16 conservative female members of the media joined together to put out a well-intentioned if demented letter urging Donald Trump, their party’s leading presidential candidate, to admit that a woman’s experience might be worth considering. The letter, which you can read here in full, was written in response to Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski’s assault on Breitbart reporter Michelle Fields—an assault which was captured on camera and reported firsthand by the Washington Post, but which the campaign has repeatedly denied, choosing instead to subject Fields her to widespread abuse from Trump’s hellacious base and work as hard as they could to tarnish her reputation. Specifically, Lewandowski, Trump, and Trump spokesperson Katrina Pierson initially insisted that Fields’ claims were invented to earn herself publicity. Then, after the video footage was released, Trump changed tack—Fields was actually attempting to assault Trump, and Lewandowski was defending him.
One of life’s ineffable and unsolvable mysteries is the question of why women vote for Republican candidates- more specifically, why any woman not in the grips of epic, irreversible self-loathing would support and vote for Donald Trump. Talk about voting against your own best interests, eh? On the surface, it makes about as much sense as Negro slaves willingly fighting for the Confederacy. Why would any self-respecting woman vote for a man whose accumulated body of thoughts, words, and deed confirm his reputation as a sexist and misogynist of the first order?
If Trump had made one or two crass comments about women, they could perhaps be explained and written off as being made in a moment of anger and incaution. What we’re talking about, though, is a career full of disrespect, sexism, and misogyny directed at women for all manner of reasons…and in some cases for no discernible reason at all. He may (and often does) claim to women, but he certainly has a penchant for being openly disrespectful and insulting towards the distaff half of the human population.
Trump’s protestations aside, his own words are the most effective weapon that could be used against him…and the Internet being what it is, there’s no lack of resources for learning how he really feels about women. If you believe that either the GOP or Donald Trump give a damn about women and the issues important to them, you have a truly prodigious capacity for cognitive dissonance.
Why anyone with a vagina and an ounce of self-respect would vote for Donald Trump defies rational understanding. Come to think of it, “defying rational understanding” really should be his campaign slogan.
