Cosmopolitan magazine has launched “#CosmoVotes,” a campaign that endorses liberal candidates and then pushes women to vote for them.
1. Vote Because the Election Is November 4 and ‘Four Is Beyoncé’s Favorite Number’
“If you liked it then you shoulda put a vote on it,” says a meme on the magazine’s website. “Four is Beyonce’s favorite number. Do it for her.” Ironically, #CosmoVotes will later complain about how offensive the phrase “Beyoncé voters” is.
2. “These Hot Male Models” Want You to Vote
“You know who else wants you to vote? These hot male models and all of us here at Cosmopolitan.com,” states a post that links to a video of shirtless men dancing around with “V-O-T-E” balloons to the tune of “Your vote is your voice.”
3. Kendall Jenner wants you to vote
The magazine shared a video of Kendall Jenner telling people to vote, complete with the explanation that “The Kardashians have . . . power over Millennials.” The author predicts: “The Jenner-West ticket in 2020 is going to be a game-changer, I promise.”
4. Your ‘Birth Control Could Be at Stake’
Conservatives are apparently birth-control bandits who want you to be pregnant all the time. “Your right to an abortion — and in some cases, even birth control — could be at stake,” advises a post titled “10 Reasons Young Women Absolutely Need to Vote in the Midterms.” Of course, no Republican has said he or she plans to outlaw birth control, but apparently the magazine does not consider that worth mentioning.
5. Republicans Oppose Hiking the Minimum Wage, and That’s Sexist
Republicans have moved their invasion “from your uterus to your pocketbook,” the magazine warns. After all, conservatives oppose minimum-wage hikes and that is clearly sexist because more women work minimum-wage jobs than men: “The face of the minimum-wage worker in the United States isn’t a lawn-mowing teenage boy,” Cosmo explained. “It’s a 35-year-old single women [sic].” Never mind that basic economics leads us to expect that hiking the minimum wage would lead to fewer of these jobs and/or more expensive products. Never mind that.
6. Evil Conservative Fox News Thinks Women Are Just Stupid ‘Beyoncé Voters’
Apparently forgetting that they themselves used Beyoncé to try to get women to vote (see No. 1), the magazine slams Fox News for using the “extremely offensive phrase” “Beyoncé Voters.”
7. We Will Pick You Up in a ‘~pArTy bUs~’ So You Can Vote
Cosmo will be sending a “~pArTy bUs~” to North Carolina State University to pick up students and take them to vote. The bus will be “ stocked with snacks, prizes” and — you guessed it! — “shirtless male models.”
8. Lil Jon and Lena Dunham Want You To Vote
During a “Rock the Vote” music video featured on Cosmo’s site called “Turn Out for What,” the rapper says, “It’s Lil Jon, and I’m turning out for the legalization of marijuana,” and then pretends to smoke a giant joint. Lena Dunham says that she is “turning out for reproductive rights,” then proceeds to dance around without pants on. Who could argue with that?
9. Voting for a Republican Is Voting for Someone ‘Troubling,’ ‘An Extremist Who Rails Against the Poor,’ ‘An Anti-Choice Radical’
All of these terms were used to describe a Republican candidate in one of the magazine’s endorsements of a liberal one.
— Katherine Timpf is a reporter at National Review Online.