The autopsy results have been flooding in. Democrats’ hopes of retaining the US presidency perished, so the diagnosis goes, because of what the party failed to do, and because of what it chose to do. It failed to detach itself sufficiently from a fading incumbent, and to hammer home a cogent message on the economy and migration. Simultaneously, it is claimed, Kamala Harris and her advisers relied too easily on the foundational importance of class, race, and gender. Yet these identities proved unstable supports, gender most of all.
Yes, 53 per cent of women voted for Harris. But this was less than Biden secured in 2020; while, among white women, a majority went for Trump. Gender troubles loom wider than this. There have been occasional female contenders for the presidency since the 1960s. None has succeeded. Across the globe, the number of women elected heads of state has risen markedly since 2000. That the glass ceiling of the White House remains intact, one US broadcaster has declared, is “almost uniquely an American problem”. It is not.
Historically, it has hardly ever been the case that a great power has chosen to be led by a female. Unless, that is, the woman in question has been royal or possessed of a blood relationship with a former leader who was male.