Staff Reports
Joy Behar’s latest on-air broadside — that Americans would sooner elect “an obese, Jewish, Black, homosexual before a woman” — didn’t land in a vacuum. Her comment on The View collided with Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez quietly weighing a 2028 presidential bid and openly saying she thinks about her identity when judging electability. The result: a live, messy argument about whether identity politics explains Democratic losses or whether bad candidates do.
Behar’s claim reignites the electability debate
On a recent episode of The View, Joy Behar doubled down on a sweeping claim that the country won’t elect a woman president. Co-host Star Jones agreed. Other hosts pushed back — Sara Haines warned “You don’t win on identity alone, and you don’t lose on identity alone,” and Alyssa Farah Griffin predicted a woman would reach the White House in the next 20 years. The clash played out like a snapshot of Democratic confusion: theatrical certainty on one side, uneasy realism on the other.
AOC’s 2028 musings make the moment awkward for the left
At almost the same time, Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez told The New York Times she is seriously thinking about 2028 and that “pretty candidly, I think about my identity” when weighing electability. That admission undercuts Behar’s fatalism. If identity were the only variable, party strategists would be able to predict outcomes conclusively. Instead, AOC’s prudence shows even progressive politicians treat identity as one factor among many — not a closed-door verdict on a woman’s chances.
Critics say it’s about policy and personality, not chromosomes
Conservative critics and some independents have a blunt answer: it’s the candidates, stupid. Patrice Onwuka points out that Hillary Clinton and Kamala Harris had specific liabilities and messaging failures that cost votes. Psychotherapist Jonathan Alpert also noted the math problem: two losses don’t prove a permanent rule about voters. Even polling shows rising skepticism that the U.S. will elect a woman in people’s lifetimes, but skepticism isn’t the same as inevitability. Blaming voters or claiming a cultural death sentence for female candidates lets parties dodge responsibility for bad campaigns and unpopular policies.
Bottom line: Democrats should fix strategy, not play identity Blame Bingo
Behar’s pronouncement sounds dramatic, but it’s a dodge. It’s easier for the left to blame “voters won’t elect a woman” than to admit repeated messaging and policy choices turned off swing voters. If Democrats want a woman in the Oval Office, they should focus on building broad appeal, not staging identity theater and then treating the electorate like an immutable enemy. Conservatives should welcome the debate — it exposes the left’s intellectual shortcuts and keeps the focus where it belongs: on who can win, not who can claim the moral high ground on cable TV.
