One thing that is sure about this election is that the Kamala Harris-Tim Walz ticket has a big advantage when it comes to women. Creepy Donald Trump, weird JD Vance, and their campaign surrogates have attacked women’s reproductive rights and freedoms and in addition made all manner of sexist and misogynistic remarks. We now see women from prominent Republican families announcing that they plan to support Harris.
Barbara Bush, the daughter of former Republican President George W. Bush, campaigned for Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris in Pennsylvania over the weekend, marking her official endorsement of the vice president.
“It was inspiring to join friends and meet voters with the Harris-Walz campaign in Pennsylvania this weekend,” Bush said in a statement to People Magazine. “I’m hopeful they’ll move our country forward and protect women’s rights.”
…While her father has not weighed in on the race, Bush joins a growing list of daughters of former Republican politicians announcing their support for Harris, including former Wyoming Rep. Liz Cheney, Susan Ford Bales, daughter of former Republican President Gerald Ford, and Caroline Giuliani.
What surprises me is that the creepy Trump campaign does not seem to be even trying to win back women. The fascistic rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday, like heir party convention, was reeking of testosterone. There was not a single woman among the headline speakers. You would think that at least some of the well-known female Republican governors, senators, and congresswomen would be given prominent roles. Instead we had a series of male D-listers such as an insult comedian, Hulk Hogan, some guy I did not recognize who was yelling and waving a cross, Rudy Giuliani, and the like. The only women among the list of scheduled speakers were Rep. Elise Stefanik, Tulsi Gabbard, and Lara Trump, decidedly minor figures in the national political landscape. Not even puppy killer Kristi Noem was there, despite being well known and an ardent supporter of creepy Trump.
But the most puzzling thing is the complete sidelining of Nikki Haley. She was the last person standing among those who challenged creepy Trump for the GOP nomination and although she never had a realistic chance of winning, she stuck in there and acquired quite a dedicated following along the way, many of whom were women. After she finally conceded, she announced that she would be supporting creepy Trump, even though he had attacked her in his usual vicious and sexist way that angered many of her supporters. You would think that he would court her supporters by having her be a campaign surrogate. But it looks like he is still peeved that she challenged him and she has been completely ignored, not invited to speak at rallies or otherwise campaign, and is clearly irritated at the way the campaign is being run.
Former presidential candidate and onetime U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley criticized Trump world on Tuesday for being “overly masculine with this bromance thing” after former President Donald Trump’s rally at Madison Square Garden on Sunday.
…“This is not a time to have anyone criticize Puerto Rico or Latinos,” Haley said, instead calling for discipline around the campaign. “This is not a time for them to get overly masculine with this bromance thing that they have.”
She criticized the decision to allow a comic to perform at the event in the first place, saying there was “no reason” to do so.
…Haley noted other language used throughout the rally, as well as in Republican ads and messaging, that she called destructive to drawing women into the fold on Election Day. Polls show a major gender gap playing out with this election, with women turning to Vice President Kamala Harris in greater numbers and Trump winning among men.
“This bromance and masculinity stuff, it borders on edgy to the point that it’s going to make women uncomfortable,” Haley said.
“You have got affiliated PACs doing commercials about calling Kamala the ‘c’ word or speakers at Madison Square Garden, you know, referring to her and her ‘pimps,’” Haley added. “That is not the way to win women. That is not the way to win people who are concerned about Trump’s style.”
Haley was referring to a video published on X by Elon Musk’s super PAC calling Harris the “c-word” before then saying she was “communist.” The spot was deleted from America PAC’s account Monday.
…Haley also criticized Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, last month, saying they “need to change the way they speak about women.”
“You don’t need to call Kamala ‘dumb,'” Haley said at the time. “She didn’t get this far, you know, just by accident. … She’s a prosecutor. You don’t need to go and talk about intelligence or looks or anything else. Just focus on the policies.”
There is no doubt that there are hardcore supporters of creepy Trump who are women and will support him come hell or high water. I recall one woman at a rally, when asked whether she was bothered by his comments that he would ‘grab women by the pussy, said that she wouldn’t mind if he did that to her. It is bizarre.
Perhaps he thinks that he can overcome the disadvantage among women by driving up his support among sexist and misogynistic men and so he is going all in on appealing to them. It is a weird strategy but he and his running mate are weird people.
Rebecca Solnit writes that, sadly, there are women who are afraid to tell their male partners that they are voting for Harris and have to do so surreptitiously, as this ad by the Lincoln Project reflects.
Only you need to know who you vote for. Just ask Melania. pic.twitter.com/gdMyXZXYjj
— The Lincoln Project (@ProjectLincoln) October 28, 2024
There is an old saying for this.
A woman voting for the GOP is like a chicken voting for Colonel Sanders.
At this point, I think it’s overly generous to imagine they have anything that you could reasonably call a strategy. They’re just thrashing around on instinct.
Somehow I get the feeling that Nikki Haley is happy to be ignored. She’ll have better changes next time, if she doesn’t smell of Trump.
@3 Lassi Hippeläinen
if she doesn’t smell of Trump.
That’s a really tough smell to get rid of.
“So, if you take, like, armpits, ketchup, makeup and a little butt, it’s probably like that, all mixed up,” Kinzinger remarked. “That’s the Trump formula? ” Kimmel queried. “A little bit of a pungent odor, I would say,” Kinzinger responded. “You definitely wouldn’t want to bottle it up and wear Trump cologne.”
This campaign has been quite loud and open about being proudly patriarchal. They truly don’t consider women to be equals, they think of their wives as wholly owned subordinates, which is reflected in their actions on the daily. Multiple mainstream media outlets have the same problem. Misogyny is an invisible elephant in the room.
Their biases appear to prevent them from noticing that they continually forget that abortion and reproductive rights are the #1 issue for all US women regardless of their political affiliation. Not immigration, or economic security. Abortion. Abortion. Abortion.
We don’t want to die. Pregnancy and childbirth are the #1 cause of death for adult women in the absence of modern medicine. Even if every pregnancy was a wanted pregnancy, some percentage of pregnancies go wrong, and those women need a safe, emergency abortion to preserve their lives. Letting miscarriages kill the mother via bleeding or sepsis is official policy for the GOP nowadays, though the vast majority of the population doesn’t agree.
I so look forward to their dudebro grinch tears on November 6th, when Democracy comes to whoville despite all their attempts to steal it.
Bah-hoo doorai, bah- hoo doorai, welcome Harris, welcome Walz.
Giving up on women seems a positive way to go. When I last looked at the polls, a few weeks after Harris became the candidate, she generally looked like having a narrow lead. That lead is gone.
WHY?
Wtf is wrong with people. All the media I follow, this place included, talks about Trump like he’s some Fringe nutjob… but he’s the bookies’ favourite. We laugh at the MAGA idiots, but they’re not a minority -- they’ve every chance of winning.
And even if they don’t -- how do you fix a situation where it’s even close? I have no idea. It’s terrifying.
No, they don’t care if they lose women’s votes because they’re so confident they’ll be able to ratfuck the system to win regardless of the vote. They can’t keep their mouths shut and have been telling us what they’re up to for weeks now, and we should believe them. If they can prevent certification by the Dec deadline in any states that went for Harris, Trump needs fewer EC votes to win. Should that fail, there are other ways to either toss the election to the House or the Supremes, which are both in the bag for Trump. People say this will be decided by PA or some combination of just a couple states, but unless Harris repeats Reagan’s ’84 49 state blowout, I’m not sure we can stop them.
https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/little-secret-trump-johnson-election/
No, Trump is still trying to win women’s votes. Just today he promised to protect women “whether they like it or not.”
sonofrojblake @ # 6: … but he’s the bookies’ favourite.
There is some evidence (and a lot of speculation) that one or more millionaires may be manipulating the betting market.
Did Haley explain how “We want to control your bodies” and “We want abusers to be able to keep abusing you” and “We want you to be locked up at home making babies and financial dependent on men” help their case ?
Add women to a long list of demographic groups that vote for a party that hates them. Actually, they don’t need to be added -- they’ve been there for ages.
Lassi: Haley will never have a chance of getting the Republican nomination for anything. The only way she goes anywhere is if another Republican becomes President and appoints her to something. And I’m guessing it won’t be something all that consequential.
@Deepak Shetty #10:
That sort of message is not for women (or at least, not most women) but for men who want to control women, and everyone else is supposed to ignore it. See, they intended for only one group to hear it and believe their intentions should be translated into results (or at least matter more than results). They seem to be frequently astounded that everyone else doesn’t play along.
Snowberry@13- Liberal women don’t want to be controlled, and liberal men don’t want to control women. Conservative men want to control women. The election appears close -- is it because all conservative women want to be controlled?
@14 Matt G: No, no large group wants to be controlled. A lot of conservatives think other people need controlled though and that the rules wouldn’t apply to them. That is why you see all the conservative women commentators who say women should stay home and raise children. Not them of course, they have a higher calling but other women.
#16 @JM
I think you are an odd one. Whether or not they personally like to be controlled or not isn’t the issue.
It’s whether they believe *everyone. always. permanently* is controlled in some way. It would better not be them and what better way to make sure of that but to control someone else. If they think they belong to the less-controlled group, then they are fine. Or as fine as they can ever be, given this and any other pre-judices they might also have.
Does this sound like a relict of slavery and monarchy to you? It should.
In that context, the serial sexual abuser and convicted felon’s sex abuse and criminality fit this Lord Voldemort strategy. There’s a reason he is getting nastier to his own side. It’s what is absolutely expected.
Unfortunately this is not necessarily the case -- particularly with voting by mail, but I’ve read that even when voting in person, the secrecy of the ballot is not always enforced. I know that in the USA it’s recently been Republicans who oppose voting by mail, but it provides the opportunity for the bully of the household (usually, of course, a man) to coerce other household members into voting the way he wants. Voting by mail should only be available for those who genuinely can’t get to a polling station -- but there should be generous provision for early voting in person -- with full enforcement of the secrecy of the ballot. Historically, the secret ballot was introduced to prevent vote-buying. That could become an issue again (see Musk’s shenanigans), but intra-household coercion is the main reason for defending it now.
KG
What exactly are you reading? That’s nonsense, just like the claim that a comment by Biden is somehow going to be held against Harris. If you notice, nobody but some news outlets tried to spin one accurate word into a disaster for Democrats. Guilt by association isn’t working out for them, as the general public doesn’t care what Biden said in a response to a hate filled reenactment of a Nazi rally. Plus he is a white dude, so the impossible standard of 100% perfection that women are held to doesn’t apply.
Meanwhile, every Puerto Rican and American with Hispanic heritage in multiple swing states is preparing to vote out the trash, which helpfully staged a photo op of himself in a garbage truck and orange safety vest to illustrate the point.