Whether they like it or not, Donald Trump’s gonna protect women
What happens in the voting booth stays in the voting booth, unless a bunch of MAGA punks block your way. The Trump campaign is really ramping up the misogyny as the campaign finishes. From the ex president’s speeches to “jokes” on social media they’re giving it their all.
What they’re not joking about is the impact of abortion bans on real, live, women. Like Josseli Barnica, who’s dead now because a hospital refused to treat her after a 17th week miscarriage. Her toddler will grow up not knowing her mother because Texas has an abortion ban that threatens medical caregivers with prosecution for doing the right thing.
In Georgia, Amber Nicole Thurman’s death was ruled “preventable” after doctors feared prosecution if they performed a routine medical procedure now banned under state law.
So-called ProLife conservatives can’t even be bothered with hopes and prayers for women who die in abortion ban states. Babies are dying at higher rates (up 7%) following rights restrictions put in place by Trump-enabled Republicans, according to JAMA Pediatrics.
No doubt about it, there are women across the political spectrum who are pissed off at what’s happening supposedly in the name of Jesus. Trump can say “everybody” wanted Roe v Wade overturned all he wants. That’s just a way of trying to avoid a conversation about abortion.
Republicans do want the world to know that they are enraged about the ad campaign aimed at suburban housewives.
"In the one place in America where women still have a right to choose, you can vote any way you want, and no one will ever know," actress Julia Roberts narrates in the ad. "Remember, what happens in the booth, stays in the booth. Vote Harris-Walz."
Charlie Kirk, fearless leader at Turning Point USA, is upset that Republican women may “undermine their husbands” and secretly vote for Harris while telling their husbands they voted for Trump, even though the husband “works his tail off to make sure that she can have a nice life.” Besides, this is distracting from his Elon Musk financed grift that’s supposed to be taking care of voter turnout.
Fox News’ Jesse Watters opined that if he caught his wife “going into the voting booth and pulling the lever for Harris, that's the same thing as having an affair.” After seeing the Julia Roberts ad, John McEntee, a former Trump White House aide and Project 2025 author ‘joked’ about repealing the 19th Amendment giving women the right to vote.
Former House speaker Newt Gingrich, who cheated on his first two wives, expressed dismay that a woman might need to keep her vote secret from her husband. “For them to tell people to lie is just one further example of the depth of their corruption,” he said. “How do you run a country…saying wives should lie to their husbands, husbands should lie to their wives? I mean, what kind of a totally amoral, corrupt, sick system have the Democrats developed?”
Candidate Trump continues with his Big Daddy pitch to women: “I want to protect the women of our country,” Trump said at a Wisconsin rally. “They said sir I just think it’s inappropriate for you to say… I said, "Well, I’m gonna do it whether the women like it or not.”
As Jill Filipovic said at her Substack:
This is the misogyny election. It’s the election of abortion bans. It’s the election of conservative husbands who are enraged at the very thought of their wives having minds of their own. It’s the election of a man who boasts about sexual assault and demeans women who challenge him in the crudest of terms.
Knowing they face a gender gap, the Trump campaign has been going after aggrieved young men who feel they’ve been robbed of their male birthright to power. It’s built around an implicit promise to give them control over women, including their bodies. Speaker after speaker at the Madison Square Garden Rally dished out misogynistic language, because Trump has given them license to say whatever they want about women.
Here’s Susan Milliagan at The New Republic:
The overt sexism throughout the night, even by the standards of Trump’s nearly decade-long political career, was astonishing. Less surprising, given the campaign he’s run this year, was the figurative crotch-grabbing on display. When Trump running mate JD Vance mentioned Tim Walz, his Democratic counterpart, the crowd erupted into “tampon Tim” chants—to which Vance laughed. (Explainer here, if you need one.) And the “comedian” who opened the rally, Tony Hinchcliffe, said that Latinos “love making babies. There’s no pulling out. They come inside, just like they do to our country.”
Former U.N. ambassador Nikki Haley responded to Trump’s New York City rally by lamenting the “bromance” that Trump is fostering and calling it “overly masculine.”
Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson recently promised that Trump would return to the White House like an abusive father, ready to dispense corporal punishment to get his children — that is, Americans who deviate from how Trumpworld thinks they should act — back in line.
Another manifestation of women-hating is Elon Musk’s PAC’s ad saying Kamala Harris is the “C-word.” Their lame comeback, after it got flack on social media, was that the “C” was actually supposed to mean Communist.
Finally there is the aspect of testosterone-triggered male Trumpers taking it upon themselves to show up at polling places and harass women trying to vote. It’s been reported to police in Florida, Georgia, and Arizona; I’ve seen enough videos posted by women to convince me this is a tactic being quietly (or not) encouraged by Republican local affiliates.
From the Dean’s Report:
First, there was the very disturbing incident in Florida where a group of Trump supporting male teens went to a voting location with the express intention to harass and intimidate people supporting Vice President Harris. As the police reported, 18-year-old Caleb James Williams-a white teenager—along with his other young male friends went to an early voting location in Neptune, Florida—waving Trump flags and chanting “Trump!” Their goal—per the chief of police--was to “antagonize the opposing political side.”
But then Williams went from simply yelling at Harris supporters to taking out a nearly two-foot machete which he “aggressively brandished” in a “threatening posture over his head” toward two women, ages 71 and 54 years old. The 71-year-old victim reported that Williams approached her with the machete raised above his head in an intimidating manner, causing her to fear for her safety. Williams was arrested on felony charges of aggravated assault.
In response, The Republican Party of Duval County responded on social media by praising the police but not denouncing Williams. Instead, they appeared to blame Democrats for inciting the crime, writing that they “urge calm” in this time “of heightened political tension, especially as President Trump has survived two assassination attempts and Republican supporters have been unfairly labeled as Nazis and called ‘garbage’ by Joe Biden.”