 00:06:01.779 here. These laws didn't explicitly make abortion 00:06:01.779 --> 00:06:04.019 illegal. Because that would immediately trigger 00:06:04.019 --> 00:06:06.589 a Supreme Court challenge. Spot on. Instead, 00:06:06.730 --> 00:06:09.149 they placed incredibly heavy, often medically 00:06:09.149 --> 00:06:11.970 unnecessary regulatory burdens on the clinics 00:06:11.970 --> 00:06:14.189 themselves. Like what kind of burdens? Imagine 00:06:14.189 --> 00:06:16.750 running a small outpatient health clinic and 00:06:16.750 --> 00:06:19.050 suddenly a new state law dictates that your hallways 00:06:19.050 --> 00:06:21.410 must be the exact width of a major hospital surgical 00:06:21.410 --> 00:06:24.550 corridor. Oh, wow. Or that your doctors must 00:06:24.550 --> 00:06:27.110 have admitting privileges at a local hospital 00:06:27.110 --> 00:06:30.610 that outright refuses to grant them. So you aren't 00:06:30.610 --> 00:06:33.199 being told you can't provide health care. You 00:06:33.199 --> 00:06:36.060 are simply being legislated out of physical existence. 00:06:36.459 --> 00:06:38.680 Exactly. Clinics across the country were forced 00:06:38.680 --> 00:06:40.959 to shut down entirely because they just couldn't 00:06:40.959 --> 00:06:42.620 afford the renovations. And it wasn't just the 00:06:42.620 --> 00:06:44.699 medical procedures being targeted, it was the 00:06:44.699 --> 00:06:47.279 financial lifeblood of the organizations providing 00:06:47.279 --> 00:06:51.389 them. The sources detail a massive coordinated 00:06:51.389 --> 00:06:54.389 effort to defund Planned Parenthood at both the 00:06:54.389 --> 00:06:56.910 state and federal levels. Which led to a massive 00:06:56.910 --> 00:07:00.269 cultural flashpoint in early 2012 involving the 00:07:00.269 --> 00:07:03.480 Susan G. Komen Breast Cancer Foundation. I remember 00:07:03.480 --> 00:07:05.839 this. Komen announced they were pulling their 00:07:05.839 --> 00:07:08.560 funding from Planned Parenthood. Yes. They set 00:07:08.560 --> 00:07:11.319 it a newly created internal rule that prohibited 00:07:11.319 --> 00:07:13.540 funding organizations under government investigation. 00:07:13.779 --> 00:07:15.920 And Planned Parenthood was facing a congressional 00:07:15.920 --> 00:07:18.500 inquiry at the time, spearheaded by conservative 00:07:18.500 --> 00:07:20.379 lawmakers. Right. And that decision triggered 00:07:20.379 --> 00:07:23.360 an absolute public relations earthquake. It perfectly 00:07:23.360 --> 00:07:25.459 illustrated the mechanism of corporate pressure 00:07:25.459 --> 00:07:28.449 colliding with grassroots outrage. The backlash 00:07:28.449 --> 00:07:31.629 was so immediate, so fierce, and heavily localized 00:07:31.629 --> 00:07:35.350 on social media, it became a complete PR nightmare 00:07:35.350 --> 00:07:38.589 for them. It was unprecedented. Just four days 00:07:38.589 --> 00:07:40.810 after the announcement, the Coleman Board of 00:07:40.810 --> 00:07:43.550 Directors reversed the decision entirely. Four 00:07:43.550 --> 00:07:46.009 days. Yeah. And several top -level staff members 00:07:46.009 --> 00:07:48.689 ended up resigning over it. It showed politicians 00:07:48.689 --> 00:07:51.310 just how volatile and energized this battlefield 00:07:51.310 --> 00:07:54.129 had become. And if the funding battles were volatile, 00:07:54.529 --> 00:07:56.930 the push for mandatory ultrasounds was visceral. 00:07:57.610 --> 00:08:00.209 This is where the political rhetoric really started 00:08:00.209 --> 00:08:02.829 to collide with the physical reality of the legislation. 00:08:03.329 --> 00:08:05.970 Right, because several states passed laws requiring 00:08:05.970 --> 00:08:09.370 women seeking abortions to first undergo a government 00:08:09.370 --> 00:08:11.790 mandated ultrasound. And some of these laws required 00:08:11.790 --> 00:08:14.050 the woman to view the image or listen to the 00:08:14.050 --> 00:08:16.769 fetal heartbeat. But because of the medical realities 00:08:16.769 --> 00:08:19.709 of early pregnancy, an abdominal ultrasound often 00:08:19.709 --> 00:08:22.339 doesn't work. The mandate frequently required 00:08:22.339 --> 00:08:25.060 a transvaginal ultrasound. An incredibly invasive 00:08:25.060 --> 00:08:28.339 internal procedure. Yes. And you have politicians 00:08:28.339 --> 00:08:30.860 suddenly trying to defend government mandated 00:08:30.860 --> 00:08:34.080 invasive medical procedures, sometimes with disastrously 00:08:34.080 --> 00:08:36.720 chosen words. Like Pennsylvania Governor Tom 00:08:36.720 --> 00:08:39.659 Corbett. Oh, exactly. He was asked about his 00:08:39.659 --> 00:08:42.759 state's mandatory ultrasound bill, and he drew 00:08:42.759 --> 00:08:45.759 intense national criticism when he told reporters 00:08:45.759 --> 00:08:47.879 that women didn't have to look at the image. 00:08:48.059 --> 00:08:50.019 He famously said, you just have to close your 00:08:50.019 --> 00:08:52.840 eyes. Yeah. When you are the political opposition 00:08:52.840 --> 00:08:57.039 trying to prove a literal war on women is happening, 00:08:57.539 --> 00:08:59.700 an elected official telling women to just close 00:08:59.700 --> 00:09:02.429 your eyes. during a mandated medical procedure 00:09:02.429 --> 00:09:05.529 is, well, it's essentially handing the opposition 00:09:05.529 --> 00:09:08.049 their entire campaign strategy on a silver platter. 00:09:08.409 --> 00:09:10.549 But the legislation driving this narrative wasn't 00:09:10.549 --> 00:09:13.169 exclusively about reproductive rights. The sources 00:09:13.169 --> 00:09:15.350 show the narrative expanding into the workplace, 00:09:15.769 --> 00:09:19.049 which is a major shift. A huge shift. In Wisconsin, 00:09:19.450 --> 00:09:21.769 Governor Scott Walker repealed the state's Equal 00:09:21.769 --> 00:09:23.950 Pay Enforcement Act. And Walker defended the 00:09:23.950 --> 00:09:27.129 repeal by arguing the law just incentivized trial 00:09:27.129 --> 00:09:29.889 lawyers to sue job creators and was clogging 00:09:29.889 --> 00:09:32.409 up the legal system. But opponents immediately 00:09:32.409 --> 00:09:35.570 framed the repeal as a direct attack on women's 00:09:35.570 --> 00:09:38.049 economic equality. And the defense of the repeal 00:09:38.049 --> 00:09:41.049 provided even more rhetorical fuel. Right. Republican 00:09:41.049 --> 00:09:44.029 State Senator Glenn Grothman defended it by arguing 00:09:44.029 --> 00:09:46.409 that, and this is a direct quote from the source, 00:09:47.070 --> 00:09:49.590 money is more important for men because they 00:09:49.590 --> 00:09:52.220 might expect to be breadwinners someday. a statement 00:09:52.220 --> 00:09:53.940 that did not go over what? Wait, I'm stuck on 00:09:53.940 --> 00:09:57.259 something here. You've got highly personal, deeply 00:09:57.259 --> 00:09:59.580 complex reproductive health care on one side, 00:09:59.620 --> 00:10:02.940 and then you have a purely economic policy, like 00:10:02.940 --> 00:10:05.620 equal pay or workplace litigation in Wisconsin 00:10:05.620 --> 00:10:09.600 on the other. If you throw all of these vastly 00:10:09.600 --> 00:10:12.159 different issues into one giant bucket called 00:10:12.159 --> 00:10:15.320 a war, doesn't the word war just lose all its 00:10:15.320 --> 00:10:17.750 meaning to the average voter? Does it dilute 00:10:17.750 --> 00:10:19.350 the impact, you mean? Yeah, exactly. Does it 00:10:19.350 --> 00:10:21.230 just become background noise? What's fascinating 00:10:21.230 --> 00:10:23.389 here is that grouping these disparate issues 00:10:23.389 --> 00:10:26.169 was a highly calculated, deliberate strategy. 00:10:26.350 --> 00:10:29.129 Really? Yeah. Think about it. If you only argue 00:10:29.129 --> 00:10:31.970 about a 20 -week abortion ban, you are having 00:10:31.970 --> 00:10:35.429 an isolated debate about one specific medical 00:10:35.429 --> 00:10:38.309 and moral issue. Voters can compartmentalize 00:10:38.309 --> 00:10:40.450 that. OK, that makes sense. But if you link that 00:10:40.450 --> 00:10:44.460 abortion ban to a repeal of equal pay, and link 00:10:44.460 --> 00:10:47.159 that to a defunding of a family planning clinic, 00:10:47.700 --> 00:10:50.460 you stop arguing about individual policies. You're 00:10:50.460 --> 00:10:53.220 painting a picture of a comprehensive narrative. 00:10:53.480 --> 00:10:55.940 So the strategy was to convince voters that this 00:10:55.940 --> 00:10:58.460 wasn't a series of unrelated laws, but rather 00:10:58.460 --> 00:11:01.460 a broad systemic hostility toward women in general. 00:11:01.659 --> 00:11:03.360 Exactly. It connects the dots for the voter. 00:11:03.500 --> 00:11:06.000 It builds a pattern. But as we see in the historical 00:11:06.000 --> 00:11:09.720 data, dry policy changes, regulatory text, and 00:11:09.720 --> 00:11:12.100 even systemic narratives only get you so far. 00:11:12.620 --> 00:11:15.340 What truly poured gasoline on this fire and made 00:11:15.340 --> 00:11:18.220 war on women a household phrase wasn't a bill 00:11:18.220 --> 00:11:20.960 passed in a state house. It was a series of viral, 00:11:21.299 --> 00:11:24.340 highly personal, foot -in -mouth gaffes by individual 00:11:24.340 --> 00:11:27.059 politicians. The legislation laid the dry brush, 00:11:27.440 --> 00:11:30.460 but human error was the spark. And no scark was 00:11:30.460 --> 00:11:32.879 bigger than the Todd Akin moment in August of 00:11:32.879 --> 00:11:35.519 2012. Oh, man. Todd Akin was a Missouri Senate 00:11:35.519 --> 00:11:37.519 candidate who was asked in an interview about 00:11:37.519 --> 00:11:39.879 his opposition to abortion in instances of rape. 00:11:40.039 --> 00:11:42.220 And he falsely claimed that women who are victims 00:11:42.220 --> 00:11:45.480 of what he called legitimate rape rarely experience 00:11:45.480 --> 00:11:48.139 pregnancy. Because, according to him, the female 00:11:48.139 --> 00:11:50.620 body has ways to try to shut that whole thing 00:11:50.620 --> 00:11:53.460 down. A statement that is medically and scientifically 00:11:53.460 --> 00:11:56.820 entirely false. The medical community immediately 00:11:56.820 --> 00:11:59.149 debunked it. But the psychological and political 00:11:59.149 --> 00:12:02.230 fallout was a tsunami. It really was. The phrase 00:12:02.230 --> 00:12:04.950 legitimate rape didn't just highlight scientific 00:12:04.950 --> 00:12:07.850 illiteracy. It implied a hierarchy of assault. 00:12:07.929 --> 00:12:10.830 It suggested some victims were to be believed 00:12:10.830 --> 00:12:13.090 and others weren't. And the sources describe 00:12:13.090 --> 00:12:15.889 an absolute stampede of Republicans trying to 00:12:15.889 --> 00:12:17.789 distance themselves from a kin. Presidential 00:12:17.789 --> 00:12:20.070 candidate Mitt Romney and his running mate Paul 00:12:20.070 --> 00:12:22.750 Ryan publicly disagreed with him. Republican 00:12:22.750 --> 00:12:25.429 National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus called 00:12:25.429 --> 00:12:29.399 the comments, stupid and demanded Aiken step 00:12:29.399 --> 00:12:31.559 down. They even pulled his campaign funding. 00:12:31.820 --> 00:12:33.860 But the damage to the broader party's image was 00:12:33.860 --> 00:12:36.960 already done. And the gaks kept coming. Yeah. 00:12:37.159 --> 00:12:39.240 We also had the massive controversy over the 00:12:39.240 --> 00:12:41.799 Obamacare birth control mandate, which required 00:12:41.799 --> 00:12:45.340 health plans to cover contraceptives. This sparked 00:12:45.340 --> 00:12:48.480 a legitimate, complex legal debate over religious 00:12:48.480 --> 00:12:50.740 freedom for institutions that didn't want to 00:12:50.740 --> 00:12:53.080 provide that coverage. But the complexity of 00:12:53.080 --> 00:12:57.120 that debate vanished in early 2012 when Republican 00:12:57.120 --> 00:13:00.120 Congressman Darrell Issa convened a panel to 00:13:00.120 --> 00:13:02.519 address the religious freedom aspect. It was 00:13:02.519 --> 00:13:05.740 an all -male panel. Yep. He actively barred a 00:13:05.740 --> 00:13:08.580 female Georgetown law student named Sandra Fluke 00:13:08.580 --> 00:13:10.899 from testifying about the medical necessity of 00:13:10.899 --> 00:13:13.159 contraceptives, arguing she wasn't a member of 00:13:13.159 --> 00:13:15.519 the clergy. So Democratic representatives hosted 00:13:15.519 --> 00:13:18.659 a separate, unofficial panel just so she could 00:13:18.659 --> 00:13:21.179 speak. And that led to conservative talk show 00:13:21.179 --> 00:13:24.399 host Rush Limbaugh spending three days on air. 00:13:24.590 --> 00:13:27.269 brutally attacking Sandra Flu, calling her a 00:13:27.269 --> 00:13:30.210 slut and a prostitute for wanting contraceptive 00:13:30.210 --> 00:13:32.750 coverage. Wow. And right around that same time, 00:13:32.850 --> 00:13:35.429 you had Foster Fries, a billionaire donor supporting 00:13:35.429 --> 00:13:38.330 Republican Rick Santorum, suggesting on television 00:13:38.330 --> 00:13:40.529 that back in his day, women just used aspirin 00:13:40.529 --> 00:13:42.610 as contraception. Right, by putting it between 00:13:42.610 --> 00:13:44.850 their knees. I mean, why do these viral sound 00:13:44.850 --> 00:13:48.009 bites, the aspirin, the legitimate rape comment, 00:13:48.169 --> 00:13:50.870 the name calling, completely overwrite the policy 00:13:50.870 --> 00:13:53.250 in a voter's mind? That's a great question. Do 00:13:53.250 --> 00:13:55.870 these gaffes act like political lightning rods 00:13:55.870 --> 00:13:58.750 that effectively blind the public to the actual 00:13:58.750 --> 00:14:01.570 nuanced text of the legislation being debated? 00:14:02.190 --> 00:14:04.929 Were voters reacting to the laws or just the 00:14:04.929 --> 00:14:07.210 gaffes? If we connect this to the bigger picture, 00:14:07.769 --> 00:14:10.149 it's a prime example of the cognitive psychology 00:14:10.149 --> 00:14:13.070 of voting. How so? Human brains look for cognitive 00:14:13.070 --> 00:14:16.370 ease. Processing a 500 -page health care mandate 00:14:16.370 --> 00:14:19.750 or the intricacies of religious liberty law requires 00:14:19.750 --> 00:14:22.730 immense mental effort. That's true. It's exhausting. 00:14:23.009 --> 00:14:25.269 But processing a billionaire telling women to 00:14:25.269 --> 00:14:28.009 put aspirin between their knees takes zero effort. 00:14:28.350 --> 00:14:31.539 It triggers an immediate visceral emotional response. 00:14:32.000 --> 00:14:34.120 So in the eyes of the electorate, these extreme 00:14:34.120 --> 00:14:36.799 rhetorical missteps by a few individuals end 00:14:36.799 --> 00:14:39.460 up defining an entire party's platform. Exactly. 00:14:39.799 --> 00:14:41.879 The gaps prove the slogan's premise to voters 00:14:41.879 --> 00:14:43.960 who are already on the fence. But there is a 00:14:43.960 --> 00:14:46.120 massive difference between dominating a news 00:14:46.120 --> 00:14:48.440 cycle with outrage and actually getting people 00:14:48.440 --> 00:14:50.700 to check a box on a ballot. Oh, absolutely. When 00:14:50.700 --> 00:14:52.899 all of this rhetoric finally hit the electorate, 00:14:53.100 --> 00:14:55.779 did it actually change voting behavior? How did 00:14:55.779 --> 00:14:59.059 this volatile mix perform when everyday voters? 00:14:59.340 --> 00:15:01.659 when you stepped into the booth? In a short term, 00:15:02.299 --> 00:15:04.320 specifically the 2012 presidential election, 00:15:04.919 --> 00:15:08.000 it was incredibly effective. The Obama campaign 00:15:08.000 --> 00:15:10.200 heavily utilized the narrative, particularly 00:15:10.200 --> 00:15:12.399 leaning into the birth control mandate. painting 00:15:12.399 --> 00:15:14.620 the opposition as completely out of touch with 00:15:14.620 --> 00:15:16.840 modern women's lives. Right, and this contributed 00:15:16.840 --> 00:15:19.320 to a massive gender gap in voting, which was 00:15:19.320 --> 00:15:21.620 a significant factor in Obama's victory. But 00:15:21.620 --> 00:15:24.179 the sources point to a fascinating academic backlash, 00:15:24.659 --> 00:15:26.779 because as powerful as the message was for some 00:15:26.779 --> 00:15:29.340 voters, it actually actively repelled others. 00:15:29.659 --> 00:15:32.580 Yeah, a 2017 Cambridge Core study looked back 00:15:32.580 --> 00:15:36.259 at that 2012 data and found that the war on women 00:15:36.259 --> 00:15:39.639 rhetoric actually drove away a very specific 00:15:39.639 --> 00:15:42.059 demographic of male voters. This study identified 00:15:42.059 --> 00:15:44.139 a psychological concept called modern sexism, 00:15:44.139 --> 00:15:47.100 right? Yes. How does modern sexism function mechanically 00:15:47.100 --> 00:15:49.519 in a voter's mind? I mean, is it just overt prejudice? 00:15:49.940 --> 00:15:52.600 Not exactly. It's not necessarily about explicit 00:15:52.600 --> 00:15:55.860 hostility toward women. Modern sexism is defined 00:15:55.860 --> 00:15:59.399 as the deeply held belief that systemic sex discrimination 00:15:59.399 --> 00:16:02.320 was essentially fixed. decades ago. Oh, I see. 00:16:02.759 --> 00:16:05.379 So therefore, women shouldn't be receiving special 00:16:05.379 --> 00:16:08.259 focus or advantages in current policy. When a 00:16:08.259 --> 00:16:10.419 political campaign heavily utilizes a phrase 00:16:10.419 --> 00:16:14.019 like war on women, a voter with modern sexist 00:16:14.019 --> 00:16:16.840 views feels gaslit or manipulated. They think, 00:16:17.120 --> 00:16:19.039 we fixed this in the 70s, why are you acting 00:16:19.039 --> 00:16:21.379 like the sky is falling? Precisely. The study 00:16:21.379 --> 00:16:24.080 found that men who held these views, even those 00:16:24.080 --> 00:16:26.740 who might typically lean liberal on other issues, 00:16:27.360 --> 00:16:29.419 felt alienated by the rhetoric. It triggered 00:16:29.419 --> 00:16:31.980 a defensive voting pattern. Right. Significantly 00:16:31.980 --> 00:16:33.980 increasing the likelihood that those men voted 00:16:33.980 --> 00:16:36.159 for Mitt Romney instead. Here's where it gets 00:16:36.159 --> 00:16:38.559 really interesting. It's like this political 00:16:38.559 --> 00:16:41.879 slogan was a highly potent but ultimately unstable 00:16:41.879 --> 00:16:44.139 rocket fuel. And stable is the perfect word. 00:16:44.259 --> 00:16:46.340 It propelled the Democrats to a massive victory 00:16:46.340 --> 00:16:49.379 in 2012. But by the 2014 midterms, when they 00:16:49.379 --> 00:16:51.860 tried to pour the exact same formula into the 00:16:51.860 --> 00:16:54.259 engine, the rocket blew up on the launch pad. 00:16:54.700 --> 00:16:58.620 The magic wore off. It did. By 2014, the Republican 00:16:58.620 --> 00:17:01.159 Party had adapted to the psychological terrain. 00:17:01.389 --> 00:17:05.210 They launched a highly coordinated counteroffensive 00:17:05.210 --> 00:17:08.130 to neutralize the cognitive ease of the slogan. 00:17:08.390 --> 00:17:10.329 What did that look like? Well, they actively 00:17:10.329 --> 00:17:12.529 pushed back against the narrative by supporting 00:17:12.529 --> 00:17:15.049 policies like over -the -counter birth control 00:17:15.049 --> 00:17:18.109 access, trying to appear proactive on women's 00:17:18.109 --> 00:17:20.230 health. And they also started aggressively pointing 00:17:20.230 --> 00:17:23.769 out democratic hypocrisy, highlighting high -profile 00:17:23.769 --> 00:17:26.289 sex scandals involving prominent Democrats like 00:17:26.289 --> 00:17:29.089 Anthony Weiner and Eliot Spitzer. The argument 00:17:29.089 --> 00:17:32.380 was simple. You claim we are waging a war, but 00:17:32.380 --> 00:17:34.740 look at how your own leaders treat women behind 00:17:34.740 --> 00:17:37.619 closed doors. Wow. And in many races, the Democrats 00:17:37.619 --> 00:17:40.000 severely overplayed their hand. They really did. 00:17:40.170 --> 00:17:42.849 In Colorado, incumbent Democratic Senator Mark 00:17:42.849 --> 00:17:45.690 Udall ran so heavily on abortion rights and the 00:17:45.690 --> 00:17:48.349 war on women narrative, to the exclusion of almost 00:17:48.349 --> 00:17:50.750 all other economic issues, that his opponents 00:17:50.750 --> 00:17:53.130 in the media actually nicknamed him Mark Uterus. 00:17:53.329 --> 00:17:56.670 Mark Uterus. That's brutal. Yeah. He ended up 00:17:56.670 --> 00:17:59.049 losing his seat to Republican Cory Gardner, who 00:17:59.049 --> 00:18:01.730 effectively neutralized the attacks by pivoting 00:18:01.730 --> 00:18:05.380 to broader economic messages. And the GOP leadership 00:18:05.380 --> 00:18:07.579 was actively mocking the phrase by this point, 00:18:07.839 --> 00:18:11.380 totally sapping its power. RNC chairman Reince 00:18:11.380 --> 00:18:14.519 Priebus famously said that if Democrats claimed 00:18:14.519 --> 00:18:17.119 Republicans had a war on caterpillars and the 00:18:17.119 --> 00:18:19.359 media repeated it enough, eventually people would 00:18:19.359 --> 00:18:21.799 think we have a caterpillar problem. And Republican 00:18:21.799 --> 00:18:24.380 Representative Cathy McMorris Rogers flat out 00:18:24.380 --> 00:18:27.559 called the war on women an election year myth 00:18:27.559 --> 00:18:30.720 engineered in a lab to drive a political wedge. 00:18:30.920 --> 00:18:34.220 So it completely lost its bite. This raises an 00:18:34.220 --> 00:18:36.119 important question about the strict shelf life 00:18:36.119 --> 00:18:39.000 of political messaging. A slogan that wins you 00:18:39.000 --> 00:18:41.599 one election can become a massive liability in 00:18:41.599 --> 00:18:43.640 the next once the electorate builds an immunity 00:18:43.640 --> 00:18:45.940 to it. Right. However, the academic research 00:18:45.940 --> 00:18:48.700 shows it wasn't a total failure long term. A 00:18:48.700 --> 00:18:50.900 study by Katrin McCabe found that while the slogan 00:18:50.900 --> 00:18:53.859 itself caused voter fatigue, the underlying strategy 00:18:53.859 --> 00:18:56.160 successfully made issues like abortion highly 00:18:56.160 --> 00:18:58.609 salient. So what does this all mean for the voter? 00:18:58.950 --> 00:19:01.029 It means it forced voters to think deeply about 00:19:01.029 --> 00:19:02.869 their pre -existing beliefs on these specific 00:19:02.869 --> 00:19:06.289 issues. By raising the stakes to a war, it often 00:19:06.289 --> 00:19:08.430 caused voters to break from blind, inherited 00:19:08.430 --> 00:19:11.410 party loyalty. And vote based on their deep -seated 00:19:11.410 --> 00:19:14.349 moral beliefs regarding bodily autonomy and government 00:19:14.349 --> 00:19:17.150 intervention. Exactly. Why does an autopsy of 00:19:17.150 --> 00:19:19.849 a political slogan from over a decade ago matter 00:19:19.849 --> 00:19:22.789 to you right now? because it is a masterclass 00:19:22.789 --> 00:19:25.410 in how your reality is shaped by the media you 00:19:25.410 --> 00:19:28.529 consume. It really is. It shows exactly how political 00:19:28.529 --> 00:19:30.930 framing is engineered, deployed on the battlefield, 00:19:31.349 --> 00:19:34.049 and how quickly a world -changing strategy can 00:19:34.049 --> 00:19:37.150 degrade into a tired cliché. It's a reminder 00:19:37.150 --> 00:19:39.930 to look past the label on the jar, to examine 00:19:39.930 --> 00:19:42.309 the actual mechanisms of the legislation. the 00:19:42.309 --> 00:19:45.529 real world impact of a T .R .A. plaw or an equal 00:19:45.529 --> 00:19:48.490 pay repeal rather than just reacting to the viral 00:19:48.490 --> 00:19:50.869 emotional gaff surrounding it. Because when a 00:19:50.869 --> 00:19:53.470 political slogan like the war on women eventually 00:19:53.470 --> 00:19:56.109 loses its polling magic, when the highly paid 00:19:56.109 --> 00:19:58.710 consultants move on to the next phrase and the 00:19:58.710 --> 00:20:01.250 political circus packs up its tent. What's left? 00:20:01.549 --> 00:20:03.269 Right. What happens to the everyday people whose 00:20:03.269 --> 00:20:06.309 actual lives, paychecks and health care are still 00:20:06.309 --> 00:20:08.730 governed by the very real policies left behind 00:20:08.730 --> 00:20:10.869 in the wake of all that rhetoric? The architects 00:20:10.869 --> 00:20:12.910 who drew the The blueprints get to leave, but 00:20:12.910 --> 00:20:14.410 you still have to live in the house they built. 00:20:14.990 --> 00:20:17.470 A vital dynamic to consider every time you step 00:20:17.470 --> 00:20:19.930 into a voting booth. Thank you for taking this 00:20:19.930 --> 00:20:22.049 deep dive with us today. We'll be back soon to 00:20:22.049 --> 00:20:24.470 unpack another stack of sources. Until then, 00:20:24.690 --> 00:20:25.950 keep questioning the blueprints.