Battering women’s rights, Trump has fooled with the wrong ‘cadettes’…
Be not afraid…
Fear of a second Trump term has been festering among Americans as is the anger of those who support the exPOTUS. The anger and the fear are real, and for the MAGA crowd are the point. Dividing us is a strategic contrivance of the Trump campaign. The upcoming election will test the effect of the two emotions on voters. The Trump agenda promotes fear as a primary instrument to attract and retain its base. He speaks in curious codes. “They are eating the dogs” is a code for fear of all immigrants!, while Trump’s intemperate attempt to demean his opponent by denigrating her intellect, dismissing her experience, and calling into question her very identity is a less than subtle racial message aimed directly at similarly inclined bigots in his base. The racist and misogynist tropes are intended as intentional firewalls to allow MAGA voters a reason to ignore the yawing gap between the observable competence and mental suitability of the candidates.
While the contrast between Trump and Harris appears obvious to Democrats and supporters of Harris, a very different contrast drives her opponents. It is about “pronouns” and skin tones. Fear her is the message, fear them whips up their anger. The rest of us are simply afraid that it will work. Emotion clouds voters’ opinions on issues — more important is who you want to believe. Trump gets good grades on the economy despite any fair comparison would suggest that the economy under Biden and Harris is much better than Trump’s before and after COVID. Similarly, when asked about crime, veterans’ issues, and immigration Trump receives undeserved credit when data tells us the prevailing view is clouded by emotion rather than fact.
“Do, or Do Not. There Is No Try…”
In an otherworldly Hamletian quandary, the election revolves around existential questions of right and might. For women “to be” or “not to be” is a very real consideration depending on your geography, your age, your economic status. While the contrast between Trump and Harris appears obvious to Democrats and supporters of Harris, a very different contrast drives her opponents. It is about “pronouns” and skin tones. “Fear her” is the message, “fear them” whips up their anger. The rest of us are simply afraid that it will work.
Emotion clouds voters’ opinions on issues — more important is who you want to believe, who you choose to trust. Trump gets good grades on the economy despite any fair comparison would suggest that the economy under Biden and Harris is much better than Trump’s before and after COVID. Similarly, when asked about crime, veterans; issues, and immigration Trump receives undeserved credit when data tells us the prevailing view is clouded by emotion rather than fact.
Fear is the primary emotional response, anger follows close on its heels. As the great Dagobahian philosopher Yoda observed, “Fear leads to anger. Anger leads to hate. Hate leads to suffering.” The anger that has divided us is secondary to our fears and precedes our mutual dislike. But fear has a half-life and should only be used judiciously. MAGA has weaponized fear and identifies enemies that are bogeymen to promote hate. This has been a MAGA mainstay that allowed it to overtake a weakened Republican Party and replace conservative issues with MAGA grievances which begin the cycle all over again. In the process, all through Trump’s first term, through his COVID response, his two impeachments, an insurrection, and the cognitive decline, the party he holds hostage and those who have gone from believing his lies to wanting to believe them, have finally that been told they now have to believe them. That’s fear.
According to Psychology Today, we are now witnessing the political application of a fear-based campaign — a tactic used by authoritarians to maintain power:
Politicians may similarly use fear, in both their words and images of their campaign. Rather than highlight specific programs or policy they can offer, they may instead point out a fearful scenario as an outcome for not voting for them. When extreme, promoting fear and anger is a hallmark strategy used by authoritarian leaders to intensify our sense of threat and subsequently gain power. Additionally, targeting selective groups of “others” as being responsible for the threat. Once identified, anger and fear support prejudice toward and dehumanizing them. It is no surprise then, that fear and anger can culminate in hostility and aggression.
“I am your…protector ”
Fear is the more powerful motivator according to Golden, but anger is more effective. The Dobbs decision has spread fear among women and justifiably so. Reproductive health and the right to pursue it in privacy with family and your doctor should be an unassailable right for women. The GOP has used abortion as the car their dogs had chased for almost 50 years. In Dobbs, they finally caught the “prize” and this is the election that will repay their effort. While Dobbs is proving to be a pyrrhic political victory for the GOP, it has become an existentially dangerous loss for women.
While Trump has tried to further gaslight women promising to be their champion, the consequences of his policies are appalling. Women have been forced to cede control of their bodies to the state. Some are forced to bear the child of their rapists. Others are dying at the hands of MAGA-mad state legislatures controlled by men who see women’s health as just another political power struggle played out in a men’s only game of thrones. They are turning the fight for women’s reproductive health care into a medieval grudge match. Trump and his GOP toadies have chosen to endanger future generations of child-bearing women in an unprecedented abuse of governmental policies to punish women. This is personal, Trump is a convicted abuser of women and he is out for revenge.
With the withdrawal of Joe Biden and the ascension of Kamala Harris as the Democratic standard-bearer the denial of women’s rights is a prime campaign motivator. In the two years following the Supreme Court’s obsession with a states’ rights solution to a problem they created, abortion providers and activists have challenged state abortion bans and limits in 15 states. In 5 states those bans have been overturned at the ballot box. Pro-Choice initiatives, so far, have won every election challenge they have brought and polling indicates that voters overwhelmingly agree with restoring women’s rights over their reproductive health. What once had been a fear that Trump’s appointments to the Supreme Court were meant as a threat to women’s rights, has now motivated their wrath. Trump’s MAGA playbook put in play after he had won has been put in play against them. In a classic case of arrogance mistaking privilege, Trump dismisses as insignificant the role of women voters on his behalf in 2016:
A majority of white women — fifty-two percent — voted for Donald Trump in the 2016 presidential election. White working-class women supported Trump in even greater numbers: sixty-one percent of white women without college degrees voted for Trump. This result seems remarkable considering Trump’s derogatory statements about women and his staunch opposition to legal access to abortion. Why did white women, especially those most likely to need access to reproductive healthcare — poor and working-class women — vote heavily against their own interests to embrace a candidate who called for punishing women who access abortion?
— Hofstra Law Review Abstract, “Trump’s Angry White Women: Motherhood, Nationalism, and Abortion”, by Yvonne Lindgren
“The Force be not with you…”
Trump and his strategists may have just ensured that more women will vote Democratic this year. What they have chosen to ignore is how the margins have drifted right from 2018 through the 2022 midterm elections. In the elections running up to 2024 while all women have trended Democratic, these segments have trended slightly to the right:
- non-married [by decline margins of 22% in 2022, 30% in 2020, and 36% in 2018)]
- suburban women [9%,(2022, 15% (2020), and 14% (2018)]
- white women college grad+ [15% (2022), 19% (2020), and 25% (2018)]
- women college grad+ [21% (2022), 28% (2020), and 34% (2018)]— Pew Research Center, 2016–2022 Validated Voter Detailed Tables
The trend that defies their policy decisions shows that women were “gettable” for Republicans even after less-than-successful first term. Dobbs has had the effect of creating a motivation to both reverse that trend and motivate all women, especially those of childbearing age. It will certainly impact all women in categories that support Trump (older, rural, and undereducated women) which detracts from his margins. The tactic that seems designed to favor males, and white males specifically, leaves Democrats hopeful that the net effect will advantage their ticket. Men, and white men overwhelmingly, already vote heavily for Republicans and have historically provided support for GOP candidates based on issues like gun policy, crime, and the economy. It is hard to imagine how Dobbs increases their votes. By disaffecting women in all demographic categories, Trump has chosen to be all-in on optimizing the votes of males and white males in particular at their expense.
The narrow-casting of the MAGA pitch to voters relies on the sheer numbers of voters in each grouping and their likelihood to outperform by small amounts their historic trends. In a way, Trump is counting on a practice he has used his entire career in business and politics which has seen only sporadic success — the double-down. Taking on an entire voting bloc requires an arrogance beyond even Trump’s pomposity. In a nation that has trended toward the center over the past 50 years, Trump values his intuition over data which has finally resulted in his most risky wager. He is betting heavily that the women in his base remain loyal to him and that Independent women retain their recent voting trends unaffected by Dobbs. He is wagering that younger women and others affected by Dobbs will not vote in numbers large enough to overcome his advantage among young men and that men who are married, or who have daughters, sisters, and mothers, will value allegiance to MAGA above protecting their loved ones. I’ll take that bet.
The stakes goes far beyond party and loyalties. The cycle of fear, anger, and hatred looms large in the face of our democracy. The retribution Trump has promised to the enemies, is circling back on him. Court dates, monetary judgments, and a prison sentence await him when he loses.
Trump and his disciples should listen to the wisdom of that Dagobahian Jedi master who ominously warned ,
“Once you start down the dark path, forever will it dominate your destiny, consume you it will”
— Yoda, in “The Empire Strikes Back”
Afraid of women, they all should be…
