If as a woman you have ever experienced bullying, mansplaining, being talked down to or talked-over, being lectured by people with less expertise than you have, being ignored or frozen out, being sexually harassed, or being abused psychologically and/or physically, you could not vote for Donald Trump. There is no way you could vote for him with your eyes open. So if you shut your eyes and vote for him, you are complicit in everything that will happen in the coming years. And I have no intentions of listening to your telling me how bad it has become, when it ends up that way. Because if you think Trump's abuse of power is bad now, it will be worse if he gets a second term.
Many women will vote for Trump. And for the life of me, I cannot understand why. Some are married to Trump supporters, some are not. I don't know if that is the deciding factor--that they vote the way their husbands vote. I truly hope that's not the case in 2020. Pro-life women may vote for Trump because he is purportedly anti-abortion and they are purportedly strong Christians. But they ignore all of the un-Christian things he does and says. They explain them away and in the process defend him. They say that the media have gotten it wrong, that the media always present Trump in a bad light. They post memes on Facebook showing what a great family man Trump is. They ignore the fact that he is on his third marriage, that he cheated on his wives (on the current one with a porn star, no less, whom he paid off), and that he has behaved in sexually harassing ways to women around him (behavior of which he is proud). They ignore the fact that he is setting the USA back by more than half a century with his anti-science stance. Many men will vote for Trump solely on what they perceive he has done for the economy and stock market. These men ignore the fact that Trump inherited a well-functioning economy from the Obama administration. But other men are way out there when it comes to credibility. One man I know who is a Trump supporter told me that the Covid-19 pandemic is a hoax; he hasn't seen the bodies so he doesn't believe that over 210,000 people have died from this virus in the USA alone. He also said that the whole thing is a hoax to prevent Trump from being re-elected. Argue with these types of people? You can't. You can just state your opinion and move on.
I had hoped that women would be the moral compasses for the nation going forward. I didn't expect them to be complicit in the current insanity and chaos created by Trump and exacerbated by the media, by supporting Trump. It is disappointing to know that women who KNOW that other women have experienced bullying, mansplaining, being talked down to or talked-over, being lectured by people with less expertise, being ignored or frozen out, being sexually harassed, or being abused psychologically and/or physically, will still vote for Trump. This is perhaps the worst--they know how bad the behavior was and is, and they will still vote for a man who abuses his authority and others. They have experienced that behavior themselves, and they will still vote for Trump. Have their own degrading experiences at the hands of male bullies intimidated them? Do they not see the incongruity in what they say they stand for versus how they will vote? They have seen him mock a disabled man on live television, they have seen him show blatant disregard for his own administration by refusing to wear a mask and follow procedures for infection control. By casting their votes for Trump, they are complicit in the destruction of American democracy that is coming in the next four years. They are complicit in the continuation of the subjugation of women by a white male elite that has been free to behave badly for years (think Steve Bannon for starters). They will continue to wear their rose-colored glasses and post memes on Facebook telling the rest of us that all we need is love in the world and prayers to right the ills of the world. That may well be true, but our Christian upbringing also taught us to stand up in the name of what is right and good and true. And while I too am pro-life, I am pro-life from pre-cradle to grave. That means that I stand for taking care of all life, including human, wildlife, and the environment, which Trump does not stand for. And for as far back as I can remember, back to when I was nine or ten years old, I stood up to bullies and have tried to do so throughout my life. Love may solve many things, but it will not change a bully. What forces a bully to behave is to stand up to him or her and to effectuate specific consequences. You can forgive them (or not) when they have been stopped; some may change their ways. But in my book, once a bully, always a bully. And that is why I could never vote for a man like Trump. Ever.
