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| Ladies: Trump is a sexual predator, and Pence wants to own your bodies. |
The War on Women is much the cliché by now, but that doesn't make it non-existent, and Mike Pence is the poster politician for a Republican who feels you women don't know what's good for you. As for Donald Trump, you'd have to be in a coma not to know that if you're a woman he's not the one you want out front on public policy.
Beyond that, the Republican Party has lost its collective mind this election cycle, and Republican women have been noticing. Michelle Goldberg of Slate has noticed:
Earlier this month, Michigan GOP leaders told Wendy Day, the state party’s grassroots vice-chair, that she had to endorse Donald Trump or resign. Day, a former staffer for Ted Cruz, refused to do either. In a letter to the state Republican chairwoman, she wrote, “It is important for our party to represent all of the voices in our party, not just the loudest.” On Oct. 17—10 days after the release of the 2005 Access Hollywood tape in which Trump bragged about groping women—the chairwoman announced Day’s removal from the post she’d been elected to at a state convention last year.Don't support Trump? You're out, as far as Republican leadership is concerned. Wendy Day reacted:
Day remains extremely conservative, and is definitely not voting for Hillary Clinton. Still, her sense of betrayal is leading her to cast off certain political habits of mind. Until very recently, she was a “Fox News junkie,” she says. “I used to go to Drudge Report twice a day, and I used to pay attention to Breitbart. I used to have a ton of Sean Hannity books in my house, and Laura Ingraham.” But now, “that’s all been torn down. I don’t have any books in my house by those people anymore. Not that I think they’re the enemy—I don’t. I just have realized that I created an echo chamber for myself, and it was time to not do that anymore.”Good for her. Goldberg's article details a number of women who are leading lights in the GOP who've moved on because of the Republican embrace of Trump. A good article quite worth the read this cycle.
I'm not a conservative, but I have met conservatives who are thoughtful people, even as modern conservatism has, in my view, degenerated into something quite destructive to American society. The GOP, as the home of conservative thought, has perhaps reached the breaking point, at which it no longer resembles a set of beliefs to follow for a fruitful life. It's a set of horrible ideas and actions -- read inaction -- that have brought American political life to a crawl.
For women, that has given us Donald Trump, and, yes, don't forget Mike Pence. He may resemble the pastor of your church, but he's really the Indianian equivalent of Saudi Arabia's morality guard that comes around and whips you if your ankles are showing.
The Republican Party has left women. A wise woman these days should leave the Republican Party, at least until they've returned to their senses.
Bonus fun: This Samantha Bee video shows a woman with insight into today's Republican Party and where women might find a leader they can believe in:
I feel sorry for members of the GOP who simply hold more conservative views, have a greater affinity for established tradition (unlike the more progressive mindset of Democrats), who are helplessly standing by watching members like Trump and Pence taking a dump on civility, patriotism, true democracy, honesty, and the U.S. Constitution. These two men represent those in the Party who, disturbingly, display Taliban-like tendencies when it comes to women. We have Trump, a vulgar man by nature, a pathological liar, with no sense of decorum whatsoever, a mysogynist if past behavior is any indication. He is a man who easily and comfortably lies, sometimes outrageously so, because it's his part of who he is. Yet though enormously egotistical, that ego is curiously very fragile, arguably why any criticism makes him apopoplectic.
ReplyDeleteThen there's Mike Pence, who looks like someone's kindly grandfather but though perhaps not a mysogynist like Trump, nevertheless seems to hold little respect for women. Who doesn't believe they are or should be autonomous, capable of making their own decisions and definitely should not be able to make any decisions about their own bodies. Women are baby makers first and foremost, should not have the same personal liberties and freedoms guaranteed by our own Constitution.
And that's what is at stake, IMO, for Americans in this election. It is not about being a conservative or liberal. Not about showing Party loyalty. It's really about whether you believe in an America our Founding Fathers envisioned. One in which the Constitution actually matters, not something one just pays lip service to. If you believe women should have the same rights as men or we go back to a time and mindset when blacks were considered three-fifths of a person and women shouldn't have the vote at all.
If we want a government that resembles the Taliban, if we value hypocrisy over patriotism and democracy. If we want the religious beliefs of a minority dictating the mores and beliefs for and of ALL Americans.
If we want to be the United States our Founders and pioneers sacrificed so much for to create. Or if we want to be like ISIS or any other terrorist group we purport to hate. Because the scary reality is to listen to some voices, esp. those of Trump and Pence and the far right, they might actually prefer we become more like the latter.