It has never occurred to this American woman to wonder about the politics of my female colleagues. Nor have any of them chimed in with their religious views. If anything it was problematic when women started coming in to the corporate world as managers, professionals. and the power play began.
Here in the rural region of Upper State New York, it appears for the most part Republican country passed down through the generations, beginning with men going out to vote and women at home roasting the taters.
In these times, we all vote. It is not a huge community and it would be noticed if you did not show up. We also bring home-made cake to the table, and do not exchange sentences like 'may the best one win or good luck'.
When Bill Clinton was elected, I noticed that the First Lady was regarded with suspicion by women. This pattern appears to have grown with the years. Perhaps she is confused with Lady Macbeth.
Be as it may, regardless of whether this current presidency and its governance is Republican or Democrat, we should count out blessings if it does not bring us to the brink of a revolution, and hopefully it will be dismantled, disdained and despised by all Americans worth their salt.
Ms. Cupp is entitled to her opinion, and it would not come as a surprise if she thought Putin would make a better leader than Trump.
73
As a partner in a successful small business, we just got hit - hard with the 25% tariff. I can only say - good! The great percentage of folks in my industry voted Trump and until they feel the pain in the pocket, they will remain his "followers". Only money or grievance seems to be of any value.
120
I think you have great insight about the gender vote. Except for your reliance on Amy Maurer. She thinks business is up because of Trump. It isn't. Maybe her business is up or so she thinks. She will pay the piper when the debt becomes overwhelming as interest rates rise. She will blame the democrats when they raise taxes to save social security as her 20% extra business deduction reduces social security revenue and her retirement benefits are only half what her parents received. She doesn't pay dividends but when 70% of corporations repatriate money and use their tax gifts to purchase their own stock and increase dividends and award their CEO's huge bonuses because they are compensated based on the bottom line that was artificially increased by tax cuts, she will complain how unfair it all is. And finally, when her groceries cost twice the current amount because immigrants aren't allowed to work in this country, she will wonder how could she have fallen for the nationalist trap and a short term fix that she did. I like what you say but using Amy Maurer is not good.
80
Whether the topic is race, gender, sexuality, or slavery, there have always been and will always be both those belonging to often subjugated and marginalized groups who participate in that subjugation and marginalization.
S.E. Cupp is actually writing about White women.
And the support of the majority of White women for America's marginalization of women, people of color, the poor and working class, and LGBTQ people, and the shunning of immigrants has never been as clearly thrown into relief as it has been in the last couple of years.
Also thrown dramatically into relief over the last few year is those same White women's complicity in and support for policies and ideas that exist for the express purpose of subjugating primarily poor, non-White, and non-straight women in particular.
I imagine it's an easy complicity rooted in their own comfort, self-interest, and access to things like birth control and abortion regardless the what the law may be at any given point in time.
102
Instead of smugly castigating anyone who assumes that a college-educated woman must be a liberal and that the Democrats have a lock on the women's vote, Ms. Cupp would have been more enlightening if she stated why she a Republican. Not a word about it. Is it for the same reason given by the one woman she does quote who voted and continues to support Trump: "Business is booming, profit-sharing is up, we can give raises this year....The economy is doing great. We're definitely headed in the right direction." (Are those raises, by the way, eaten up by increased cost for healthcare benefits?) What that proves is that the Trumpian/Republican world-view is gender neutral: As long as I get mine, all else is just noise.
144
As someone who is disgusted on a daily basis by Trump and his base, I am very grateful to Ms. Cupp for having written this piece.
I've been a liberal all my life, and am proud to be one. At this point I am so disgusted by the Democratic Party that I withheld my vote for president in 2016. Mind you, as a Californian I could safely do that. Had I lived in Ohio, I would have held my nose and voted for Hillary.
I'm not surprised that the one female Trump voter named in this piece, a small-business owner named Amy Maurer, is thrilled with Trump. Like many Republicans, she is a single-issue voter, and ignores what doesn't concern her. I think single-issue voters are Trump's biggest constituency.
Ms. Maurer's business may thrive, but the air she breathes will become more polluted, the seas will rise faster, our enemies will celebrate as we betray our allies, more Americans with pre-existing conditions will die for lack of insurance, and our Constitution will continue to be shredded.
But Ms. Maurer will make more money, so that other stuff is not important.
134
“Are you kidding? Business is booming, profit-sharing is up, we can give raises this year while also reinvesting in our business by purchasing some large machinery. The economy is doing great. We’re definitely headed in the right direction.”
If my viewpoint was this narrow, and this unconcerned about the rule of law, about clean air and water, about our moral standing in the world, and about our self respect as a country, I could be as sanguine as this knucklehead.
149
As a well educated woman, masters and law degrees, I voted for Trump and will do so again in a minute.
28
This is what happens when one group - the Democrats - continuously take a whole segment of the population for granted, becasue of gender and group identity, and don't present the voters with the most important, the economic, solutions for their lives.
37
Corrected opinion headline: "A Republican Woman in KS Still Backs Trump."
One long time Republican activist continuing to support Trump doesn't mean that there aren't millions of women in America who are fed up with Trump, his fondness for America's enemies, interest in authoritarianism and disdain for the rule of law and common decency.
50
The GOP does not respect women's intelligence and right to control their own reproductive functions. The GOP stands for personal freedom except if you are a women. American women are on average more educated than American men, they do not their husbands to tell them how to vote. Employers discriminate against pregnant women and the right to life party thinks this is OK! Women should not vote for GOP candidates that did not respect a women's right to self determination. This why this op-ed is wishful thinking. Trump treatment of women should make it clear the GOP
views women for providing pleasure. The true remedy for our current situation is to elect more women to Congress since women show compassion to all human life and work for the greater good.
29
Opinion unsupported by fact is worth its weight in beans.
"There’s little evidence that women, by virtue of their gender alone, govern substantially differently than men."
You were clever to qualify that sentence with "by virtue of their gender alone", because there is plenty of scientific evidence to point to the fact that women do indeed govern differently than men (see links below).
Your anecdotes regarding Ernst, Pelosi and others are not adequate cover for your unjustifiable assertion that there is "little evidence".
Saying it just doesn't necessarily make it so.
https://stanmed.stanford.edu/2017spring/how-mens-and-womens-brains-are-d...
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/06/180615094850.htm
https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/08/would-electing-more...
That's enough for a start. I could cite a dozen more sources.
56
I applaud Cupp for trying to point out the obvious: that not all women are liberals or are locked into voting for Democrats. Many here will criticize her, and attempt to counter (silence) her argument, but they're missing the point, which is that the Dems are setting themselves up for more shocking disappointment if they don't open their eyes, ears, and minds to what a substantial number of voters want. This was what cost them the White House, and many other elective offices at the national and local levels. In a word, hubris. They assumed that by nominating Hilary it would guarantee a massive majority of women's votes, regardless how flawed she was as a candidate. And ignoring the pent up rage at the status quo that has allowed a massive transfer of wealth from the working and middle class to the wealthy. The Dems seem to have forgotten that many women are workers too, and see the effects of this whenever they have to pay bills or put food on the table. Sure, Trump was - and is - a liar and a con man, but he at least spoke to their concerns at a gut level, instead of Hilary's cool, wonkish, and disconnected message.
Cupp isn't arguing that Trump is good. She's arguing that Dems are missing the point, and warning that it may cost them as it did in 2016. I think it's critical to hear what the other side thinks and says, and rejecting it because it's not what you like is a sure recipe for losing.
34
S. E. Cupp is right. There is no reason to think that a significant number of women can look at the horror of children being ripped away from their parents on the southern border and either get off on it or feel that well there other things that balance that out. And this applies to any number of other things as well.
It says volumes about Cupp to be so pleased about this.
57
As a small business person myself, it saddens me to see a "colleague" falling for Trump's simplistic, self-serving Tweet garble.
The economy was a disaster when Obama took office, and over the years under his guidance, it recovered hugely. No one can make such changes in a few months, neither upwards nor downwards, and Trump is absurd to credit himself now.
Worse than this is Trump's present massive interference in the world of commerce. These tariffs are going to make many Americans feel the bite.
No, the Bankrupt-in-Chief only shines at increasing his own wealth. The massive conflicts of interest are disgusting to honest business people. His hotel in Washington where foreign dignitaries and business people must surely feel pressured to stay is a national disgrace. If a 71 year old rich guy can't step away from his conflicting business interests for 4 years....
Is our business woman aware of the number of workers who went unpaid by Trump in Atlantic City? She surely must see Trump's "businessman" ex-campaign manager heading off to jail, no?
And as for tax breaks, unless your business is a whole lot bigger than mine, forget about it. Look at the numbers: the breaks are to the mega-wealthy, not to you and me. We get a $10 break, they get a $100,000,000 break; the equation gets balanced by the hammered-on middle income class and by increased national debt.
(P.S. Look at national debt/deficit under Republicans vs Democrats. Not what one would imagine. Actually shocking.)
72
To the woman who voted for Trump who is happy because her business is going well: Did you know that racist attacks on people of color as well as Muslims and Jews have gone up as well? Did you know that millions of Americans have lost health insurance, including women and children who no longer have any access to health care? Did you know that more children are going hungry because of cuts to school lunch programs? Did you know that there are protests in the UK to disinvite the President of the US to their country, that citizens of other countries such as Ireland, Germany, and France are calling on their governments not to allow Trump within their borders? Did you know that our foreign policy towards China, Saudi Arabia, India and Yemen is now being made on how decisions will affect the personal finances of the Trump family rather than what is best for the country and the world? Did you know that millions of Americans will see their taxes go up as the result of loss of deductions, or that the federal deficit will increase by an estimated $2.5 billion according to the Congressional Budget Office? Trump is causing irreversible damage to our country on a global scale, and refusing to see this because your taxes are going down is immoral.
83
Ms. Cupp, you wrote a lot of words without really defending or proving your point. In fact, it's even hard to see your point.
Maybe it's this: "...the belief that female intensity in 2018 guarantees a blue wave is unlikely to bear out as decisively as some think." If that's your point, well, maybe this piece should be called "Handicapping the Women's Vote".
OK then. To speculate about how women, categorically, may vote in upcoming elections, we must consider the issues and the messages that women may find persuasive. Clearly Amy Mauer finds business performance more persuasive than anything else whether legal, moral, truthful, egalitarian, justified, tolerant, factual, accurate, polite, humanistic, honorable, forward-looking, or strengthening the concept of democracy.
The blue wave speculators are all betting that this long list of non-business criteria is going to persuade voters, men and especially women, to vote for Democrats.
Which leads to a question that you did not answer: How could you possibly be a Republican?
43
I am an old white guy born and raised in the Midwest by a Catholic mother and I am not a Republican and yet so many Republicans that I have met assume that I must be. Country Club Republican women like Ms.Cupp and Ms. Mauer find it relatively easy to reconcile their beliefs with a conservative Republican agenda because they do not face the same issues as many other women.They can presumably afford great health care for and including abortions, birth control and prenatal care. They have incomes sufficient to support an economically healthy lifestyle and buy fashionable glasses. For them everything is "booming".
65
Is it that surprising that women vote against their interests? There’s more than a little Stockholm syndrome in this.
28
S.E. Cupp reminds me that women who do not understand the rich tradition of feminism around the world often do not understand really basic issues about women's lives. In a world where rape leads to pregnancy, should it be up to her or to strangers in government to decide what she should do with that pregnancy? Patriarchal religions' ideas about consciousness, the soul, and the body have become deeply embedded in our culture.
A feminist is someone who respects women's autonomy over their own bodies.
We see again and again that Republicans use their power to impose on women their personal religious and cultural beliefs about women being the property of the state. This is why so many of us women are extremely hesitant to vote Republican even in small, local races where the person being elected surely has no power to impose their pro-rapist, anti-abortion values on others.
If we can't agree on how rape shapes women's lives and how anti-abortion laws reward rapists for their actions...
36
Sounds like the author makes her voting decisions primarily on her paying less federal taxes. Seems very narrow and egotistical to me. My Republican acquaintances all say the same thing.
In my experience, women seem to be generally more compassionate and caring for all people; funny that only 56% vote those feelings. All the blather of Republicans winning the female vote this November, should be weighed against the sizeable increase in well qualified women running for office as Democrats and making an impressive contrast to the Republican white men's club.
As for the author, she and her minority group of females can find solace while counting their tax savings while trying to ignore her party's misogyny and child cruelty.
53
Many men are perfectly happy to vote for men because they are men. Many are happy to treat other men preferentially at work and in hiring and promotion, and to give them a pass for their transgressions against women and other men, because they are men. A woman who thinks she is smarter and more principled than others because she does not vote based on her gender is being suckered and doing exactly what many chauvinists want her to do, so they can continue to privilege men at her expense. Gender is not the only thing that should factor into voting, but that is no reason to exclude it from consideration either.
26
There is a lot of assumptions going on about gender with regards to political and cultural bias. One of the most strident critics of Hillery Clinton that I ever met was an older women who had a visceral hatred of her. Many of the reproductive rights opponents I've known are conservative women who like Donald Trump. Then there are recent articles about the role of women in the white supremacist movement as well as other reactionary movements both here and abroad. On the other hand there is the meme of older blue collar white men being conservatives, racists & natural Trump supporters when many are not. Our assumptions can play us wrong and surprise in uncomfortable and disconcerting ways.
9
Any woman who cares about the economy should be voting Democratic. Republican trickle down economics doesn't work and many Republican presidents in recent history have left their successors with huge economic messes to clean-up. Democratic Presidents, on the other hand, have created strong economies and brought wealth to more Americans. Trump's tax cut for the top 1% (aka billionaires and multi-millionaires), his tax increases on working Americans, and his ignorant tariffs on foreign goods (aka a trade war) are damaging this country and will lead to inflation and high costs for goods which will hurt working and retired Americans' pocketbooks.
So, if you care about the economy, vote Democratic.
31
Trump inherited Obama's economy, built on a lot of hard work, good judgment and difficult decisions. He is squandering all that at a speed and scale that terrifies. He is systematically destroying the rule of law and the freedom of the press, two of the pillars of a liberal democracy. And I'm going to say that liberality is a cornerstone of democracy, however much Cupp may disdain liberalism.
44
This isn't exactly a surprising insight. Or at least, it shouldn't be to those of us on the left. Yes, not all women are Democrats. Here is some other shocking news. Not all black people are Democrats. Not all gay people are Democrats. Not all millionaires are Republican. Not all law enforcement agents are Republican. When one starts an argument with "Not all...", one can be sure the statement that follows will be an obvious, tepid assertion. It would be nice if politicians didn't stereotype and instead tried to win voters over with their ideas, not with their assumptions about their constituents.
17
A very big difference between a conservative, reflective individual (of either gender) and a Trump supporter.
13
I see large numbers of white women in the progressive area of the "global art world" work tirelessly for entitled white male artists with huge egos. Why do they keep promoting these men and help keep the art world so firmly entrenched in its predictable arrangement? Because it's what they want, a club that they belong to and have a place in. Some are valued for their skill sets and make money. Some are also pampered for doing it. But they too help perpetuate the endless sexism and structural problems that never seem to go away.
6
It's too bad, that you are not a Democrat, you should be.
I enjoy your point of view, S.E., and while you say not all woman are Democrats, based on the Trump Cult, I don't understand why, because you certainly don't fit into the Republican party as constituted under Donald Trump.
S.E. there is no saying that you have to be liberal on all issues or most issues to be a Democrat, but I'd venture to say that most issues that are vital to our way of life, environment, culture, social fabric and resources are ones that Democrats support and things that would venture to say a lot of Republican's like yourself supports even without admitting it.
10
It’s funny to see someone so proud to be against their most basic self interests.
28
"Business is booming, profit-sharing is up, we can give raises this year while also reinvesting in our business by purchasing some large machinery. The economy is doing great. Our leader is destroying the credibility of the free press, law enforcement, and the judiciary. Our leader is alienating every single one of our allies, destroying trust and alliances that will not be restored in our lifetimes. We're forcibly separating children from their parents at the border, damaging those kids forever. And soon, the Supreme Court will repeal Roe, and possibly even use the 14th to declare the life of an embryo equal to the life of a woman, effectively forcing all women with unintended pregnancies into a life-altering status of involuntary incubators. And every time I speak about morals, I am revealed as a monstrous hypocrite.
Did I mention business is booming?"
15
I’m going out on a limb here, but I’ll say, yes! It is good for women when women in government introduce more legislation on paid leave or domestic violence. The way the lives of women go, so go the lives of children.
I understand there are republican women, but I will never understand why.
20
I'm an independent voter, not registered with any party. Mrs. Clinton turned me off with her consistent beating of the drum on "women's issues". Her statement about playing the gender card, "deal me in!" was so tone deaf and cringe-worthy. I cannot believe her advisers thought that was a good statement to make while campaigning. I am female. I am not a victim. 90% of the time, I never give my gender a 2nd thought. The other 10%, I feel lucky to be female with all of the breaks and accommodations this country affords women.
President Obama was elected twice by campaigning as a person. Not a black person, not a city person, not a person that was raised by a single mother, not a male person. Just a person, wanting the best for the country. Democrats would do well to take a page from his book.
Democrats would do well to
6
Ms. Cupp:
You seem to express surprise at the surprise expressed by some people upon learning that you are a Republican. But your article fails to explain to me WHY you are indeed a Republican. Presumably there is a reason.
What is it about the Republican agenda that compels you to support them? To many of us that agenda appears so strongly to weaken the position of women in our society. Thus our surprise.
You refer to a Ms. Maurer, a small-business owner, who supports the GOP because of taxes and "the economy". But that is the only example in the article of a rational, issues-based reason for choosing to support the GOP.
Is that really all there is to it?
It is, of course, highly debatable that GOP policies on taxes and "the economy" are actually helping our country. But that's another discussion.
I'm wondering if there is some other element to the GOP support. Is it "cultural"? Is it a manifestation of "identity politics"?
In this article I would have welcomed more insight into the WHY of support for the GOP by some women.
15
No woman is obliged to be a Democrat. However, any woman that supports Donald Trump, even Evangelists, is spitting on every painful step of progress made on behalf of women's rights for the past 120 years.
29
Just wondering if her discussions with businesswoman Maurer took place before or after Trump initiated a trade war. Wonder how much that piece of machinery is going to cost now?
And if Maurer has considered how that tax cut will impact future generations with it's annual trillion dollar deficits.
Trade wars and deficits. Perhaps Ms. Cupp will explain how this is conservative when up until 18 months ago the Republicans were stridently against both.
I think she's describing opportunistic hypocrites, not conservatives. Good luck to their daughters!
18
Where did this nonsensical statement come from: "All Women Are Democrats"? This is an overgeneralizing extension by male chauvinists of the militant feminism (as opposed to serious feminism) and militant veganism to politics. Even if the two aforementioned militant trends are mostly represented by women.
Forget not that there are many reasonable women who are progressive liberals of the center and who hold themselves far from Clintonite and Sandersian politics.
1
Yes some women don't mind drinking poisoned water and breathing dirty air. Some women don't seem to notice or care about sexism, racism and dishonesty. Some women don't pay attention to the actual cost of things like education, health care, food, durable goods etc. Some women vote against their best interests. It's not something to brag about.
31
The economy trumps all. In a country where our ethos is "every man/woman for himself" people will sacrifice absolutely everything in exchange for a tax cut and a decent job. For the gents (and some ladies) throw in unlimited access to guns and it's irresistible.
12
I am comfortable with everything you wrote. The problem I have with those who proclaim themselves as Republicans or Democrats is this idea that we must be pure and true to it's ideology. Fifty percent plus one vote does not automatically invoke a 100 to 0 all one party's platform being crammed down the fifty percent minus one that did not. Business profits maybe in fact great. So are gas prices and every item subject to tariffs! Everyday we listen and see our president act like a bully and liar and pro-life advocates turn a blind eye to children"after" they're born. To separate children and their parents at the border and not a peep out of any of you who have the means to raise your voices I find hypocritical of what every Republican always taught me. And Dems... you're not off the hook either. We are United States citizens. We allowed this. We're better than this. Thank you.
8
as a moderate liberal, I'm sick and tired of politicians and the media dividing the american public into smaller and smaller hyphenated American identity groups. then they tell us we have to stick to our hyphenated group and work for ourselves and agaimst everyone else. (prime example: we need to vote for a woman because it's time we had a woman president. wrong answer, we need to vote for a woman president because she is the best candidate. not because she's a woman. or because they are gay or trans or Asian or black or green or martian). in 50 years history will record the demise of American society was the result of the hyphen.
9
You're pretty vague on why you consider yourself a Repulican, Ms. Cupp. Hmmm, but then Repulicans are pretty vague on what they hope to achieve by joining the party. What are exactly your values that drive your personal sense of integrity to announce to the world that you are Republican?
I asked my son these questions and more because his Tea Party attitude had caused a divide between us. The best he could come up with, basically, is he didn't believe in rewarding irresponsible behavior and if he could lift himself up by being a self-made man then everyone else should be able to do it also. After all, he was the son of an impoverished single working mother and look what he had been able to achieve without any handouts or special attention.
There is not a person in the world who is self-made. I gave up going to college when he was young because he and his sisters needed an actively engaged parent twice as much as children with both parents. I didn't date after my divorce so I could concentrate on my children. I searched for organizations and role-models for them so they would have a wider range of opportunity to not repeat my mistakes. Thank goodness for Big Brothers & Sisters. Thank goodness for charities that made certain my children had summer camps. I could go on but either you get the drift or don't. I have yet to know a Republican who gives of themselves as do members of the Democratic party. Oh, and I am agnostic because I don't know everything with certainty.
24
Sadly, for Democrats like me, Ms. Cupp corrrectly concludes that there are many women who either oppose the progressive feminist political agenda or have prioritized other issues. This can be said of any group. After all, there are some African-American Republicans. Losing white female voters is a huge problem for Democrats who desperately need their massive numbers to compete electorally with Republicans. Democrats must understand that culture, as controversial as it is, will often determine how white women vote. We live in a patriarchal world and women have a special, some liberals would say subordinate, place in it that many women do not object to having. Once Democrats accept this premise then they can work to earn the votes of women who may think differently than the typical, liberal, single, college-educated female who has been motivated by female empowerment issues and abortion rights.
6
I can in some small tiny way understand why people, including women voted for Trump ( i think it was blind hatred for Hilary mostly), but now that they can see who he really is, i cannot, for the life of me understand how they do not turn away from him in droves. I guess the only thing that matters to many is the econonmy. the rest of his ugly traits and characteristics mean nothing. All of the misery he is visiting on this country, his autocratic persona, starting a trade war, alienating our friends and being chummy with Putin. that should scare us all, whether it is men or women who have the voting power to put this monster back in office.
11
"'...Business is booming ... The economy is doing great. We’re definitely headed in the right direction...'" [op cit]
So we see, that it's all about money then, isn't it?
But will happen, when the money runs out?
8
Yes, men and women can be foolish in similar numbers. The requirements of a president as a leader and role model have much wider implications than the abilities of a surgeon to save a small number of individuals. Ms. Maurer, in making an analogy between a heart surgeon and the president, only proves her foolishness. That people are so willing to allow our country to devolve ethically and morally in order to get tax cuts that will mostly favor the 1% and have a short term positive effect for everyone else is very worrying because it shows how foolish Americans are when it comes to false promises. The narcissist president lies endlessly, while calling everyone else liars. He exhibits an interest in and tolerance for authoritarianism. Our democracy is in the balance, and a few (measly) dollars more gets the same cries of delight as giving candy to kids. Children are not supposed to have the discipline to hold leaders accountable and reject amoral leaders; adults, both women and men, are.
13
Statements that all anythings are anything are almost always incorrect.
3
What sort of woman can abide the viciousness of the Republicans, for instance, when they support separating immigrant families from their children?
What sort of woman can abide sending children back to violent, impoverished countries?
“We have to send a clear message, just because your child gets across the border, that doesn’t mean the child gets to stay...they should be sent back"
~ Hillary Clinton
Neither of the two parties represents the sort of ideals most Americans support. We truly deserve better politicians.
6
"Not all women are Democrats."
But are there any female Republican voters or pundits who are willing and able to tell us the truth? The pertinent studies tell us what motivated Trump's voters male and female alike. The principal motivation was not economics. It was racial resentment.
How many Amy Maurers are there out there really? Who voted mainly or only based on economics issues? I don't even believe that Amy Maurer is even, so to speak, an Amy Maurer. It was one thing to vote for Trump. It is something else altogether different to continue supporting Trump despite all that we now know.
Maurer is apparently quite content with all that has transpired. She doesn't care about Trump's racism. His dishonesty doesn't bother her. She cannot or will not recognize his incompetence. My goodness! It is likely that he conspired with an adversary to commit treason?
On one point Ms. Cupp is accidentally correct. Republican women like Cupp or Maurer can be just as deplorable as Republican men and Republican politicians.
17
SHE (Republican Female or Male) Says that a Business Owner that has gone Bankrupt Four Times or more happens to be their Gold Standard for a Business leader. Her statements give US insight into the mental state of Trump Voters. (Stay in the shadows until you were grown up!)
HER WORDS: Mr. Trump good on the issues that mattered most to her. “I always find it funny when I hear the term ‘women’s issues’ because that term equates to birth control and abortion,” she said. “As a small-business owner, taxes and the economy are usually my primary concern when making a choice.” - Against her! Sorry but we were trying to move forward for all, but these females voted to send all American Females back to 1950. Stop trying to normalize this sad and unproductive state of mind.
8
I have no problem with Republican men OR women. There are some Republican issues I agree with and I’ve cast votes for Republican candidates in the past.
I DO have a problem with voting for Donald Trump. And I would tell Amy Maurer to look outside her small world when deciding on a candidate. Donald Trump did lower tax rates, mostly for the richer among us (maybe that’s her and her family - we’re doing fine as well). But we are ALL losers when our President treats allies and friends as he did in Quebec. Not to mention the constant lying, the self-dealing, the disgusting things he tweets. And although I’m happier he’s talking with Kim rather than calling him names and taunting him on Twitter - he got nothing in Singapore and he destroyed the Iran Deal, TPP, the Paris Accord, and might do the same to NAFTA - all real deals that although imperfect to be sure, did make the future safer and more secure.
Sorry, I still think a vote for Donald Trump is an abomination and because the Republican Party has become the Trump Party, I would not vote for any individual with an R next to their names. And I cannot imagine how any woman would support this horrible name.
24
According to this and other media, white men put Trump in the White House, when in fact, more white women voted for him than Clinton. Which, as I guess this article is saying, just proves that women are just as capable of being willing to sacrifice the health of the planet, of people--just as willing to trample on human rights and democratic institutions as men--when it comes to their own greed.
18
Neither candidate moved the partisanship needle in 2016. Trump and Clinton received virtually the same percentage of their party’s votes as McCain and Obama did in 2008.
It was the independent voters who made the difference in 2016, and while Trump may be uncouth (to say the least) he has kept most of the promises he made so there's no reason to believe he has lost a single vote.
If there is a blue wave in November, it will be the result of voters who didn't vote in 2016 (because the media guaranteed a win for Hillary) and have been kicking themselves ever since. But that blue wave is more likely to be closer to a ripple than a tsunami, because the Democrats have done nothing to win over anyone who voted for Trump. Instead they have labeled all Trump voters as racist, bitter-clingers, who are too dumb to be reasoned with.
Meanwhile, the stock market is soaring, unemployment is historically low, consumer confidence is high, the economy is growing, ISIS' dream of a caliphate has been utterly destroyed, and after a a six decade stalemate, peace with North Korea may be within reach.
I can only imagine the Democratic presidential candidates' campaign slogans in 2020 if Trump manages to maintain or improve on those victories...
Stop The Progress!
Success Is Overrated!
Make America Stagnate Again!
4
“Not All Women are Democrats” is a misleading article title for what it implies but does not actually note in words.Diversity is the reality this article denotes.Women are diverse.By gender as well as gender identity.All political ideologies,and their more formal frameworks-parties, are diverse; types, levels, qualities of…Reality is diverse in its inherent, interacting, dynamic operations of uncertainties.Unpredictabilities. Randomness.Lack of total control,no matter what we actually do.Diversities are inherent in each of our daily complex, interacting processes for daily coping.Adapting.Functioning. Adding “mal” to be more accurate. Being aware, or not. Perceiving.Expectations.Cognitions.Emotions, which diverse, are in reality valence-free even as socialization has projected + -/+ - to each of them.Judgments. Decisions,carried out or not. Learned from, or not.Women, and all people, represent created types, levels and qualities of diverse self-identities.As well as those created by others who associate or impose them.Ranges of identities, which are/can be context-situation -influenced-bound, are distinct from our overt and covert behaviors, which can be/are role and environment influenced.Diversity’s nuancing is critical for our being able to know and understand human words and deeds.Their potential/actual implications, meanings and outcomes. Republican,Democrat, Independent, etc.;Conservative. Liberal. Right/Left Wing, etc., are seductive-faux-homogenizing-labels.
I am both male and Democrat, but I enjoy reading some of Ms. Cupp's writings. I usually do not agree with the politics, and that is fine. Her observations and arguments here do not surprise me--but at some point the office of the presidency should be about more than one's tribal affiliation.
It is possible to vote a split ticket. Most don't. As I read this op-ed, there is little defense of Trump as a person. Most of the supporting comments say they are doing well, the economy is good, they don't like Democrats (or liberal elites--presumably Republican elites are fine). This sounds like a variant of the ends justify the means.
Would Ms. Cupp give a full-throated defense of the guy in the White House? A defense off why most people should not be appalled at a malignant narcissist, a pathological liar who is off the charts in terms of his interest in self-promotion and personal financial gain. Some of his "accomplishments" obviously meet Republican approval--but are they really his accomplishments (considering his aversion to reading and expertise)?
Ms. Cupp is not a supporter of Trump the man and his blind enablers: https://www.cnn.com/2018/06/14/opinions/ronna-mcdaniel-tweet-is-the-deat... AND https://www.cnn.com/videos/politics/2018/05/22/se-cupp-sarah-sanders-wea... .
So I am fine with Ms. Cupp's defense of a Republican ethos, but do not tie it to support for that wretch in the White House.
4
Ms. Cupp:
Have you read about Arthur Jones (R), running for Congress in Illinois' 3rd district?
If he were the nominated candidate for your district, would you vote for him over a Democrat alternative?
If so, why? If not, why not?
If not, would you vote for the Democrat or not vote at all?
I'm just trying to gain a deeper insight into the reasoning behind your political choices.
A bit about Arthur Jones:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/2018/02/04/holocaust-de...
10
The subject of the piece, 'normal well educated swing voter woman' is actually a long-time Republican operative.
21
So Amy Maurer, that ordinary Midwestern female voter, sits on the Executive Board of the Kenosha County Republican party. Definitely worth a column in the NY Times to point out that she's a Trump supporter.
https://twitter.com/tomscocca/status/1008371613304283137?ref_src=twsrc%5...
Oh, and that heart surgeon metaphor? You've got it slightly wrong. It's not that you'd choose a heart surgeon although he has a history of treating women badly. It's that you'd choose him although he has a history of treating hearts badly.
26
It might have conveyed helpful information to point out that Amy Maurer, quoted in this op-ed, is a Republican Party official.
22
I miss the point in this article.
The author claims to not have voted for Trump.
In that case, she is not the kind of "Republican" that most Americans cringe over.
I suggest she stop assigning silly labels like 'liberal' or 'conservative' to everybody. They have grown meaningless.
I have voted D. I have voted R. (I didn't vote for trump either)
I bristle at the new pejorative for people who are highly educated - 'elite' - and I shudder at the glorification of ignorance and crassness that Trump and Fox have created.
Please stop with the labels already. They divide - vote the issue, not the party.
Trump Republicans, male or female are OK with lying, tax cheating (where are those returns?), crotch grabbing, ripping kids away from Moms name calling, etc etc.
Other Republicans - (Corker, Flake, McCain, many of my friends) - not so much. )
7
Ms Cupp wears her elitist credentials as a college educated atheist proudly on her sleeve. But no person who has spent any time thinking about such things could possibly reconcile such views with the modern GOP, with its embrace of xenophobia, race baiting, the denial of science and reason, economic and class warfare fueled by corporate interests and billionaire religious zealots, justified not by data but by bible quotes. The Bible? Seriously? We’re saying Merry Christmas again? MAGA? I don’t know where she went to school, but perhaps some continuing education is in order.
18
What a short sighted article. All these women who voted for a know nothing bull in a China shop should be lamented not used as yet another opportunity to skewer the other side. The signs of an autocracy rising in the US are there, it's a shame to see that money is prioritised over values. Rhetoric over human lives. Yes you are free to vote for whomever you wish but if you are voting for the Republicans then surely you are voting for your own demise as a free and open democracy. Man or woman is that not worth saving and prioritising over economic growth?
7
Its fantastical the women business in WIsconsin owner wants lower taxes because she owns a busness. What about deficits? Waht about nation building wars? The reaosn you have high taxes is mostly medicare, SSI and Medicaid. The remainder is mostly defense spending. If you think you are protected because you personally want lower taxes, yet want all the other government spending, you are not being very realistic. That goes for women and men.
As i see there are 3 legs to the Republican stool; 1) The wealthy don't want progressive tax rates 2) The religious are focused almost exclusively on abortion 3) Racial animus and contempt of the poor.
14
Some of the comments here echo my thoughts on your ridiculous binary political system. Your country has competition in every avenue and process, except politics. You've brainwashed yourselves into thinking it has to be Republican or Democrat, A or B, 0 or 1. I've read editorials in this same NYT from both sides of your spectrum that emphatically state that centrism is a dangerous thing and to be avoided. Seriously? Walking down the middle is more dangerous than what your present congress and president are engaging in? That choice - real choice - is more dangerous than the increasingly frightening polarization that your society is engaging in? The US is the most heavily armed populace in the world and you're split right down the middle, us against them, without realizing that you are all Americans.
You need to stop fearing other voices and choices in your politics. Continue on the path you're on and, frankly, you're doomed.
4
I get it and Cupp nails it at the end of the article.
Republican women (and men) who have not and will not be on the end of the regressive Republican policy stick are all about the money. They care little for the well-being of others and base their views on their pocketbook or their husbands portfolio. They just want to make sure someone is there to pump their gas.
Those Republicans on the business end of that policy stick ?... are a motley crew and may not realize what is going on until they have to eat grass for dinner. Bless their hearts.
Measuring the economy on the successes of the already rich has been the the biggest pile of garbage we're being fed by D.C. and the media.
15
S.E. Cupp forgot to mention that Amy Maurer, who didn't vote for Mrs. Clinton is a member or the Executive Board of the Kenosha County, Wisc. Republican Party. How could you let this duplicity go through.
23
Thank you Ms. Cupp, you’ve delivered a well reasoned and statistically accurate argument. Now, the core readership of The NY Times will provide an impassioned response based equally upon their certitude of moral superiority and the sheer heresy of your viewpoint being presented in these pages.
4
S.E. this is the Republican Party Today.
Today, we had Kellyanne Conway resurface on Meet the Press today, with some weird alter psychotic take of fact and fiction, she is lucky that her name isn't Pinocchio, because her nose would be so long it would inhibit her movement.
Sometimes I feel like I'm living in the Twilight Zone or some kind of bizarre nightmare, Russian contacts, continual lies about verified meetings with Russians by Trump campaign officials and family members going back to the beginning, perpetual lies from the mouth of Donald Trump without any reservation about the damage or consequences, Mitch McConnel, Paul Ryan, the other members of the GOP leadership pretty much ignoring the facts and the lies to stay in the good graces of the most corrupt, ethically challenged and liar to ever inhabit the Oval Office; this is what's wrong and what is disgusting about Washington.
The Republican Party is normalizing the debasement of dignity in public service and it really is a sickening disgrace.
Now, I hear Mitch McConnell using the same talking points or channeling Rudy Giuliani regarding the Mueller investigation, so you know Mitch is running scared and will do whatever Trump commands him to do, probably to save his wife's position in the administration, nothing but sleazy pervasive corruption.
Republican or Democrat, this is unacceptable under any circumstances.
The Trump Family of Grifters, Cheaters, Criminals, Greedy Moochers, makes me want to throw up!
20
Can someone tell the author that 53% /- of white women voted for 46-1? She can google it. It is a majority in that sense. So not sure why she feels left out.
3
Ms. Cupp, we know about all the white women who voted for Donald Trump and support him still. We even know the Democratic Party has its own problems with sleaze. But we also know that the degeneration of our whole government and the threat to our whole country, wrought by self-serving Republicans and willfully ignorant voters who endlessly excuse xenophobia, sexism, racism, greed, murderous dictators, blatant inhumanity, and incessant lies, can only be reversed by voting this crew of morally bankrupt deplorables out of office. We are not appealing to or counting on stereotypical Women. We are counting on decent human beings. I am sincerely hoping there are more of us than there are of you.
24
Anyone, male or female, should see why Trump is a ridiculous choice. No one can conclude that he understands anything about the economy or world affairs. Voting for him because he said some things that excited you is silly. That's true of any candidate, so you have to go on their record, details of what they propose, and credibility. Policies also have to be balanced by how the individual represents the nation.
There is no room for 'healthy debate' on Trump. He is catastrophic for the country in every way, and dangerous for the world. He is a boorish, limited, ignorant, vulgar, incurious man, driven by ego and fame and money and exactly nothing else. How is it possible that you do not see this?
Your friend who said that as long as he can do the job well, we shouldn't worry about his personal failings has spectacularly missed the point. He had zero experience in governance and there was absolutely zero reason to believe he was/would be good at this job. Are you that easily swayed by loud rhetoric?
And shouldn't some personal traits matter, when they are egregiously horrible? This man mocked the disabled and actively incited violence at his own rallies. He openly admires brutal dictators and wants to silence dissent. Under him, kids are taken from illegally-here parents and put in cages. Don't you think this amounts to more than a few distasteful traits we can ignore?
No self-respecting Republican should accept this man as an alternative to conventional conservatives.
15
"...Amy Maurer, a 43-year-old well-educated suburban mom in Kenosha, Wis. The Clinton campaign aimed ads at women like Ms. Maurer, keying in on Mr. Trump’s misogynistic remarks.
“It’s not my favorite thing,” she said when I asked her about the way Mr. Trump has talked about women. “It’s kind of like what I told my mother-in-law when she complained that her heart surgeon wasn’t very friendly: If he’s good at what he does, who cares? He’s not there to be your best friend.”
Amy Maurer is a Republican Party Official.
Seriously NYT, get it together.
16
Donald Trump is a Republican? Not the party I grew up with. No, he’s running his own show, and if you can’t see that, perhaps the lenses of those “hip glasses” need to be cleaned.
9
Ms Cupp
Employers don't think you are dumb for being a conservative or a Republican. They think you are dumb because you reflect and repeat Republican talking points and propaganda that are not true. I read a different commentary recently by you where you say you became Republican because (among other reasons) they put family first. Are you that compromised to think that one party has a lock on putting family first? I am center-left Democrat and let me tell you we also put family first. and we do it without accusing Republicans of NOT putting family first. But since you are so pure, why don't you do something about the families being split apart by Trump, while many prominent Republicans sit silent.
18
The real reason that the article gives for why women voted for Trump is because they are either selfish or ignorant, both qualities exemplified by Trump himself. There is nothing new here. Selfish or ignorant Trump voters also applies to men. Let's not forget they are also closet bigots, but no one will write that down in an article. S.E. Cupp may be an exception, as she is not a Trump supporter.
11
There will always be space (and profit) for the Ben Carsons and Ann Coulters who say there is no racism or sexism in the Republican party.
6
Just because you didn't get on the train, it doesn't mean it didn't leave the station.
You do make a good case for the fact that many people vote against their own interests.
Women will change the election and the country. It's about time.
Sincerely,
Privileged white man
8
Re the title: No, just the smart ones.
6
Ms. Cupp,
Contrary to your assertions, it's no secret that Trump has lots of women supporters, not only those with limited education but those with college degrees, too. I can only assume that this column is nothing but a thinly-veiled effort to lure more women to his camp. The Times has wasted space and its readers' time by publishing it. And your opening anecdote about strangers assuming that your cool glasses and liking for Ryan Adams is ludicrous on its face. "Hey, girl, cool shades. Isn't Obama great?...Say What?"
3
Why should the traits of greed and narrowmindedness be limited to men? Ms Cupp's position makes that very clear!
7
Miss Cupp,
Amy Maurer, who so boldly states: “
“Are you kidding? Business is booming, profit-sharing is up, we can give raises this year while also reinvesting in our business by purchasing some large machinery. The economy is doing great. We’re definitely headed in the right direction.”
...Amy Maurer is in for a rude awakening when the effects of Trump’s trade war catch up with her, as they are for many businesses and farmers already.
I respect your insights, but I think your talents would be put to better use finding the last true Republicans and exorcising the demons from your Party of choice. Otherwise...try being an independent, you might just like it!
4
This strikes me as a straw-woman argument.
8
No, all women aren't all democrats---but a complicit Republican Party is allowing Trump's excesses and all too frequent abominations.
And in a survey of 170 political experts from the American Political Science Association on the best-ever/worst-ever presidents:
The 'worst of all time' award went to Donald J. Trump:
Fully last, at #45.
(Barack Obama was 8th top best)
I landed on another site when searching the matter:
Here's a list of 837 horrible things (with links) the Trump Administration has done so far. (Great resource.)
The writer plans to continually update it. He calls it his omnibus:
https://paperspaperspapers.wordpress.com/2017/01/25/the-everything-terri...
3
In the article, Cupp includes the view of Amy Maurer, who Cupp describes as a "43-year-old well-educated suburban mom." Cupp leaves out the part that Maurer is on the board of the Kenosha County GOP. Any reason for this?
17
And all these women and their daughters can thank liberals for their freedom to chose the life they want including whether or not to have a profession and giving them access to professions that were unthinkable. They also owe a debt to the liberals who developed and fought for access to the birth control that has provided women with the freedom to chose whether or not to become a mother. S.E. Cupp and her cohorts are spoiled ingrates who have no understanding of history. Thank you liberals for the freedom the conservatives have always fought against. And still do.
16
The mystery of why Amy Mauer of Kenosha Wisconsin voted for Donal Trump has a very simple solution. Amy Mauer is a member of the Executive Board of the Republican Party of Kenosha County! For some reason, S. S. Cupp and Salena Zito were unable to uncover this simple fact
13
As long as Democrats keep coming up with bright ideas like a tax on jobs, as they did recently in Seattle, women and men will vote Republican.
2
Assuming that all women would vote for Hillary simply because she’s a woman is like assuming all lemmings would jump off cliffs to their death simply because one does. Obviously that can’t be the case because still keep doing it year after year over all these years. We should all learn to really think as independently as them.
2
This white business man is not a Republican, so mine is a similar counter narrative. But tell me, Ms. Cupp, how you are not repelled by a political party where its candidates cannot acknowledge the evolution is true, as much as we can know any truth. Or explain how you are not embarrassed by a party that has no domestic policy except tax cuts.
I am old enough to be your father, and cannot imagine how anyone can be honestly conservative. I too see many flaws in the left’s narrative but they are flaws of pushing too far. The right simply refuses to accept any facts at all.
I cannot believe that you are stupid. So what is it then?
8
I didn't vote for Trump, but like Cupp, I understand why some women did. I couldn't vote for Trump, and I reluctantly voted for Clinton knowing that Democratic party politics would not consider the effect of their policies on my small business, and knowing how regulation interfered with not only my business but housing development for members of the middle class in the NYC area (there is none).
In New Jersey, it was more of the same: Democrats desirous of regulations designed to keep the wealthiest homeowners amongst us where they sat whilst fighting the very existence of apartment dwellings in their own backyards because they didn't want to pay higher property taxes (even if they grew up going to local public schools financed by the same property taxes they no longer wished to pay). I was suspicious that they simply wanted to "keep the riff raff out," with me and others like me being the riff raff.
The behavior of Democratic male politicians was egregious and even more egregious was the denial that such behavior existed. Essentially, I came to see Democratic party members as self-serving as any other, if not more so, and once Trump was elected, as vicious and inflammatory and dishonest as he. They simply could not take the higher road -- and didn't think they had to -- and so we have descended into lynch mob party politicking whilst pointing the finger at the folks across the aisle.
I have news for you, Democrats: you're actually going to have to work for my vote.
2
Salena Zito and Amy Maurer are honest brokers, S.E. Cupp? Did you expect that your readers would know Amy Mauer "a 43-year-old well-educated suburban mom in Kenosha, Wis." is also a GOP official and Paul Ryan donor? Or did you just hope they wouldn't find out?
A shame the NYT doesn't have a public editor anymore. This is the kind of abuse that one is supposed to call out.
~
12
Sounds to me like this conservative author is making a cry for understanding from misguided and misunderstanding liberals.
Memo to S. E. Cupp and all conservatives. Stop worrying your hearts out why unschooled liberals fail to understand that it is really cool being a conservative. Be happy. Enjoy your party, your president, your progression, Jeff Sessions, Iraq, the 1%, Erdogan and your place in history. Deprived non-conservatives will probably manage well enough in the grand scheme of things. And of course, there is no need to ever worry about liberals and the unwashed. They are probably congenitally unable to apprehend your ideas and leadership.
Be happy you are doing great. Hrmpf.
3
About 98% of black women voted for Hillary in 2016.
About 54% of white women voted for Donald in 2016,
Most of all black women are Democrats. Most of all white women are not.
6
In my family the men were (union) Democrats and the women were (anti-communist) Republicans. There wasn't much talk of politics at the dining room table.
You may claim not to support Trump, but you are complicit in his presidency.
9
so what are you saying, women are whors, just give us that good business money and were good. Since your republican buddies seen to be quoting the bible lately how bout "man (or women for that matter) does not live by bread alone". Curious did you support the labor movement of those Ok. teachers or were you afraid that someone might organize your business.
4
Just wait til these Republican Trump voter small business owner women do their personal taxes in 2019, the first year, Trumps great tax cut accounting comes due. When they see all their personal deductions for their house mortgages, and interest on their maxed out credit lines go down the toilet, they'll know, they voted for it. Maybe then they'll become Democrats.
6
Who cares why some local Republican Party official voted for Trump? She would have voted for a cactus if it had a (R) next to its name. Which is why Ms. Cupp left out that important piece of information in her deceptive piece, right?
8
Why do conservatives always need to feel persecuted?
So now being a woman AND a conservative is grounds for self-pity?
Stop playing the Sarah Palin victim card.
12
Women can be greedy, unsympathetic and amoral too. Yay for equality.
12
Of course, not all women are Democrats. If they were, we would be hard pressed to explain why there is no immorality, stupidity or ignorance found in women - men only.
2
Ms. Maurer, cited in the article, is a Republican Party official in Wisconsin, not some sort of random cross-section of the female demographic in question. The omission to disclose that says a lot about the intellectual integrity of the author and the editorial capability of the Times.
11
I find it hard to believe that anyone thinks all women are Democrats. It is generally known that 52% of white women voted for Trump. 62% of white women in Alabama voted for Roy Moore.
4
Of course there are a lot of women who voted for and still support Trump. Women are just as capable of terrible judgment as men.
10
If not all women vote based on #MeToo and abortion and birth control, why does the author fail to mention the million other possible reasons - save for the state of the economy - that voters of ANY gender have to oppose this administration and the party it now rules? Does a voter's gender entitle them to a pass on answering for this administration's nauseatingly blatant corruption, bigotry, idiotic foreign policy and love of dictatorship simply because the Access Hollywood tape just didn't seem like that a big deal?
If you resent being treated as a single-issue voter, then don't be one yourself.
8
Forumula for boilerplate article on almost any topic:
Not all [name of group] are/believe/do [some thing often associated with group].
Some such articles are useful and interesting, but the underlying point is typically nothing remotely new.
7
All this indicates is that women have the potential to be as delusional as men.
9
Correct.
Some women are still poisoned by internalized patriarchy and see Trump as a leader. They are as deluded as they are dangerous the cause of feminism and human progress.
OTH, I think non-Trumpist women will be key to throwing this collection of crooks, sociopaths, and racists out of office.
8
Ms. Maurer is a Republican County Chairman in Wisconsin:
https://twitter.com/tomscocca/status/1008374349139775489
9
MISSCAPADES
Sorry, but it’s inescapable. There was no justification for voting for Donald Trump, no matter what you think Hillary Clinton. Diluting the practical clarity, psychological honesty, and moral maturity of voting for Hillary’s competence against a malicious cartoon with the usual “that woman” phrase is just an evasion of what’s going on in the mirror—and it very much DOES suggest a conscious or unconscious misogyny. Saying you’re not a misogynist does not mean you’re not. It can just mean you’re clueless about yourself.
The 2016 vote was about as clear as it ever gets, and the 60 million voters who got it wrong have some real soul-searching to do—though many of them won’t grasp this until the history books are written and they realize that that’s THEM the book is talking about. Because you never vote for 2 + 2 = 5. NEVER. If you do, you’re voting for the Dark Ages. The answer to “I’m angry” or “I’m unheard” or “I’m disrespected” CANNOT be 2 + 2 = 5. And Donald Trump is something even worse: 2 + 2 = 3 on the way to becoming 2, 1, 0.
S. E. Cupp is wonderfully intelligent and articulate and listening to her analysis even when you disagree with it is a healthy scrub brush for the liberal mind. But this analysis just misses the cause entirely. To crib from Carville, the answer is simple:
“It’s the misogyny, stupid.”
7
So you have the magic (R) after your name. Big deal. It is your right to hold different beliefs about how government should be run and religion. In fact, this country was founded on the premise of those rights. My issue is that so many of you with the magic (R) forget that it is my right to hold beliefs different from yours. You want to shove your beliefs down everyone’s throat; many of us want to sit down, have an intelligent and thoughtful conversation, and work out a compromise.
3
Even very smart people do very stupid things.
6
"Conservative" now means someone who supports a misogynist, lying, racist, conman, wanna be dictator, who separates families and steals money and children in support of bible-thumping, hypocritical, evangelical, pro-life (life in jail for blameless stolen children), anti-immigrant, end justifies the means policies.
Hang your head in shame.
There used to be another meaning to the word "conservative," but that is gone now. Decent christians went with it.
10
So the author penned 1,500 words and yet not a one of those string of words tells me why she's a Republican. Instead of wasting 1,500 words telling readers time and time and time again you're not a Democrat, why don't you tell us why you're a Republican? Yeah, I'd find it pretty indefensible as well...
And the example of Amy Giles-Maurer, why didn't you use her full name including the "Giles" as in Tim Giles, the person who actually started the business where Ms. Maurer is the CFO?
I got exactly no meaningful insight from this essay other than the typical Republican m.o. of deny, degrade and deflect.
11
Ok, I get it. You can be deluded and selfish if you're a woman, too.
6
The headline is beyond strange. Since a majority (53%) of white women voted for Trump in 2016, who would ever assume that "all women are Democrats"?
5
It is very disappointing that the Times has allowed Ms. Cupp to misrepresent a Republican party official as a neutral voter.
7
I'll never understand how any thinking woman could be a Republican in today's Republican party and will also never understand how any woman can be aligned with any organized religion. The two tend to go hand in hand and tend to be anti woman. Enough with patriarchy.
3
This is the first thing you’ve ever written that I’ve even slightly agreed with. Democrats need to give it a rest win the identity politics.
1
This piece would be more accurate if it modified “women” to be “white women.” We’re all very aware that a majority of WHITE women had no problem with Trump’s racism, xenophobia and sexism.
12
What's going on with the NYT op-ed page? And this is supposed to be a liberal newspaper?
First, a few days ago, we had a canned, conservative think-tank op-ed piece from the Heritage Foundation, of the type we find reprinted almost daily in our local newspaper, supporting the Time-Warner/AT&T merger.
Now we have a conservative commentator, added to the NYT's conservative roster of Brooks, Douthout, Stephens and Dowd, delivering a snarky, patronizing and condescending article toward Democrats containing the shocking news that not all women are Democrats? Talk about a straw-man/woman argument!
What is the purpose of printing such a "stating-the-obvious" article in the NYT, other than to promote the mainstream media's continuing, favorite narrative that Democrats are out of touch with the "real" America. Or to use another favorite example, the Russian meddling in the election wouldn't have mattered "if only Hillary had campaigned in Wisconsin".
And once again, as a thought experiment, just try to imagine Fox News or the Wall Street Journal running a corresponding article attacking its own viewers and subscribers, titled "No, Not All Men Are Republicans". It wouldn't happen in a million years. So then, why would a so-called "liberal" newspaper deliberately choose to insult its readers in this way?
The NYT is a liberal paper no longer, except maybe on Tuesdays and Fridays, when it publishes Paul Krugman, the last surviving liberal on the NYT op-ed page.
6
No Ms. Cupp, it doesn't surprise me.
I've always said women can be just as evil, backstabbing, stupid and mean as men.
Thanks (unfortunately) for confirming, admitting and reinforcing that belief.
See ya in Nov.
When the Blue wave washes out the unwanted swamp critters.
(No disrespect towards the many varied and necessary critters dwelling in said real swamps.)
7
The Amy Maurer quoted in this piece is a member of executive board of the Republican Party of Kenosha County, Wisconsin. Not only is she a Republican; she's a *Republican party official.*
S.E. Cupp has admitted on twitter that she didn't know this, and that it was a mistake not to mention it in this piece. (Actually, this fact undercuts the entire point of her piece.) So when will the NYT retract this piece -- or at least append a note about Maurer's true identity? Or, short of that, when will Cupp make some sort of comment or revision here herself?
C'mon, this is the New York Times! Show some integrity here!
14
Well, duh! Women voted in droves for Roy Moore, a child molester. Those women are most assuredly not Democrats. They voted for Donald Trump, a serial sexual predator. They are decidedly not liberals. That, Ms. Cupp, is the difference between women who are liberals, and those who are toadies for the conservative enemies of their daughters.
14
You're right. But the question is why do a majority of white women vote for a party that supports discrimination against them and for an admitted ------grabber? Because many women can be as racist as men.
7
"One of them is Amy Maurer, a 43-year-old well-educated suburban mom in Kenosha, Wis. The Clinton campaign aimed ads at women like Ms. Maurer,..."
Hey NYTimes! The author of the piece tries to represent Ms. Maurer as some kind of typical Midwestern woman for whom Candidate Clinton's messaging didn't catch - to make a point the reason Mrs Clinton lost.
Isn't it clearly dishonest to fail to also mention that said Ms Maurer is an Executive Committee Officer of her county's local GOP?
http://www.kenoshacountygop.org/board.html
No wonder Mrs Clinton's message failed to impress her.
But to suggest that she represents a typical Midwestern woman as an example of what went wrong with the Clinton campaign in an entire region... I'm at a loss for words.
I can't believe that you allow your real estate and your readership to be used to spread this type of propaganda....
Have you considered maybe using trigger warnings for us sensitive snowflakes who are interested in honesty from your Op-ed contributors?
#NYT-SoDisappointedYetAgain
14
One of the so-called voters that couldn't be swayed to vote for Clinton is on the board of the Kenosha, WI Republican Party.... I doubt she would ever be swayed to vote against her party.
This article is disingenuous and reflects the continued lack of editorial standards at the NYT. Do you folks not do any research or editing anymore?
H/t to Twitter @tomscocca for this info
http://www.kenoshacountygop.org/board.html
11
Thanks for this New York Times --
Now - how about that article showing that not all devout Christians are small-minded, conservative religious fanatics -- which is how they're often prtrayed in your paper --
Hmmm...?
1
Yes, white women can be just as racist as white men.
White women are able to hate Mexicans, Muslims and African-Americans.
Thanks for the reminder.
11
Sorry S.E. BUT you wouldn’t be a commentator if it weren’t for those awful liberals. I rembmer when you first came on the scene. You can’t fool me but I digress.
No, not all women are liberals or Democrats and many who self idenfy as such aren’t. They are corporatists . As to women who are Republican I say what the hell are you doing? Your political colleagues are all about allowing us to die either because we can’t terminate a pregnancy cynthat will kill us or we can’t get health care or great safe air or get a reasonably paying job! Why are you working to change their minds!
All women aren’t feminist either nor do they care about protecting women from domestic violence or guns. Nope all women are different but there is one thing I know S.E you would not have had a chance to be writing for the NYT or being on TV as a political talking head if it weren’t for those awful liberals and those distasteful Democrats. Can’t fool me S.E.. I knew you when!
7
Mothers, start giving your sons names like “Courtney and Leslie and Marin” ‘cause there’s a whole bunch of us “old broads” out here in votin’ land that’ve gotten together and decided to hell with the issues!, we’re gonna’ start votin’ like the fellas and if it’s a gal’s name on the ballot, we’re pushing the button,even if she’s a serial killer. Although, even though we know this is an extremely stupid way to choose elected officials, we figure you gotta’ start somewhere and, after all, for a lotta’years this worked pretty well for the “patriarchy patriots”, right? As for that whole risk of voting in a serial killer? Well, c’mon now, we all know that that’s pretty much a ”Y” chromosome thing-y. Hm-m-m.....
2
It's all about bigotry, not economics. Cupp gives us more post-truth politics, choosing as her average woman Amy Maurer, a Republican Party official. She wants us to accept an additional lie that women who voted for Trump did so for economic reasons as "taxes and the economy" were a "primary concern." It's untrue. The post-factual politics Cupp certainly knows Trump voters were motivated by bigotry not economics.
Researchers Matthew Fowler, Vladimir Medenica, and Cathy Cohen published the results of a survey of questions focused on the 41 percent of white millennials who voted for Trump:
"Contrary to what some have suggested, white millennial Trump voters were not in more economically precarious situations than non-Trump voters. Fully 86 percent of them reported being employed, a rate similar to non-Trump voters; and they were 14 percent less likely to be low income than white voters who did not support Trump. Employment and income were not significantly related to that sense of white vulnerability.
So what was? Racial resentment.
Even when controlling for partisanship, ideology, region and a host of other factors, white millennials fit Michael Tesler's analysis...economic anxiety isn't driving racial resentment; rather, racial resentment is driving economic anxiety. We found, as he has in a larger population, that racial resentment is the biggest predictor of white vulnerability...Economic variables like education, income and employment made a negligible difference."
22
Yep. It's not that we don't know there are women Republicans -- we just don't understand why. For decades the GOP has been pointedly working against women's rights in every area of their lives -- yes, contraception, abortion, child care and parental leave, but also equal pay, ending sexual harassment, equality in health care, etc., etc. (For women of colour, add voting rights.)
The GOP is a misogynist party. Full stop. It is also a racist party. Full stop.
That they convinced some women that the only important function of government is to lower taxes just means that not all women are smarter than men.
3
"There’s little evidence that women, by virtue of their gender alone, govern substantially differently than men. ... There’s no shortage of studies showing that women are more likely to introduce bills that benefit women — on paid leave or domestic violence, for example — or that show women get more bills passed than their male counterparts."
Bit of a contradiction, no? Besides which, it's hard to know how differently women govern from men when the sample size is so small.
11
I read on desperately looking for a reason and rationale behind S. E. Cupp's conservative political views, but I didn't find any. This article does nothing to dispel the belief that republican women are just confused or don't know what they are best for them -- it just lists many more similar women. By this I don't mean that we should dismiss any voter as not knowing what is best for them. I just mean that I would really love to understand how republican women reconcile their voting choices with republican policies that eventually hurt women.
16
Some human beings use their brains, some human beings don’t, Some think that economic issues and human rights issue are linked, some see the issues as separate. Some think that government exists, by us and for us,,to achieve things that neither individuals not corporations could do, some see government as by others and for others to enrich themselves.
Some human beings are women who use their brains, some human beings are women who don’t. Republican, Democrat, or other, I’ll side with women who use their brains over women who don’t.
12
“Salena Zito, co-author of the new book “The Great Revolt: Inside the Populist Coalition Reshaping American Politics,” recently surveyed 2,000 Trump voters in the rust belt. They are the kind of voters, she says, that experts overlooked in 2016 and still don’t get today.
One of them is Amy Maurer, a 43-year-old well-educated suburban mom in Kenosha, Wis. The Clinton campaign aimed ads at women like Ms. Maurer, keying in on Mr. Trump’s misogynistic remarks.
“It’s not my favorite thing,” she said when I asked her about the way Mr. Trump has talked about women. “It’s kind of like what I told my mother-in-law when she complained that her heart surgeon wasn’t very friendly: If he’s good at what he does, who cares? He’s not there to be your best friend.”
Ms. Maurer is on the executive committee of her county Republican Party and is a campaign contributor to elected Republicans. The author and the Times opinion pages have known this for a few hours as of now.
16
When liberals lose, we work hard to understand what happened, why so many voted for a white nationalist, and how to appeal to more people.
Conservatives, win or lose, have no such capacity. Liberals didn't even lose the popular vote in 2016, but they're asking why they lost the overall election -- wringing their hands over working class white votes. Meanwhile, Republicans out-and-out have not gotten a majority of women votes since Reagan '84, and this political writer -- like most conservatives -- is ardently trying to explain why that's actually the Democrats' problem. When you refuse to see what's in front of you, there will be problems.
10
Why Times? S.E. Cupp argues that women do not govern different or better than men and then links another Times article that says...
"Those bills [sponsored and co-sponsored by women] are more likely to benefit women and children or address issues like education, health and poverty. In Congress, for instance, women fought for women’s health coverage in the Affordable Care Act, sexual harassment rules in the military, the inclusion of women in medical trials, and child care vouchers in welfare overhaul."
That is better governance, overall, then what we get from men who tend to pass bills to slash taxes on the uber rich and corporations, attack safety nets, attack education and science, gut environmental and financial regulation, and do not believe in gun control.
Of course, I am broad brushing. There are plenty of women and men who do not fit into this generalization, but you get the point.
14
Many women saw the choices in policy, not in personality. Clearly the country made the right choice, repudiation of the Obama legacy of economic malaise and political weakness. I can't see Mr. Trump losing support as long as the economy remains strong and jobs plentiful.
4
You realize, though, that Trump didn't build this strong economy and low unemployment rate. He inherited it. You also are trumping the economy over basic human rights and decency. That is where everyone loses.
17
"the Obama legacy of economic malaise..."
Seriously? If Trump deserves any credit, it's only for not ruining--despite his best efforts--the robust economy handed to him by Obama.
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/09/upshot/how-good-is-the-trump-economy-...
"So what is the most honest way of talking about the Trump economy? It goes like this: The president inherited an economy that had come a long way toward healing. During his administration, the economy has continued growing at about the same rate it did before he took office, pushing incomes, employment and output to yet higher levels."
10
Economic malaise? Were you born after 2008?
The point you make in the last sentence is not entirely incorrect -- as long as people have a 2-year memory and forget how the economy got here in the first place, Trump may not lose support.
1
I will never forget reading in these very pages, a comment from a woman who was a Republican. She quite seriously stated that she had married well, and did not have to work outside the home. Her husband's income was sufficient to fulfill the family's needs. She equated democrats with higher taxes and social spending which could prevent her husband from continuing to climb the corporate ladder, and getting those big raises and profit sharing checks that allowed her to avoid, what she called, the unpleasantness of working as a woman in America. She had no desire to be a sales clerk, typist/data-input clerk, or any of the hard, low paying jobs that were, as she saw it, the mainstay of female career opportunity.
She said that the republicans were far more likely to stamp her "meal ticket," and allow her to care for her child, and be receptive to her husband's sexual advances.
As I read this, it became clear to me that there is a genteel class of women who view work as something they wish to avoid at all costs. In the world prior to 1975, these women concentrated on the economic potential of their prospective husband. If the "cotton on the plantation was high, and they could afford a new house slave to take care of the cooking and cleaning" why rock the boat? I believe that this kind of thinking may very well explain the seeming contradiction in women's GOP voting choice.
Whether or not people have healthcare, and equality in the workplace means nothing to these women.
58
Just by needing to say that all women aren't Democrats speaks volumes.
Maybe the next article will point out that not all minorities, members of the GLBT community and those who love them, environmentalists and those for gun reform, civil and gender rights are Democrats, too.
18
Anything one has to be is the last thing I’d want to be. Keeps spreading that message it only helps to get rid of it.
Although I am a liberal, Democrat-leaning woman (over 60), I understand much of what is stated in this article.
Hillary Clinton was not one of my favorite candidates (although I voted for her instead of Trump because those were my choices). Because I favored Pres. Obama over Hillary Clinton in their primary contest, and was not a big Hillary Clinton supporter, I was accused by other women of being somehow biased against my own gender - instead of, I believe, being gender neutral.
I recently voted in my Democratic primary, and chose male candidates over the females running because of their relative positions on the issues. Many of my female friends seem to believe that I should have automatically selected the females to stand in solidarity with my gender.
I am tired of being labeled and attacked because I do not automatically support all women over all men. Please, let's get past the identity politics and start focusing on the BEST candidates.
23
Nobody ever studied harder for the US presidency than Hillary Clinton. If she had asked me about discussing her relationship with Wall Street, I would have advised her to show she knows what the game is.
2
Yes women have brains and use them. Some of course are followers of various types, but many look at the proposed policies and use logic and reason to determine who would address our many issues in the most effective way. We have a candidate for senate here who is touting all his governor experiences that have little to nothing to do with what the senate does. He is also trying to convince people that working with Dems in Tn will translate to the senate. Not in today's senate.
2
The Democrat Phil Bredesen, former mayor of Nashville, was an excellent governor of Tennessee, duly elected - twice.
One reason he was so popular is that he was able to work well with Republicans.
He instituted the state lottery (despite ridiculous boogeyman objections from the religious "leaders"), straightened out the state's CHIP program, and balanced the state's budget without implementing a state income tax.
The point is, as a mayor who turned Nashville into the regional cosmopolitican city it now is, and as a governor who has made Tennessee a more progressive state, he knows the inner machinations of state government, and is well-positioned to translate his experience into a successsful Senatorship, credit you most certainly would bestow him were he a Republican.
Glad to have cleaned up the misinformation in your comment.
17
Yes, there certainly are women who enjoy or repeatedly fall for "I Tarzan, you Jane" relationships.
2
Identity politics divide us, and it is a loosing strategy.
One can't count on overwhelming support withing the identity group, yet can surely count on loosing the support of those outside the group.
Stick to economic issues affecting women like healthcare, family leave, and day care so mothers and fathers can both be bread winners.
It just seems so obvious.
15
Prior to identity politics there were still identity politics but they just weren't called that. The people who have historically benefited from identity politics are wealthy white men. It just wasn't named; it was taken for granted that politics represent and serve this group of people. Newer identity politics wouldn't be necessary if all people were equally represented and respected.
27
The wealthy white men you talk about have invented all the technology that you use today from the lavatory to the electric bulb, from the dishwasher to the TV, the car, the internet, the elevator, the train, the plane, the escalator, penicillin, the printing machine, google, facebook, etc --- 99.9% of everything. This is what made them wealthy and important, socially.
That would be "losing."
Except - Democrats aren't initiating identity politics. Republicans are, by passing laws that marginalize non-whites, women, and gays and lesbians, who then correctly turn to the courts to protect their rights. What else should they do? Sit down, shut up, and take it? Would you?
As for economic issues affecting women, why don't you pose those same issues as affecting men, too? Why must women aways be reduced to their reporductive capabilities? Why must men always be regarded as unconcerned with health care, family leave, and day care?
1
Of course some women vote for Trump. Patriarchy would not have lasted so long if women weren't complicit. That world order protects and makes comfortable, many women. But at what cost? Overpopulation, environmental destruction, the rise of autocracies, these are often expressions of patriarchy, in which women who support that world structure are complicit. If we are to evolve as a species, patriarchy must give way to a more egalitarian society.
31
In the western world, at least, women can vote, own property, become fully educated, choose a career, and leave a bad marriage. No one I know thinks gender is a tiebreaker when a man and a woman have a difference of opinion on how to proceed. So what do you mean by the term “patriarchy” in such a world? If you mean the customs and laws through which men are bound to family and children, such as the custom of naming children after their father and the child support laws, why do you want to change those customs and laws and how will things work out if you do?
Why do you think that patriarchy, as opposed to other possible explanations such as revolutions in public health and agriculture and relatively fewer wars that kill millions, explains overpopulation?
How does patriarchy explain environmental destruction or autocracy? There may or may not be a tie-in here. But if there is I don’t think it’s because men are heedless about clean air and water while women are thoughtful, or because men abuse power while women do not. So how does patriarchy, whatever the term means in the context of the western world today, cause environmental destruction or autocracy?
4
Women should certainly have opportunities equal to or greater than men but an egalitarian society is far too left. There’s still a lot to be said for the benefits of knock down drag out bare knuckled capitalism. Women who can compete in that environment are those who should blast through the glass ceiling.
The only Republican I know of - on the national stage - who a) hasn't drunk the MAGA Koolaid and b) hasn't decided to give up politics all together seems to be John Kasich. I'm not a fan of his policies because I'm not a Republican. But at least he's not a Trump toady. I'm not really aware of any others, are you?
With my television flooded with ads for Mitt Romney (look who moved to town!) - it bugs me that you miss the larger point: The GOP is now, whether it likes it or not, the party of Trump. These "single issue" women voters who look to better profits and ignore all of the other gross miscarriages of justice (Flint's water, children's trauma at our border, and on and on) are just as at fault as anyone else for this.
I'm a small business owner in my conservative state. Yep - business is BOOMING but my heart is broken. Why isn't yours?
44
I live in Ohio and there is plenty not to like about Kasich, starting with his delight of hand regarding taxes: state taxes were cut, which led to cuts in state funding to localities and schools, which has led to localities and schools cutting back AND raising taxes to make up the difference. That has certainly not made my life better. Then Kasich took money thus “saved” and gave it to his friends.
Yes, he is slightly better than today’s average Republucan, but that is a reflection of the depths to which the GOP has sunk.
Mrs. David
24
Ohio has gone downhill under Kasixh. He seems moderate, but he is anti-choice and supports right-to-work (which is the opposite of what it suggests) and he supports the GOP agenda more than you realize.
3
Once again, I hear an anecdote about a business person thinking Trump's policies are just great. When I watched this kind of interview of Trump and non-Trump voters, not one Trump voter mentioned the environment or bigotry that is infecting our country. I guess the Neo-fascism germinating in certain demographics is also just great. If the idea of a good direction is your bet, then, even with whatever missteps
Democrats have taken, I'll take that direction any day.
40
Well I live in the south and don't see that bigotry infecting us, we do have radicals like say indivisable trying to divide us, but your Neo-facsism would be opposed by almost everyone here.
1
That’s not what your votes are saying, nor is it what a good friend of mine who lives in Tennessee reports. Trump is clearly a fascist at heart, and to support him is to support his despicable brand of authoritarianism. What you’re saying strikes me as the same kind of verbal spinning that too many in the South engage in when they say the Civil War was about states’ rights and not slavery.
6
I won't do business with anyone who behaves like Trump.
2
Of course you shouldn't have voted for Hillary just because she is a woman... you should have voted for her because Trump was self-evidently entirely unfit for the position.
All of this was self evident going in. Anyone that can justify this current political environment is clearly focusing on one or two issues and ignoring the thousand of other things that go into governance.
There was no logical reason to consider that Trump would win that. There still isn't.
41
Here is all the logic many needed. If Hillary won the supreme court would continue to make laws and allow the government to increase its role. Trump eliminated that. I see it in administration of the government as well, she would increase regulations of almost everything, Trump not so much. These are both highly logical reasons to vote for Trump or against Hillary.
1
Partly true. He is putting more regulations on women’s access to healthcare, and his removal of some regulations is ruining the environment and will ultimately have a negative impact on small business.
3
There is also no logical reason why we still have the electoral college, which is the only thing that gave trump the presidency. Hillary was the voters' choice by at least 3 million more votes.
How do we get rid of it?
3
"And nearly every employer has looked at me and asked how I could possibly be a Republican. "
I doubt the veracity of this claim. Unless you are openly espousing your political views at work, which most of us don't.
Also, for women who abortion and birth control are not top priorities, my guess it's in part because they know they generally have access to them and take it somewhat for granted. It's hard to run your own small business if you have 8 kids.
46
I don't even know where to begin with this article. Of course "women" are not a monolithic voting bloc, and a candidate's stances on a whole host of issues, both political and cultural, contribute to who actually gets any individual's vote. If taxes are your biggest issue, you're going to vote Republican. But if one looks at issues alone, and issues that impact women in ways they don't impact men, the Democrats look a whole lot better. It's Democrats who want to give women the tools -- whether it's comprehensive sex education in schools, access to birth control, or access to safe and legal abortion -- to control their fertility and hence the trajectory of their lives. Republicans consistently try to restrict all of these things. Women have different health care needs than men, and yet remember that lovely photo op of the Republican senators drafting their health care bill? What was missing? But I suspect the real reason women like this author vote Republican or identify as conservatives is because fundamentally they don't believe in the idea that government can be a benevolent force, and instead feel that if they, personally, have what they need, it doesn't matter if other people don't.
40
Not all women are Democrats because of a larger truth: The two major parties are making themselves less and less relevant.
The larger truth is that more and more voters, men and women, liberal and conservative, see neither the Democratic nor the Republican parties as representative of their concerns. Hence, in 2016 voters in the historically Democratic states of Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania rejected an establishment Democrat, and, in the primaries, traditionally Republican voters picked the most anti-establishment Republican of the 17 offered.
If Trump follows through on his anti-establishment and pro-working class campaign rhetoric in his governance --he hasn't yet-- he'll be unbeatable. Trump's victory is only made more certain by the pro-establishment of the Democratic Party (the Clintons, Biden, Obama, Pelosi, Schumer) resisting the populist wave.
All voters, including women, have lost their blind allegiance to either party. Voters want their needs met, not ideologies fulfilled.
11
The voting in the last presidential election belies your thesis. I reject it also because, as an old sixties Lefty, my “ideology” is all about getting people’s needs met, and I am far from alone in this.
4
Well, actually us "loathed" feminists are not surprised at all that some women support Trump. Feminism's contributions weren't just about "women" -- it was a model for critiquing systems of power. Kimberle Williams Crenshaw argued that we should understand difference (gender, class, race, sexuality, etc.) based on "intersectionality". In short, she pointed out that an individual can occupy multiple and overlapping positions of privilege and/or oppression. For example, in this op-ed, Cupp introduces us to Amy, a white, wealthy suburban woman who supported Trump. While as a woman, Amy may have less political power in comparison to men, she clearly holds significant racial and class privileges that are rewarded by the Trump administration. The terrifying racial rhetoric Trump promulgates, for example, doesn't threaten Amy or her family. I describe myself as a feminist not because I am a woman and not because I only care about women's issues, but because I care about critiquing and combating oppression and systemic inequalities. Not all women are feminists, and not all feminists are women.
33
Yessss! Extremely well said. And I say this as an old white sixties Lefty male!
4
I’m not sure what the point of this piece is. Obviously many women are Republicans, and many voted for Trump. They are also in the minority (not sure it is a point of price that a large majority of white women voted for Trump, and also elides the fact that many more white men did).
This seems to be one of those “I Am The World” pieces, where the author, holding a minority view, insists that it is actually a majority view.
I would also point her to the fact that that there are vanishingly few female Republican Senators, and they are all on the liberal spectrum. So it would appear their gender does make some difference.
27
Excellent column. It is insulting to women, I believe, when they are considered like-minded in any way. It's like toxic masculinity. Why paint any group or gender with a broad stereotypical brush?
I never voted for Hillary because I didn't think she was the best candidate. I voted for Obama against her and in the general elections and wrote in Mike Bloomberg in 2016. I would have voted for a Dianne Feinstein in her heyday or many other women regardless of their gender. Didn't a woman beat Mark Sanford?
As you say, the more people getting involved in politics to advance causes that benefit their constituents is great.
5
Small business owners should realize that Trump is coming for them next. They will pay for the tax cuts for the mega-billionaires. Anyone, male or female, that is not a mega-billionaire and voted for Trump should be questioning themselves.
38
David Eagleman, a neuroscientist, demonstrated he could predict whether someone was progressive or conservative based on their brain response to a single photograph. In other words, our political leanings begin with a neurological reaction.
What this tells me is that we're wasting our time trying to tell ourselves stories about why women vote the way they do or how to change their minds so they'll vote the way we think they should (whoever "we" happens to be).
Much better to talk to women -- all women -- to find the common ground. My conservative friends are frequently surprised to discover they have a great deal in common with me, a progressive, once we set aside the labeling and demonizing, and actually listen to each other.
14
Like what? Art, reading, etc. or actual policies of the government?
4
There are many good responses to this narrowly crafted opinion piece. The woe-is-me tone that we are to feel sorry for Ms. Cupp because she doesn't fit some sort of mold (I hate to break the news to her, but thankfully none of us do) is disappointing because she fails in two ways.
1. She makes the argument that everyone wants to put women in one big category and then proceeds to put women in one big category.
2. She fails to make a reasonable argument to advocate for more women, conservative and liberal alike, to serve in elected positions in government. She ignores the importance for Republican, Democrat or Independent women to hold more seats in the halls of our legislatures so they reflect the actual make-up of our states and country as a whole. That's not being a feminist, that is just being logical and an advocate for good governance.
The problem with pundits: their knowledge is an inch deep and a mile wide and all they really care about is the soundbite.
25
Ms. Maurer, the "43-year-old well-educated suburban mom," is also a staunch member of the board of the local Wisconsin Republican party. Perhaps the author (and the NYT editorial board, now that they have been fooled once by Ms. Cupp) should have pointed that out. Hardly a representative or even independent voice.
107
Exactly! Also, I am not sure what it says about the state of the union that every other virtue is sacrificed for the almighty dollar. My Republican friends and family consistently accept the horrors being wrought on everyone else and the boorishness of the president, so long as the economy booms.
23
Nothing in the job description of president covers "boorishness", it even if it exists is irrelevant. And I want the federal government restructured even more than a good (not yet great) economy.
BINGO!!!! She is here with a PHOTO at a GOP event in the NY Post piece Cupp claims was the inspiration for using her. This smacks of journalistic deception. https://nypost.com/2018/05/05/the-coalition-that-got-trump-elected-isnt-...
3
A useful disclaimer for this article's premise- "Not all women vote Democrat, but all FREE THINKING women do." How can you align yourself with a party that objectifies you, tries desperately to control and suppress you, in many cases outright hates you, and then have the audacity to claim that you're not just another partisan parrot? You sound like one of those token placements on fox news, sitting on a bag of money as you sell your soul so that their hateful viewers can continue to claim it's "fair and balanced".
46
Kevin,
One doesn't "align with a Party" but votes for a particular candidate when sometimes the choice causes you to hold your nose. Neither Party has the corner on what's best for America.
1
Insulting, smarter than thou comments like this do our party absolutely no favors. Just because you can't understand one's motives for their choices doesn't mean their invalid. It's pretty clear too - lots of people will prioritize the economy over just about anything - and can you blame them? In this country the first step towards freedom is financial security - only after that, the way that many see it at least, do you really have time to focus on the rest of it.
1
And per Peter from Minnesota ‘Ms. Maurer, the "43-year-old well-educated suburban mom," is also a staunch member of the board of the local Wisconsin Republican party.’ That information should have been included in the essay - it wasn’t and that tells a lot (not good) about the writer.
4
Yes. It's the economy, stupid!
What Democrats should be doing is pointing out how uneven our economic prosperity is. If we are prosperous, now is the time to improve our school systems, our infrastructure, and our family policies.
21
But we are not really prosperous considering all the things we expect the federal government to do. Schools can be improved by states or locals, we do need a new infrastructure tax (roads, bridges, ports, airports). Family policies are best left to the market to improve, we already have too many laws about that.
Can you say "White privilege and entitlement".
41
Which I insist does not exist. If it did all those white people in my state would be wealthy, not poor. Now change "white" to "wealthy and educated" and I agree.
4
There are wealthy Black people. What's your point?
And the "wealthy and educated" are?
Anyone care to bet Amy Maurer doesn't believe in Climate Change?
23
Want to bet you don't understand that in science you don't use "belief"? In science we have objective evidence and replicatable experiments, "belief" is for religion.
2
Amy Maurer is a Republican Party official in Wisconsin, so its a safe bet she thinks it’s a hoax.
3
“I didn’t vote for Mr. Trump and I don’t support him now.” Wrong. There is no longer a Republican party, only the Trump party. You remain a Republican, and you write editorials bragging about that. That makes you a Trump supporter. Maybe you spoke too quickly, because obviously you are not “too smart” to be a Trumpist.
33
Conservatives are the most entitled people in this country. Their eternal persecution complex is insufferable. Trust me, I live in the South.
56
This is literally a nothing op-ed NYT. Why even bother with such a waste of words. Yes, there are women on both sides of the aisle. Next. Are there not enough real issues out there that we have to fill the paper with T.V. celebrity commentary which is recycled whining that she and her friends peddle virtually weekly? And what is the effect on Ms. Cupp to any of this? Oh nothing, that's right there is virtually NO consequence to anything she has brought up. I usually think better of the op-ed pages for not wasting our time.
20
I think that you disagree with Ms. Cupp?
Oh the economy is doing great. And Kim Jong and NK are now our BFF's. And every FBI agent who isnt a flag-waving, loyalty oath taking, card-carrying Republican, is part of a cabal to oust Trump.
Right. All because Trump says so, and a few voters think making money is all we Americans have an obligation to do. While committing a Nazi inspired (thank you Stephen Miller!) atrocity on children at our border.
Good times. What a wonderful country we're devolving in to...not!
Why does Ms. Cupp find it necessary to point out the obvious? We all know White women are not all Dems, do not vote for their gender by default - as exampled by their great choice to vote for the current occupier of the Oval. We know. Oh boy do we know not all women vote Democratic, or by default for their own gender.
But the title of this piece should have been, in order to be accurate...should have been, "No, Not all WHITE Women are Democrats!" Missing was the qualifier- WHITE. Us geeks on the subject, know that white women, middle/upper class white women, tend to vote in allegiance to their white male partner. Its established, if their partner is a white male, who thinks the world has been purposely stacked against him, she will vote like him. Even IF she knows the facts to be contrary. We know that when presented with a scary political advert, where a white family is in danger, they will lock their doors, and pull the trigger to elect a misogynist, race-bating, narcissist like Trump.
We know.
29
It's entirely possible that Trump and the Republicans could hold off a Democratic wave in 2018 and 2020. Trump is the George Wallace of the North, and was able to overcome the past aversion of Northern and Midwestern "conservatives" to the Alabama Governor. Wallace was able to get 10 million votes while blaring" Segregation Forever!". The current Republican Southern Strategy has become a National Strategy.
Democrats and other people of conscience had better turn out to vote like never before.
21
Democrats better soon gain some perspective and take responsibility for their own failures - all the way back to 1968 and then handing Nixon a landslide. The Democratic Party is so busy wooing 3rd world socialism that it can only maintain its equilibrium for 4 to 8 years and then it collapses into a day care drama fest, while Republicans play their long game and win, over and over. There's a reason all large U.S. cities are broke down crime riven corrupt, each with the only working parts being the business community.
Do you think Trump could have been elected if he was in wheel chair?
One aspect of parliamentary countries that I admire is the diversity of the political spectrum and parties to choose from. In addition, people are not usually not heavily chastised personally for intellectual political differences, as has become the case in this polarized country. Sadly, extremes have been enabled as a result. If you don't fit squarely into one party, what are you to do? Declare yourself an independent, which can be a number of views. In my own family, I'm a moderate democrat with progressive views supporting education, immigration, social justice etc.. My mom, on the other hand, is a moderate Republican (if there is such a category any more without being criticized as a RINO) due to her background as a business owner. We usually agree on many social issues, but debate other current affairs with polite rhetoric, maybe because we're used to decades of beltway politics as Marylanders. "It's only a few more years" I've often heard family and friends say for EACH administration in my lifetime. In the mean time, people like me and my mother can't wait for this crazy administration to change, but wonder what the future holds.
11
Cupp provides anecdotal evidence of one woman (Ms. Maurer) as proof that women cast their votes based on issues other than women's issues.
Women's issues should be paramount to women when deciding
how to vote. Women are perhaps the only political faction that doesn't vote their best interests. (well...maybe lower income whites as well). Hopefully this will change. I disagree strongly with her that women don't constitute a voting bloc. They should be and are.
16
And to top it off -- the woman is on the board of the Republican party in her district. http://www.kenoshacountygop.org/board.html
This should be a fun correction from the Times.
2
Do you include personal safety a women's issue? I do, and therefore would vote for the strongest law and order candidate. Being soft on violent criminals does not put women's interests first, but the Democrats don't seem to realize it.
Ms. Cupp is correct that women do not vote as anything close to a unified block. Democrats should be careful about drinking their own koolaid on the idea of "women's issues." Some of the biggest pushback on abortion rights will be from conservative, religious women. Then there are women, like Tomi Lahren, who benefit from Democratic efforts on issues like abortion and even support the issue, but be slanderously against Democrats all the same.
Other than that, most of this article feels like a revisit of Hillbilly Elegy, a fairy-tale like narrative backed by anecdotes about how it's all "economic anxiety"...pretending there are no ugly motivations like bigotry and religious fundamentalism. Yet, exit polling showed Trump voters as having higher average income than both Clinton and Sanders voters, and those few with income below $35k still voted overwhelmingly for Democrats.
In the Trump era, bigotry has become socially acceptable while openly calling out bigotry has become the great social faux pas, the great sin. So we contort ourselves pretending it's something other than. But if a block of women voters is not only unpreturbed by separating Latin American kids from their parents, but see it as "winning" or "getting the job done," it's time to take a pass on the fiction of "economic anxiety" and call it what it is.
22
How do you know what people you don't know, have never even met are feeling? Was there no bigotry or snobbism in your post?
Democrats do not seem to realize those 70 million+ legal and illegal latinos they've opened the borders to and champion over all others are almost all deeply wedded to Catholic and evangelical misogyny, as we speak breeding the next generation of forced birther anti-female Republicans. It won't take much at all for the latino vote to shift center right/right.
I think Ms. Maurer is going to have a bit of a shock when she sets out to purchase new equipment for her business, and runs snack dab into the higher prices for that equipment, triggered by her president's launching of a trade war fiasco. Wonder how much profit sharing, job increases, and expansion she'll enjoy once the those effects begin to kick in?
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Sad in politics that voters often give credit for a good economy to the incumbent and vote for them again, even if the incumbent had little to do with it.
Anyone who won the last presidential election would be in the midst of a strong economy. But Trump takes credit wherever he can and blames any problems on anyone but himself.
46
Ms. Cupp, you say "In the two decades since I came out as a conservative woman, more and more of us have popped up on your television screens and in your local elections."
Yes, since fox so-called news and other Robber Barons like the Koch brothers and Peter Thiel have taken over OUR communications one only needs follow the money. Once again the Robber Barons want to destroy OUR lives and the world with their religious gobbledygook that many people are swallowing. Jim Jones convinced his brain-washed followers to kill themselves and their children - hundreds of them - when he realized his lying-cheating-demented gig was up.
You and women like you must think about your "position". The male model power-over has suppressed and denigrated women for centuries. At last a significant number of women of every color, race and religious affiliation across America and around the world recognize exactly what the male model has cost them over the centuries and refuse to allow it to continue.
You and women who think like you - perhaps because of the old "I've got mine - you get your own" mentality - are helping to keep other women suppressed. You are entitled to believe and act as you wish and suffer the consequences. You can get thrown under the "conservative" bus if you want. You can follow the cult leader in OUR white house if you want. However, you have no right to try to suppress the rest of women by supporting the male power-over model.
Please stop.
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I am sorry, but as a straight white woman I feel much more oppressed by Democrats these days than by Republicans. The Dems are are shaming me and totally disrespect my desire to think differently at every turn. The fact alone that one has to hide their thoughts and feelings on campuses, at work, in bars, even with friends, proves that we are in a new McCarthy era where the oppressors are the far left.
> “I always find it funny when I hear the term ‘women’s issues’ because that term equates to birth control and abortion,” she said. “As a small-business owner, taxes and the economy are usually my primary concern when making a choice.”
This is just willfully misunderstanding what the term means. It doesn't mean "the only issues women care about", it means "issues more immediately relevant to women than men". If circumcision were a political issue, you can bet your bottom dollar it'd be under the category of "men's issues".
Note also the choice of "immediately relevant"; a woman's right to an abortion is more immediately relevant to her but it does affect others in her life, even if they are men. Men should fight for that right too.
36
Also, when to have a child, and how to provide for their care is an economic issue. It is an issue for small business because it may prevent one's ability to start one or create burdens for them. It's just a stupid statement. It doesn't matter how the economy is doing if you can't take part in it because of an ill-timed pregnancy! Every woman knows and cares about that one way or the other (unless your including Trans, and even then many as allies).
And as a matter of fact, women did vote against Trump in the majority. Nearly half of white women even did and a women are frontline of resisters to him. Basically, he has white women who don't have a college education. Maybe, but taking babies out of mother's arms might reduce that.
Also as a point of clarification, Pelosi did say Conyers was an icon not as an argument for protection but merely being cautious, because Conyers is an icon. But they did get rid of Conyers. As Gillibrand advocated against Franken (and for which she is know being punished).
Will women rule differently? More of them will consider children in their ideas men will, because we can't as a group pretend someone else will do it.
As to S.E. Cupp herself. I'm unimpressed. She's against Trump but busy carrying water for his supporters. You can't have it both ways,ma'am.
50
It doesn't sense, S.E. is too intelligent to be so hypocritical and try and play both sides of the wall.
As a progressive, I agree with the gist of this column. Women are as diverse as men. As a man, I support women's right to control their own bodies because I value that right for myself. I'm not a Democrat though I'm usually forced to vote for Democrats, for lack of choice. Our choices are rarely ideal. I'd take Al Franken over Sarah Palin any day, though I'd be uncomfortable about my daughter dating either one.
If I had to choose between a Democrat who would protect reproductive rights, voter rights, consumer rights & civil rights, promote environmental responsibility & access to health care, infrastructure investment, public education, criminal justice reform, a living wage, reigning in the bloated military, de-politicizing the judiciary, sensibly regulating Wall Street, & etc, vs. a Republican who would be better for the economy, then . . . well, the Republicans have never actually presented that particular choice.
42
"Criminal justice reform" and "depoliticizing the judiciary" are code for putting more violent criminals out on the streets to prey on law abiding citizens, half of whom are women. No thanks.
The most recent poll I saw showed 30% of voters claiming to be Dems, 23% Repubs and 40% independent. To have a discussion limited to Dem vs Repubs is to delve into irrelevance. That fact plus favorability polls clearly show that both parties are despised.
We need new political parties.
31
"We need new political parties. "
Or more Independent candidates unbeholden to any party. As the DNC seems to have barred Sanders, or any other Independent candidate, from running as Democrats, i just may get my wish.
signed - a female Independent who voted neither Dem nor Republican in '18.
4
You're correct that we need more parties with clearly stated agendas but how is that suppose to work in the current voting system? Popular vote is not realized in the States at a Federal level and that is why the Republicans have been focused on redrawing districts since Roosevelt.
I understand California has changed its elections laws. Good for California!
Right now, though, the Federal and most state governments lay in the hands of Republicans even though in many cases Republicans are not the majority in some states.
Before the USA can have an honest selection of several choices it will need to revise election laws and get rid of the outdated Electoral College. Government for the People and By the People should not have 'districts' nor any type of filtering device such as the Electoral College.
5
Instead of gaming the system with his dishonesty and highjacking the Democratic Party, good ol' Bernie Sanders could've run as what he's been his entire life: an Independent Maxist-Socialist.
With its self-referential framing and lecturing tone, directed at "you", this is very far from a good-faith engagement with the facts. The argument depends on cherry-picked examples and standard-issue tropes conservatives have fallen back on for years. Reciting conservative history, Ms. Cupp suggested the GHW Bush-Dukakis margins were larger than they were among women (2 percentage points). She finds her overlooked Trump supporter in a profile from Salena Zito's book. And I couldn't help wondering how that Kenosha small-business owner feels today about Trump's destabilizing trade policy; she'd be foolish not to worry that she might end up paying the price. Cupp also implies Trump's vote totals among white women are more significant that they are. Voter turnout in 2016 was around 58% of registered voters. A subset of women (those without college education) broke for Trump; but as Cupp had to acknowledge, Trump lost women overall. And when you look at the broad, multi-racial working class as whole, Clinton won. By the end of the article, Ms. Cupp has mostly given up making an argument and slipped into pouting about all the attention that's going to the Democratic women running for office this year.
30
I am registered as a Republlican. Have been for years. Having said that, I don't recognize today's Republican Party, and most of the party probably would reject me as a RINO. I favor sensible gun control - if cars and boats have to be registered, I see no reason why a gun shouldn't be registered, and AR-15s have no place in civilian hands. I'm opposed to abortion, but I don't want to return to the days of back-alley abortions. Today's Republlicans would find my views anathema.
I don't agree with a lot of the Democratic Party's platform, and I don't like Hillary Clinton. But I voted for her. You see, I find the current occupant of the White House to be odious, a clear and present danger to our country. And I'm angry that the Republican-controlled Congress is complacent in his misdeeds. Last fall I did not vote for a single Republican, not even at the local level. And that's the way I'm voting this fall. NY 19? At this point I don't care which Democrat wins the primary, he/she get my vote. The current Repubican Party needs to be destroyed to allow a return to sanity.
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Great comment. I wish I could recommend it more than once.
21
Ms. Bee: As a 52yo male Democrat who grew up around a good mix of centrist Democrats and solid old-style Republicans (think Ronald Reagan-lite), I really am sorry to witness what has happened to your party. I don't want to see one-party rule -- by either party. Both parties are stronger and smarter when the parties themselves are filled with good, honest, patriots who also can show empathy for the others in America who aren't necessarily their own voters. With our current White House occupant, I am truly frightened for our country. I think Ronald Reagan would be rolling over in his grave if he were aware of what's happening to us.
Thank you for post. Sadly, I'm not coming across many concerned Republicans such as yourself. Thank you.
8
I wish I could recommend Ronald Reagan, as he was so popular, but like pretty much all Republican Presidents since Ike, he was a monster, and a senile monster at that, in his second term.
I get-it, the why some women voted for the things Trump said, like taxes and such, over the man and what he said and did toward women, etc. I get-it. I get the basic foundational things that Repubs, and this time Trump, speak to, and that Dems do not.
But I always ask, so what in Trumps history led you to believe he was a capable and responsible candidate for POTUS? What specifically about that history tells you he's to be trusted with the most important (to all of us Americans) and powerful world leadership job? And I ask them to be specific, to use hard examples, and not repeat his campaign rhetoric.
9 of 10, cant answer me. They stare, some get angry and spout off about the despicable HRC, or they walk away. But I've yet to meet anyone, in this case middle-aged Repub women, who can explain - with a sense of careful deliberation on their part, why they fell for the TV-personality of Trump.
Why? Because they didn't do their due diligence. They accepted the Fauxfox line of propaganda. They simply listened to Trumps propaganda about himself, as well as that spewed by his minions...and that was it! None looked him up, looked at the plethora of information about him.
Of the women who strongly disliked HRC, it was for her complicity in the Lewenski and affair cover-ups. All seemed not to know that Trump was married 3 times, cheated on them all, and was by all accounts of those paying attention, the poster man-boy for the soon to appear #metoo movement.
Willful ignorance.
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Yes, these Trump voters and right-wing commentators pursue "ButWhatAboutism", for when Trumpsters can't support him and have to come up with a way to change the subject, so they make up stuff about Hillary, or Obama or any Democrat at all. It's really pitiful and tiresome that they can't actually cite evidence but simply rely on uninformed opinions to make charges. All just to change the subject away from Trump's anti-democratic actions.
Sen. Bob Corker-R from Tennessee calls the GOP a "cult", and that his Repub colleagues are afraid of expressing any criticism at all of Trump, because they "may poke the bear". Just-defeated SC Repub Mark Sanford said most in GOP simply want to keep their seats in Congress and don't want to do anything to risk it. Such paragons of democracy--NOT. And they are the ones all these "conservative women" think should be in charge of our government?
7
I strongly disliked HRC. But the Lewinski affair had nothing to do with it.
Gotta love the photo. Permed, bleached blonde middle-aged, suburban/urban, white women who all shop at Lane Bryant, or the matronly-uniform section of their local "Power Ladies Mart."
Wow! If thats not a prime example of a demographic that has become obedient constituents to the needs and ideologies of the White, upper Middle, or very wealthy, male club.
Yeah, I know these women. Many of them were my prime source of clientele, and as such money. I trained them morning, noon, and sometimes night. I helped them chase their younger-selves, because they were scared their husbands would run-off with a new-hire, intern, or the liberated, works for her own money, powerful female they'd meet on a business trip.
Republican women who all wore the uniform of sexless suits (pastel, or bold primary colored skirts/jackets with white or beige blouses) and sensible shoes, big-balled necklaces that I never see anyplace else. Whose POV is all about sustaining their white, very upper-middle-class, or like on the north shore of Long Island (where most of my clients lived) very wealthy, chauffeured from their gated compounds to NYC for lunches and the latest trendy play (or to have secret surgeries) lives.
They IMO, are Matrons of a dying breed. The keepers of an old form of exclusivity and gated communities.
So I stopped training them...because they made me sad. They're husbands when they stayed, cheated relentlessly, and no matter how many lunches they took, they remained unfulfilled.
14
Wow. This is blatant sexism at its most insidious. I don't agree with Mr. Cupp, but this comment is absolutely revolting. Shame on you.
1
The truth is that assuming all the women will/should vote for women or that all POC should vote for candidates of their race is sexist and racist at its core. Peoples concerns, issues, lives and needs vary greatly and will change, sometimes substantially, over a lifetime. Having school aged children or grandchildren might cause one to vocally support public education but that doesn’t translate to automatic support for a candidate who runs on a platform of public school aid and prison reform. And so on. I get a laugh out of those who insinuate that women should vote for other women, unless, of course should that female candidate be a Republican.
9
It is not that they "should". It is that in regards to what is offered only the Dems are offering anything. That's the key issue here. The Republicans for a very long time refuse to deal with either POC or Women's concerns (let alone when they intersect). If someone is trying to sell you something. let say apples, and one person has no apples, only sour grapes, and the other person has apples, if small and not exactly the kind your prefer, you, generally speaking, are going to pick the apples over the sour grapes. It is basic logic. The apple-seller doesn't have to up their game of course until they have true competition. But why oh why won't the seller of sour grapes also sell apples? That's the question?
5
Ms Cupp, after seeing the white woman turn out for trump I already knew that white women can also vote against their own interests while helping with the destruction of democracy.
39
Thanks for womansplaining. I just assumed that personal autonomy, freedom from gender bias, and basic human dignity were woman's issues. Now I see that what is really important to women is the abilty to grow your business, purchase more equipment, and accrue wealth at the expense of a principled, ethical existence.
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"I didn't vote for Mr. Trump and I don't support him now. But..." Gads am I tired of this line which conservative pundits and many conservatives in general, from the likes of David Brooks on down - way down in this instance - use as cover for the fact that they are indeed supporting Trump/Trumpism/Trumpists in ways they are loath to admit but which play to their personal interests. Those are, of course, dominantly economic. And there biases, which tend to carry an unpleasant odor and are antithetical to the best and highest interests and values of this nation. Happy Fathers Day SE. BTW, what's your take on Daddies Trump and Sessions new hotels for immigrant children?
18
On what rational basis does any human being consider her- or himself intelligent if they are Republican? To be selfish, the basis of every Republican policy that exists, is not intelligent. To willingly, and even gleefully, ignore the ramifications of those terrible policies is not intelligent. Quite simply, for faux-intelligent Republicans to comprehend, to enable Traitor Trump is not intelligent. To be intelligent, by definition, one needs the ability to think things through. Republicans do not. The thought process is abhorrent to them, so they don’t bother.
21
Right. Also, these poor Trumpers, I was happy to pay for their health care but they don't want it. Seriously, tax me higher to help the country, it's fine! That's fine, I will keep my liberal NYC pennies and my union health care to myself.
2
Trump only had to be smarter than one person and that person was Hillary Clinton. Obviously Trump was smarter.
1
There are tens of millions of pro-life women in this country. They come in all races, ethnicities and faiths. There are pro-life atheists.
Until the feminist movement realises this they will never be represtative of American women.
Misogyny is not a feminist political issue as they overwhelmingly voted for Bill Clinton and his enabler wife. Hillary also was part of the cabal with Carville and Stephanopoulos that actively tried to destroy Bill's accusers.
Equal pay is also not a feminist political issue as they overwhelmingly voted for Hillary in spite of the fact that she paid her Senate female staff 72% of what she paid her male staff. The liberal media and leftist "fact checkers" twisted themselves into knots trying to dispute this fact but they failed.
Birth control is inexpensive and readily available. There is no reason for it to be free while actual life saving medications are not free, and often expensive. Birth control is a non-issue.
For feminists it is all about abortion.
12
59% of women believe in legal abortions in most cases while 38% poll the opposite. That’s a big difference but hey clearly vote against their interests in other respects.
3
Thanks for informing feminists everywhere about what is important to us, Larry.
3
Since you're evidently not a feminist, it's odd that you take it upon yourself to define what feminism is and what feminists believe. But you wouldn't be first, I guess, to try to speak for all women and establish what we're allowed to think.
4
'The economy's doing great...'
Aside from the fact that the economy 'was doing great' and was on track to continue 'doing great' before Trump stumbled into the Oval Office, that is scant solace when the President of the United States is an erratic, belligerent fascist dictator wannabe, who alienates our allies and heaps praise on the most reprehensible 'leaders' on the planet. He loathes and jousts with Justin Trudeau, and has 'great chemistry' with Kim Jong-Un.
Mussolini famously made the trains run on time. Hitler built the Autobahn and the Volkswagen.
Your prototypical 'white suburban female conservative' apparently would vote for both of them if they showed up in America today.
In fact, they're already here, running as Republicans.
155
Ferdinand Porsche built the Volkswagen. The German government in the 1930s hired Porsche's company to design and build a cheap, small car: what came to be known as the Beetle.
2
Ms. Cupp says she doesn't support Trump, but delights in his victories over the left. She claims to be an atheist, but has made repeated TV appearances supporting "religious freedom" legislation that favors the rights of Christians over others.
Methinks the lady doth protest too much, about a whole bunch of things.
31
There are many republican women out there, no doubt.
They have sincere held views (like most people do) and articulate them with truth. That is not the problem, nor is it when this particular group tries to flex their muscles at the voting polls.
The rubber hits the road when they hold their nose and vote for the (r) regardless of the repercussions. (especially to themselves)
The candidate in their district/state might be sane, reasonable and supposedly moderate, but then when that candidate is elected, and clear of restraints during the election, they vote in lock step with the party and the President. (who certainly may not be)
Then of course, those same women go around on TV with the moral conviction that they are not for the status quo they have unleashed, but are resistant.
You cannot have it both ways.
44
Are you actually saying that the same exact thing doesn't happen with Democrats? Perhaps you don't remember the entire Democratic party rallying around Bill Clinton as he lied about what happened with Monica. Looked at through the lense of #metoo, he was a sexual predator plain and simple. Whatever motive Republicans had for trying to impeach him, they were on the right side morally. Democrats were wrong. But now many of the same people who defended him attack Trump for the same behavior. That's partisan hypocrisy.
1
No, sadly not all women are Democrats. Most of the non-Democrat women are white and Christian, though. They tend to be single-issue voters on abortion, and they know that if they or their relatives need one, they can still trade on their relative privilege to get one while locking out others.
Any woman who votes for a party that elevates an admitted sexual predator to the highest office of the United States, wants to make her a second class citizen who isn't allowed to control her own body, pursues policies to enable sexual assault and harassment in the workplace, refuses to pass policies like a living wage and paid parental leave that disproportionately affect women, and refuses to fund schools or medical care for children (which is something that everyone should care about, but are considered "women's issues") is voting against her own best interests.
I don't assume you hate yourself. I do know that you are just flat-out wrong about what is best for women and the country as a whole. Republican economics are garbage and this has been repeatedly shown through empirical experimentation (Kansas, anyone?). Republican social safety net cuts are cruel and inhumane and don't work to help people; they just cause people to die. Republican foreign policy gets us into wars we can't win, angers our allies, and has us making friendly with some of the noted pariahs of the world (Putin, Kim Jong-Un). Oh and the incipient trade war, yeah, that's Republican too.
206
It would seem to me that voting on a narrow set of economic issues without regard to the other issues and baggage a candidate might have is just as narrow as voting on a narrow set of "identity" issues.
One would hope that more people would vote for those who are likely to do the greatest good for the greatest number. But we see far too much tribalism, far too much "I me mine" in these voting decisions.
I don't expect women, as a group--or men, for that matter--to vote in lockstep. I DO expect PEOPLE to seriously consider their votes beyond their own parochial little interests--one reason I tend to consistently vote for people who might well raise my taxes, by the way. But maybe I'm the idiot.
34
No, you are not the idiot. You want this country to work for everyone. That is what real Democrats want and, formerly, some Republicans did too.
The corruption of the Republican Party that started with the McCarthy hearings has culminated in DT and Mitch McConnell. The country may not survive the Republican assault on our democracy, the basic principle of which was the greatest good for the greatest number. Separation of church and state was another founding principle that too many have ignored and Neil Gorsuch was put in SCOTUS to demolish.
This article demonstrates my worst fear about women (I am one, a teacher, who believes in that respect for everyone is central to political and all other aspects of our lives on this planet). When women forget to be nurturers, when money and power become central commitments, they have lost their humanity as have the men who do the same.
Please, sisters, go out and save our country for our children and grandchildren. Vote for every Democrat on your ballot unless you know personally a Republican that you trust to vote his conscience instead of the Republican Party line.
2
The words "61% of uneducated woman voted trump " says it all to me.
32
Not having a college degree is not the same as uneducated.
FYI: Among the 97% of blacks and 71% latinos who voted for Obama - but not the woman candidate in 2016 - there were plenty of "uneducated" women and men.
As Trump said himself. “I love the uneducated.” They form the core of his support.
And I don’t necessarily mean people with less school education, I mean the FoxNews watchers - they are the most uneducated in the country. That’s why Trump loves that station - it speaks to his base and keeps them uneducated for him.
2
Republicans of both genders can be conned. Noted.
167
Women who vote for republicans are voting for people who hate them. Hate them. Republicans are anti-education, anti family leave laws, and are going after health care and nutrition for children. Let's speak the truth. You're not fooling anyone, Ms. Cupp, and you have no moral superiority
52
Good call. Women's issues are not just abortion and equal pay, but children's rights like education and family leave. These issues apply to traditional families and suburbanites. How sad that these women are so cowed by the patriarchy that they vote against their own interests. Poor men, too, are voting against their own interests when they vote Republican. Health care and stable, middle class communities should be everyone's concern.
5
We'd need a larger sample size to know if woman govern differently than men. Are you familiar with social science and/or morality? You seem devoid of knowledge of either and convinced that you're on the cutting edge of some new thing: cool Republican woman. Forget it. There's two of you who even have a shot at the title -- Meghan McCain is the other one. And, your glasses don't hide your hypocrisy. Sorry - no such thing as a Republican who can disavow Trump. You own him.
29
"I didn’t vote for Mr. Trump ..."
So, who did you vote for? Why would you hide that?
26
That was EXACTLY what I wanted to know as well.
8
Probably a Ted Cruz write-in ballot. Who else could be as deplorable?
3
If you can't see that Trump hates this country and everything that liberals and actual conservatives believe in (such as the rule of law and being truthful and honest) then you aren't a conservative; you are a person who prefers a crook and a wannabe dictator.
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Trump is called an ultra nationalist. He is also accused of hating his country. When you get criticized for being too much in one direction and also critized for being too much in the opposite direction, somebody is wrong.
2
@Shamrock: It's Trump who is wrong. He tells people what they want to hear, even if today it is the opposite of what he says tomorrow. That's what psychopaths do, and Trump is a full-blown psychopath.
1
First, I read a photo essay proclaiming "There Are Good Men Out There" and think, WOW!!! at least eight of us aren't Harvey Weinstein. Oh, the relief.
And, here, I read that women can be - and apparently are - as stupid as men. Yeah...I'm shocked.
15
One woman? You could only find one woman?
21
All the sensible women I know vote Republican. Democrats are for open borders. Open borders brings in huge numbers of men from horrifically misogynistic cultures.
My mother fought all her life for the right to be respected as a human being. Now her granddaughter goes to school and there are immigrant boys who tell her Allah says women who don't cover their face should be beaten and imprisoned. And the (Democrat) schoolteacher says, shut your mouth, you deplorable little American and learn to appreciate his beautiful wonderful Non-
Western culture.
How dumb does a woman have to be to keep voting for more of this?
11
I work with immigrant families, many of them Muslim. I am also a former teacher. I find your anecdote about both students and teacher very difficult to credit.
16
Kind of like blacks too. Never has a group of people been promised so much and twaken advantage of and gotten so little yet most of them keep voting Democrat. Go figure.
I'm a lifelong Democrat as were my parents. I am not for "open borders". I am for fair and just laws that are applied fairly and justly across the population, without regard to ethnicity, gender, etc.
Virtually all the Democrats I know feel much the same as I do.
You write, "Democrats are for open borders."
You have a mistaken view of Democrats. If that is the basis for your political decisions then it would do you well to gather more comprehensive information before next November.
I suggest you start with the "issues" page of Bernie Sanders' website. He lays out in a simple format a lot of the concerns and solutions that are on our minds. I'm not suggesting that you, or even all Democrats, need to agree with his suggestions. But he does a good job expressing the MANY issues that concern us all.
https://berniesanders.com/issues/
With regard to immigration:
I think a border wall would be a huge waste of money, but I also think that there is a fundamental injustice and unfairness in allowing people who have entered this country illegally to stay while people who are trying to immigrate legally are faced with a lengthy, bureaucratic system. That said, I think we also need to find a humane way to rectify the situation. Yes, MS13 is evil. But not all "dreamers" are MS13. Some intelligence is required here.
2
“It’s not my favorite thing,” she said when I asked her about the way Mr. Trump has talked about women. “It’s kind of like what I told my mother-in-law when she complained that her heart surgeon wasn’t very friendly: If he’s good at what he does, who cares? He’s not there to be your best friend.” Here this "well-educated" Republican woman topples right into the sexist trap of conflating brusqueness or emotional distance with rhetoric that preemptively converts women and girls into meat, or chattel; and that in the president's case described actual assaults. One hopes she's not guilty of the same fuzzy thinking when it comes to her business. But if its success is at all dependent on earlier tariffs or trade and immigration policy; or if she or anyone in her family, or any of her employees, count at some point on Social Security or Medicare, or on clean air and water, a rude awakening looms.
39
Maybe it's not so complicated. We now have as large a Republican presence in government as we've had since the Civil War. Pubs run Washington and 34 states.
And by many lights, things are not going very well: Environmental degradation; trade wars; inflation; rising mortgage rates and health care costs; loss of ACA protections; flat wages; restrictions on voting and reproductive rights; religious hypocrisy; breaking up families at the border; and beyond the border, a poke-in-the-eye foreign policy for our friends while coddling dictators.
Why wouldn't women -- everybody, actually -- want a different direction -- something other than the daily barrage of water torture from this inept Administration?
25
To identify oneself as a Republican today means you support the presidential administration. You can try to wiggle around it by saying you don't like trump but that is a farce. It's like saying you're for white supremacy but you don't like the KKK. The Republican party is now the party of trump. And the party of trump wants an authoritarian government. They want a ruthless leader who makes the rules and you will follow the rules. They want "christianity" infused into the government and schools. They want non-white-hetero-males to be governed by a different set of rules and laws. They will reject scientific findings when they don't support their agenda. In short, Your article is intellectually bankrupt and makes you sound much less intelligent than you seem to pride yourself to be.
47
And you can also drive your car with your feet,it doesn’t make it a good idea.
7
Wait! You mean women have brains? You mean women can think for themselves? You mean that automatically just because you're a woman you don't have to think Democratic, vote Democratic, read the New York Times and believe all its nonsense, think #metoo is the best thing to ever happen, endorse Gay marriage and want to save the whales? You mean that your genitals and your X chromosome aren't your ideological destiny. That's just crazy. We all know that how you vote and how you think is determined by your biology, class, sex, gender identity etc. Well, after all, I am a white cisgender heterosexual man which must mean I am a Trump supporter and hate all minorities and vote 110% Republican. Your article is just #crazy. Now I am off to go listen to some Kanye West to get my groove back.
12
This opinion appeared on Page 7 of the print edition of the paper. Page 8 contained the editorial “Tariffs Already Hitting Trump Voters.” It appears that farmers, companies using steel and aluminum, liquor manufacturers, possibly boat and motorcycle manufacturers, are already experiencing difficulties. There are potential job losses in the hundreds of thousands, most of whom I’m guessing are blue-collar workers. I laughed when I noticed the accompanying photo appeared to be the usual gaggle of whiter-than-white, overdressed blondes. This is not your mother’s financially conservative Republican Party. This is “I got mine so I’ll turn a blind eye to any hope of you getting something too.”
31
At this moment there are no republicans per se, but trumpists. Any real conservative republican is not a trumpist. If I were a woman I would not be caught dead voting for trumpism I dislike such women.
13
No one thinks this. The premise is false. Phyllis Schafley, anyone? This is an obvious springboard.
21
Thanks for reminding us that bigotry, mendacity, and plain old foolishness are not the private provinces of a single gender.
90
Who on earth thinks that we will have a blue wave? I guess you do, therefore you have a subject to write against in this column. For a long , long time the highest percentage of people starting small businesses have been women.( probably because it grants a modicum of independence in a male dominated world). Therefore, women are quite savvy about profit and loss, taxes and what it takes to earn a living. So your silly implication that a business savvy female would not be a democrat is typical of the conservative notion that liberals have their heads in the clouds.
8
They aren’t, but they should be. In fact, the only people who should be votung Republican are multimillion dollar CEO’s and hedge fund managers. Anyone ekse who votes Republican is cutting his or her own economic throat.
28
A truly silly essay trying to convince reasonable people about things they already know.
No one says that all women are democrats....really. And there are probably reasonable women who generally vote republican. But for a woman, even a small business owner, to have voted for you-know-who, verges on the absurd. There isn't one element of his persona that's not vile.
Show us an intelligent human who is republican then have the discussion.
27
SE Cupp writes: "There’s no shortage of studies showing that women are more likely to introduce bills that benefit women — on paid leave or domestic violence, for example — or that show women get more bills passed than their male counterparts. But is this volume inherently good? I’m not convinced that getting more laws on the books is the metric we should use to judge good governance."
Seriously? I thought the Republican party was the party of law and order. Guess I got that wrong. What is the solution for making our society more equitable? Boot camp for the rich and famous to indoctrinate them that life is more than fashionable glasses and private schools?
For every person reading "No, Not All Women Are Democrats,"
who has been relegated to the backwaters of HLN, please read "The Trump Doctrine Is Winning and the World Is Losing" by Ms. Kori Schake who is the deputy director-general of the International Institute for Strategic Studies. Women do have diverse opinions.
17
True, there are many women active in the modern Republican party. That is because the traits of sadism, cruelty, gaslighting, selfishness, narcissism, white fragility and a predisposition to authoritarian Cult Membership, are not limited to one gender.
51
Go back to your 1950s bubble, if that works for you. For MOST Women, it does not. Women that vote for GOP candidates are traitors to their gender, and MORE importantly, to their Children. PERIOD.
26
The women (and men) who voted for Trump out of a belief in white supremacy and an abiding hatred of minorities, immigrants and non Christians can be pleased and proud. The got the man they wanted.
17
Sadly Ms. Cupp shows her true colors when she quotes Ms. Maurer as having no regrets about voting for Trump because “Are you kidding? Business is booming, profit-sharing is up....". If the only thing that matters in your world is that money is being made then yes vote Republican. Aren't there other values to be lauded besides making money. Can't we have a society that cares for those that are not making money, those who do not have adequate opportunities for health care. A society that does not mimic the worst in history by literally ripping children from the arms of the mothers on the pretext that this is the law of the land, not to mention some nonsense that this is what the Bible advocates. so yes Ms. Cupp vote Republican because these policies are not just from the man in the White House they are from your party who put him in office and by overwhelming numbers still support him. And lastly the analogy by Ms. Maurer about the heart surgeon is absurd.
27
This is exact why I subscribe to the Times because I can read columns like this. I have never thought the woman's vote should be taken for granted.
Having said that, it seems your best argument is that the ends justify the means. The economy is great, the stock market is up so who cares about......
Do we really have to sacrifice our values and dignity for people who so callous that they would separate 50 children a day from their parents at the boarder just to send a message? How do you sleep at night?
No, I want my daughter and granddaughter to grow up knowing that actions speak louder than words. I'm heartened by the Me To movement and believe that women given half the opportunity of their male counterparts will do a far better job expressing my values including: responsible gun laws, addressing climate change, working to make the world a better place.
Your vote represents who you are and what you stand for. If your answer is "me" and not "we" that tells me enough.
25
Yup, women can be sexist just like men. That is hardly a new insight. Women have varied interests beyond reproductive rights, again, hardly a new insight. S.E. Cupp does not look at the issues here anymore than the straw women or analysts she criticizes. Support for Donald Trump is anti-woman (and men) no matter how you cut it. And to suggest he knows anything about governing (one question raised here is whether women vote on issues of good governance rather than the sex or the person or particular "women's issues" at hand) is absurd. And she ignores that it was a majority of WHITE women who voted for Trump, and that the Obama to Trump voters were by a vast majority white. This at least indicates that the 2016 campaign outcome was as much about the election of another male rather than a female because the differences between Obama and Trump could not be more stark, yet WHITE people voted for Trump rather than elect a woman, even "that woman." We are just as racist and sexist and electorate as we ever were in many ways, and this column does little to help us understand that.
10
Women voted for Trump. You missed a word. WHITE. Whenever I look to someone to see who I should vote for I look towards black women who know what fighting to get ahead, misogynisy, abuse, and discrimination really mean while white women hide and spill platitudes about how things are so great for us. I choose to align with their choices not the patriarchy. My conscience at this point won’t allow money to obliterate my conscience and it did for a lot time of which I am ashamed. I’m white by the way. So go for it S.E. Cupp but maybe you should spend some time thinking about why white women find it so hard to empathize and united with women of color. I believe you know as this column puts it glowingly on display.
19
I watch your show on HLN. I enjoy it very much even thought I am not a conservative. It is refreshing to hear you and your guests say things that are exactly what I have been saying. I saw your passionate show about the children in Syria. So what about President Trump separating children from their parents at the border. They are even doing this to people who go through the border legally.
As Michael Hayden said on Saturday
“Other governments have separated mothers and children,” Hayden wrote next to a black-and-white photo of Auschwitz. “
Why don’t you talk about this next week on your show.
I am frightened!
12
Ms Cupp should go to the blackboard and write
"The plural of anecdote is not data."
1,000 times.
I am not surprised she is a Republican woman. I am surprised she is a Republican at all. Here are some facts she might want to consider:
Each party has held the presidency for the same number of years since 1945. During those years, the unemployment rate has risen 11.8% under Republican presidents & has fallen 7.2% under Democratic presidents. Unemployment has fallen during the overwhelming majority of Democratic years since 1949. Unemployment rose steadily under Republicans up until 1982, then fell during the remaining Reagan years, and then rose again under both Bush Presidents.
During the most recent 15 years during which Republicans have held the presidency, the value of the Dow has increased by 42%. During the Democratic presidencies, it has increased by 609%- 14.5 times faster. The average growth in the value of the Dow under Democrats during this period has been 14.75% a&under Republicans it has been 5.11%.
In the 44 years that we have had Democratic presidents since 1930, the real per-capita disposable income has increased 271%. During the 40 years during which we have had Republican presidents, it has increased 44%. On average, it has increased 3.1% (after adjusting for inflation) under Democratic presidents & 1% under Republican presidents.
The trouble with Republicans is they support policies that are supported only by ideology, not by facts or history.
30
I love this comment so much. indeed, "the plural of anecdote is NOT data." Bless you for this comment today. xo
5
S. E. Cupp’s article was an eye opener. Yes, millions of women voted Republican. How can they vote for a party that denies people birth control? The party that is against universal health care; equal pay for men and women, to name a few of the issues? And now a party that is for separating children from their parents? They are voting against their own interests, unless they are well off, well insured, and are just as capable of exploiting their employees as the next guy. It was an eye opener in so far as it shed light of the fact that being a woman does not means one is compassionate. Is starting a global trade war good for business? No. Would the economy be in a – so far good – shape without Obama whose achievements are systematically destroyed? Why is it okay for the millions of Republican women voters to accept $79 for their work while men earn $100 for the same work? Why is it okay to fire pregnant women and penalize pregnancy? (See front page of today’s NYT). One reason is because men can get away with it. Our nation, the wealthiest on earth and in history can afford to be more equal. But Republicans have been and continue to be the party of punishment, cruelty and now hatred. If you are a woman of color, poor, immigrant, pregnant, or in need of help, don't ask a Republican. Most Republican women (not all) are giving their daughters a poorer, more hateful country to grow up in.
13
Impressive Cupp. And she’s a REPUBLICAN! I think I’m in love, and not JUST for the cool glasses. But I’m old enough to be her father, so I’d better still the fibrillating heart, in part because I risk #MeToo, in part because the heart may not be THAT healthy anymore.
Did you really get into an admission that you’re a Republican with potential employers? Seems a mite chancy to me. I always kept that guilty admission secret until I had become indispensable.
I’ve always considered ideological bentness, one way or the other, to be a human thing, not a gender thing; and roughly bilaterally symmetrical; so, it’s not surprising that we would see roughly half of women opt for each candidate in an election. And Mrs. Obama’s subtext that women should properly vote for a woman candidate BECAUSE she’s a woman condemns women in America to 164 million ( (44%/72 million Republican women::56%/x) + 72 million. “x” = about 92 million Democratic women, so total women = about 164 million) blonde moments at the polls. Needless to say, that’s not right (but, as Ms. Cupp argues, it may be left).
Even the Fed, famous for carefully hedging bets in public pronouncements, is calling the economy “Grrrreat!” – and backing up the statement with multiple rate hikes this year, in part to keep the economy from heating up TOO much, in part to get inflation up to target latitudes.
4
The left doesn’t like to admit this, but all that greatness has a fair amount to do with corporate taxes and less intense regulation that in years past has buried them in paperwork to get ANYTHING done. Trump is the first president in ages to FINALLY do something for America on trade and free world defense appropriations. He’s edged us back from the brink with North Korea and he’s told Iran that he’s coming for their (future) nukes. He’s enforcing our immigration laws. And he’s told the world that we need to talk about climate mitigation efforts that ding the WHOLE world, not just industrialized societies and not just America.
There’s a lot to deplore about Trump’s persona, for women AND men; but that behavior will end, either in 2021 or in 2025. The effects of what he gets RIGHT will last a LONG time.
And OUR 72 million women – and maybe a few million on the other side as the economy grows even stronger – will have something to say about that blue “wave” come November. It could be a “wave”, but perhaps not for Democrats.
9
"Mr. Trump wasn’t Ms. Maurer’s first choice. But he was good on the issues that mattered most to her. “I always find it funny when I hear the term ‘women’s issues’ because that term equates to birth control and abortion,” she said. “As a small-business owner, taxes and the economy are usually my primary concern when making a choice.”
Good luck with the effect of Trump tax laws, immigration policy and tariffs on that small business and your taxes, Ms Maurer.
62
Liberals aren't generating this "blue wave" fantasy, the media is. I don't believe it. 30 years of right wing propaganda and indoctrination aren't going to fall away in November as if they never happened.
The support of Trump's base, many of whom are women, has never wavered. They like his act.
That said, Donald Trump's election and his debasing of American government and politics to a new low unconceived of, even by those who expected it, has led to a new energy on the left that has not dissipated since November of 2016.
Women are not a monolith, nor are men. Women don't vote in lockstep on issues any more than men do. But there are issues that particularly effect women and policies that particularly threaten women and those they love. Republicans would be wise not to underestimate the strength and resolve of left-leaning and centrist women to protect and defend themselves and their loved ones against those policies by repudiating Donald Trump and the Republican Party in large numbers at the polls.
Blue wave? No. But blue energy and resolve? Yes.
Oh, and, wait for it - it is only a matter of time before Americans will yet again have to turn to Democrats to rescue the economy from the next Republican-made disaster. Those Republican women glorying in the temporary high that putting Republicans in charge of unleashing rampaging capitalism on the country gives them, will come crashing down if Republicans stay in power too long, just as it always does.
89
There it is again, the claim that the economy is something to be managed by the government, for which only Democrats make good stewards. The free market is a messy, brutal, unforgiving environment. It has ups and down in almost cyclical fashion. Those upper reaches can be pretty high, but wow, are some of the lows a disaster (the Great Depression, the 2008 recession). That there will be winners and losers is a fact, except to liberals where everyone goes home with a trophy.
3
There it is again the claim that the economy will flourish if we just let alone. Does that work with a garden or a slab of steak. One will go to seed and the other will get rotten. A government is simply a form of leadership and order. We need a gardeners for a garden, a cook for our steak, a principal for the school and a government for the economy. Under Trump our government and our economy is going to seed as well as rotting right before our eyes. Open your eyes and start thinking for yourself.
"The economy is doing great. We’re definitely headed in the right direction.” Greed doesn't recognize gender.
42
Thoughtful but I would disagree with one core belief in this article - there is no such thing as Republican anymore. If being Republican means being pro- a global expansionist world order, fiscally prudent, anti-dictators, pro-law and order - the current party leading the country is not Republican. Let’s call it Trumpism.
S.E - your version of Republican died a few years ago. You are voting for Trump. Stop rationalizing it.
47
A comparison: Women who remain in abusive relationships in order to be "taken care of" financially. Character counts.
25
Ms. Maurer, if there was video of your heart surgeon bragging about grabbing women without asking for their consent, would you be willing to go under anesthesia with him in the room? We should at least have a President who doesn't think breaking the law or committing adultery is brag-worthy.
Also, I have yet to see that the trust fund baby who is playing golf this weekend (after stating that he wouldn't have time to play golf because he is too busy being President) is good at what he does.
112
Even if every assertion made by Ms. Cupp was correct, none of them justifies one indisputable and troubling fact - this country will turn 242 years old this July 4th without ever having a female president, despite the fact that at least half the country's population during that span of time has been female. Most of the major allies of the U.S. have had female heads of state, including France, the U.K., and Canada. At this point, every U.S. presidential election that takes place, where the result is the election of a man, is just an ongoing confirmation that this country's population has yet to truly embrace the notion of gender equality. Think about how refreshing it would be, in 2020, if both the Republican Party and the Democratic Party nominated a woman for president. We should all embrace that idea.
4
When did France and Canada have female heads of state?
4
I would have voted for Carli Fiorina. Does that count.
1
The women (and men) who voted for Trump because they had been disregarded by the elites, have now been disregarded by Trump as well.
The women (and men) who voted for Trump for economic reasons know very little about economics. Trump's trade wars and tax cut deficits are already undermining the last eight years of steady progress. The "trickle down" theories of Ronald Reagan, which Trump continues are the very ideas that have hit the working poor the hardest.
The women (and men) who voted for Trump for religious reasons know less about the Bible than Trump does, which is saying something.
The single issue Catholic women (and men) who voted for Trump to save unborn babies from being ripped from their mother's wombs, now can take some credit for really heinous acts of cruelty as he rips real babies from their Catholic mother's arms.
The women (and men) who voted for Trump because they are good Republicans are, according to John Boehner, not voting Republican at all. As Boehner has noted, Republicans have cleared out of Washington like rats leaving a sinking ship, Trump has destroyed the Republican Party. It is asleep or has ceased to exist.
88
While you are largely correct, the fact is that the alternative, a vote cast for Clinton, was a vote for a candidate who openly courted Sanders followers. He statement to them that their issues were her issues made the choice easy for me in that I’ll never even look at a candidate on the Dem ticket again. I can be pragmatic and flexible but will never support socialism in this country.
2
I think you are being unfair to Hillary. The sanders voters she courted were mostly Democrats who occupy the extreme end of the liberal bar and are now called "progressive."
There is no fault in appealing to those who share many of the same ideals in varying degrees.
If you and a lot of other people don't vote Democratic and soon, this country will no longer be this country, and unless you happen to be a Wall Street billionaire there will be nothing you can do about it. Socialism is no less "American" than Capitalism. Too much of either one is deadly. Right now we can move freely to the left, and need to, but to go further right will put us right into Nazi Germany or Facist Italy. My family is Danish. Far more "socialist" than the U.S. with free secondary education, free medicine, and great benefits for everyone not just the CEOs. In addition they have a modern country with a healty economy, a healthy, well educated population, new bridges and highways, underground utilities and far better internet access for a fraction of the cost. Visit Scandinavia and then tell me how much you hate socialism.
Ms. Maurer's me story is typical of Republican thought. As long as the money is rolling in nothing else matters-not the environment, endless wars, disenfranchisement, a broken justice system, healthcare denied, infrastructure, education. The wealthy and near wealthy truly don't care.
386
You are more right than you know: it turns out that Ms. Maurer is a long time GOP operative.
6
I find it interesting that Ms. Cupp spends zero time explaining how women can be Republicans (well okay, there is a sentence or two devoted to explaining that some women care more about their economic self-interest than "women's issues", which surprisingly don't include sexual discrimination, harassment or assault in her book). This article simply points out the undeniable fact that some women are Republicans. We already knew that. A little more help understanding why, especially for the large majority of women who are not business owners, would be appreciated.
29
My wife is a good example of a Republican woman. She has a BA and an MBA degree. Her politics are somewhere to the right of Genghis Khan and she likes President Trump because he says what he feels and tries to do what he says. The fact that he is misogynistic is irrelevant to his overall policies. One cannot assume all, or most, women want to hold hands and sing Kumbaya.
I am also a Republican, but am not as strident about it as is she. I am sometimes embarrassed for him when he speaks, but I agree that the world order needed to be shaken up. America is paying a lot of money to keep the rest of the world humming. Let them share the financial burdens.
9
Here's some ways America benefits from the "world order that needs to be shaken up, that America is paying a lot of money to keep the rest of the world humming."
1. Americans have not had to fight a war on American soil in more than a hundred years.
2. American oligarchs do not have to fight wars in person, instead they can fight wars by proxy, using other people's children, in far-off lands.
3. America and Americans have benefited from a lot of goodwill from other democracies for a long time.
4. America has been given the benefit of the doubt when they went and overthrew democratically elected governments, just so that America's oligarchs may benefit from the status quo.
The hum you think you hear from the rest of the world in this "world order that needs to be shaken up" is not the sound of well-oiled machinery, but the sound of groaning and gnashing of teeth while people suffer for the benefit of America's oligarchs.
27
Republicans believe that American is spending too much money to keep the rest of the world humming. While at the same time strongly supporting sharp increases in the military budget. Can’t you see the blatant inconsistently there?
22
I, too, am a woman with a BA and an MBA. And I agree with your wife on one point - Trump speaks what he feels. So do toddlers.
The older and richer I get, the more liberal I get. That's not what my parents told me would happen. But today's Republican Party seems near complete in their careening journey off the rails that started decades ago.
I do agree that women's issues are more than family planning and workplace leave policies. Yet it's also critical to note that these "women's issues" are inextricably tied to economic issues, on both a personal and national level. Policies that help keep women who want to be in the paid workforce there are good for everyone.
I am not surprised that many women voted for trump, even educated women. Many people - men and women - would prefer a theocracy in this country. Many people - men and women - are racist, even if they do not consider themselves to be so. Data shows that the strongest predictors of a trump vote were a penchant for authoritarianism -- something which has a correlation to being republican and is not wholly separate from party affiliation, racist tendencies, and counties with a shortening lifespan for white men (presumably those are different counties than those populated by MBAs)
Misogyny is also strong among both men and women. Ambition is not an admired characteristic in women and the criticisms leveled against Clinton were altogether of a different class than those used for the other candidates.
9
Tell me, who is it that thinks all women vote democratic? Anyone who was paying attention during the 2016 election knows that most white women voted for trump. There were stories about this phenomenon literally all over the national news for an extended period of time, post election. Anyone who watched video coverage of trump rallies saw the stands held as many women as men.
Now, it is eminently reasonable to wonder how, in the age of trump, any woman, or man, could vote for the person and agenda that this man (who I think no one would want as a neighbor) represents. But that is another story; a mystery I think.
18
Although I support your premise, I competly disagree with your conclusions, and don't find them to be a natural consequence of your ideas:
1. To point to Trump & his female supporters & justify your support for him by saying, "I support his positions, but I don't support the man" is ridiculous on its face. What positions? The man is mercurial & only invested in his own personal self-interest. He changes his mind the second a faint wind starts to blow in from a different corner. He's all over the map, & can change his mind on something huge, six times a day. The only position he supports uniformly is the aggrandizement, wealth, & personal power of one, Donald J. Trump.
2. Your criticism of the number of bills that women legisilators put forward to govern merely points out the natural talents women have to lead in govenment. Do you want to leave it up to male-owned corporate America to ensure that women & familes get appropriate rights & protections? "Cause it's worked out so well up 'til now? The fact that a law or regulation has to be written in the first pace, is because people are otherwise flaunting/ignoring the good practices of being good citizen-members. Laws/regulations are ways of ensuring best-practices that people would ignore otherwise. Think of seatbelts, or banning DDT on the lettuce your family eats, etc. We are better for these things.
The man's a menace. Republican women should say so, & work to remove him, whatever his momentary position is on anything.
61
S.E., You are a thoughtful Republican. Although I don’t agree with you about most things, at least you’re intelligent and cogent in your thoughts. And as a matter of fact, I know that you do believe in gay marriage, although your position on Planned Parenthood is suspicious at best. Additionally, things like pulling children away from their parents at the border, is as abhorrent to you as it is to me. Another person like you is Nicole Wallace. She is also a conservative, but a conservative who is logical, thoughtful, and willing to take positions that other conservatives are afraid to take. Although she sensationalizes a little less than you, you both are conservative women who present your opinion in a way that does not push others away.
It’s the extreme Republican women that Democratic women are offended by. They almost seem to eat other women. While there can be differing opinions on abortion, birth control And other women’s issues, they act like no one can have a right opinion but republicans. That said, we need to start talking to each other again, because if we don’t, the crazies WILL take over our country and that won’t be good for any of us.
6
Balanced observations until last paragraph..the vitriol is directed by Democrat women towards Republican women. Really. We're the "deplorables" and the "idiots" and "soulless" voters. I had a thoughtful Democrat female friend who kindly explained to me the we probably couldn't be friends as I'm a Republican. I was surprised and noted that people(women) of good Intention and of honor can surely have honest disagreements. She was was embarrassed by her comment, apologized and we talked. But I, a Republican woman, initiated the compromise. Imagine that.
And brief comment on earlier opinion article related to health care (questioned if readers could accept medical care from Republican physician) I am a multiple board certified specialty physician and I was shocked by the overwhelming hostility of the responses. And all the knee-jerk rampages were from liberals, many from Democrat women. Really? And we're the deplorables??
Give me a break. And thank you S.E.Cupp
3
Again we see someone savagely rip a word from a remark of Hillary's out of context. Here is the remark:
"You know, to just be grossly generalistic, you could put half of Trump’s supporters into what I call the basket of deplorables. Right?
The racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamaphobic — you name it. And unfortunately there are people like that. And he has lifted them up. He has given voice to their websites that used to only have 11,000 people — now how 11 million. He tweets and retweets their offensive hateful mean-spirited rhetoric. Now, some of those folks — they are irredeemable, but thankfully they are not America. But the other basket — and I know this because I see friends from all over America here — I see friends from Florida and Georgia and South Carolina and Texas — as well as, you know, New York and California — but that other basket of people are people who feel that the government has let them down, the economy has let them down, nobody cares about them, nobody worries about what happens to their lives and their futures, and they’re just desperate for change. It doesn’t really even matter where it comes from. They don’t buy everything he says, but he seems to hold out some hope that their lives will be different. They won’t wake up and see their jobs disappear, lose a kid to heroine, feel like they’re in a dead-end. Those are people we have to understand and empathize with as well."
Shame, Dr. Bentley!
Fair enough, Ms. Cupp, but your friend Ms. Maurer definitely seems to be suffering under the post-hoc fallacy. The economy would have been no different had Mr. Obama won a third term (if such a thing were possible), or if Mrs. Clinton had been elected. Even with Mr. Trump in office at present, the economy is not yet discernibly different almost two years into Mr. Trump's first term, with respect to its growth history, than it it was during the final year of Mr. Obama's second term.
Even your own story suggests that there is indeed a sharp difference between conservatives and Republicans who support Mr. Trump.
Whereas your friend Ms. Maurer is right to believe no one cares if a heart surgeon is unfriendly, as long as he is actually good at what he does, it would seem to me that you saw that a statement like that did not - and does not - apply to Mr. Trump, hence you couldn't make yourself vote for him. Do you now see anything from the recent past, or from Mr. Trump's earlier past that would suggest that he is "good at what he does"?
Also, do you see anything that suggests that the most recent incarnation of the Republican Party is Conservative in the way you are? Given what you say in your essay today, it seems there are many conservative women who would vote Democratic if it weren't for the weird caricature of the party they currently believe. People need to read more about their counterparts in the other party in their own words.
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Let's see why Trump's tax cuts are not going to work as he says. He says they will enable people to buy more stuff and corporations to invest in their businesses & thus hire more workers & pay them better. Krugman's column, "Tax Cuts & Leprechauns" shows this isn't working. I will try to show why.
Economists have a concept called the velocity of money. It is the frequency, how often, that money changes hands in domestic commerce. You can think of it as how useful that money is for the economy.
Trump's bill sends most of the money to the Rich. Money going to the Rich has a lower velocity than money going to the non-rich. The Rich spend a lower percentage of their money. What's a guy or gal who already has so many houses he can't remember how many & an elevator for his horse gonna spend his money on? The answer is he is going to use it to speculate.There is a correlation between inequality & financial speculation. http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1661746 Speculation is bad for the economy. That money has a very low velocity. AND it increases risk which we have seen in 2008 ain't a good thing.
As for corporations, the tax cuts won't matter so much because they already shield their profits fron taxes by fraudulently attributing them to foreign subsidiaries. If you look at corporate taxes actually paid as a percentage of GDP BEFORE the tax bill, the US was tied with Turkey for the lowest value which is also about a third of what it was in post WWII.
21
Not very convincing to introduce one woman, Amy Maurer, as proof of conservative female invincibility in the mid-terms. And even less so to argue we may not see a pink or blue wave, just because there are 72 million women out there who are not registered Democrats. Anything is possible come November 2018, but plenty are working hard to make sure progressive women are not only heard, but involved.
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A strong economy is built during Democratic presidencies, not Republican ones. Since Reagan, every Republican President has slashed government services, while increasing our military spending & debt. Since Reagan, every Democratic President has had to clean up the mess left by the Republicans & their "trickle-down" baloney. Obama has left with 2 unfunded wars & a global recession. The Conman has done zero to improve our economic condition. Like his financial empire, our economy is a house of cards waiting for its next collapse where the already wealthy will do fine while the middle-class will be further gutted.
If Republican women actually understood economics, instead of just looking at their own personal situation, they would never vote for another Republican. However, Republicans I know tend to be self-absorbed & to think small, if they think at all. They fail to consider others positions & the long-term consequences of economic policy. Just ask them to explain the basis of their economic positions - they are clueless unless talking about their own pocketbooks.
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"Obama has left with 2 unfunded wars & a global recession."
Obama WAS left with 2 unfunded wars & a global recession. [FTFY]
In addition, Mr. Obama was left an economy that was _losing_ jobs at a rate of more than 800000 per month. In the face of active Republican sabotage he was able to turn that around to an economy _gaining_ 200000 to 300000 jobs per month by the final year of his second term.
The key thing that Mr. Obama did wrong during his administration as far as the economy is concerned, was that he did not seek to prosecute the wrongdoers who CRASHED the world's economy. Also he did not seek to bail out the middle class and poor, but instead sought to bail out the big banks. At the time everyone thought that that would get the banks lending again, but all the bank bailouts led to was bonus payments to the very principals who were most responsible for the wrongdoing. THAT is what, I believe, set off the wave of resentment that eventually brought Mr. Trump into office.
11
Wow, what a great regurgitation of tired old rhetoric. Dogma is dogma no matter whose dogma it is.
As a small business woman, you better believe I looked at my personal situation - meeting payroll, navigating legislation that seeks to micro-manage my business, dealing with a rabbit warren of federal & state agencies.
Your implication that I should sacrifice my business on the noble sword of the greater good is ivory tower thinking. I took care of those in my employ and contributed to the overall economy by the very fact that I WAS in business.
Your accusations that my pocketbook constitutes the sum total of my economic knowledge is shortsighted. All economics is personal, just ask any Mom-and-Pop main street business.
The study of economics is divorced from the practice of it. Just as pharmaceuticals may work in the lab yet fail when applied to the population at large (efficacy vs. effectiveness), economic theory is straightforward in the vacuum of academia. History shows people tend to think they are worse off when their party isn't in office.
See this NYT article for a rather unbiased look at the current economy and where the credit belongs: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/15/business/economy/survey-trump-economy....
(And, no, I didn't support He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named nor Her Royal Highness!)
5
Actually Republicans have a very clear economic view:
Benefits go to the wealthy individual.
Costs are to be shared by all.
2
Thank you for this essay. It is clearly written and gives insight to those who are amazed that anyone who votes Republican isn't necessarily mindless. I'll share this with the liberal/ resistance Facebook groups I belong to. As much as some of us enjoy a strong economy, we're doing our best to head off another election that would bring further environmental, health care and diplomatic disasters that Trump has caused.
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Good article and good to remember there are at least two sides to every story. The handful of my reasonable friends who are Trump voters seemed to be most attracted to tax reductions for small businesses. I do worry that the author brushes off a bit too easily the negative impact societally of a brute in office -- a constant reinforcement to men and women out there that manipulation and brute force are the keys of success.
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The country has screamed for transparency in their office holders for years. This is what it looks like.
While the current resident of the Oval Office blurts whatever is top of mind, don't think for one minute that prior occupants haven't thought the same or behaved badly. They just happened to be savvy politicians who kept it from the public.
3
Not to mention the lying.
7
Congress has been in stasis for years despite the pressing need for immigration and health care reform. So I’d say that getting legislation passed is indeed an important metric for assessing legislators.
33
Well it’s been dominated by men for years so frankly I’ll give women a chance. We are multi taskers by nature and tend to get things done. Oh most importantly we can compromise not try and bully people into submission. Something a good politician has to do to be effective. We have a Congress still full of mostly men who have abdicated their own responsibility, to actually do their job and make law. For at least 20 years now. I won’t be giving anyone who sits around and complains about the other side endlessly and pretty much does nothing else my vote again.
5
While I hope that all voters vote Democratic this November, I commend Ms. Cupp for a thoughtful exegesis on the necessity for at least two vigorous parties in our politics. Democratic candidates need to remember to respect all voting blocs by asking for their votes, convincing more Americans to support them. Merely pointing out Republican failures is insufficient.
26
Yet it's vitally important to point out Republican failures, because Republicans tend to believe every lie the man utters--and lies constitute most of what he says.
Trump "won" with North Korea by a performance that virtually all people experienced in foreign relations consider to be a disastrous defeat.
Trump supposedly increases "our" prosperity by pushing formerly middle class workers into multiple desperate low-wage jobs.
Trump "reforms" health insurance by pushing policies that leave elders, the disabled, the destitute , and those with pre-existing conditions far less chance to receive medical treatment than they had before.
Trump "improves" education by fomenting a plan to destroy public schools, replacing them with De Vos style for-profit mills. He's doing the same for prisons, also with predictably devastating results.
Trump increases America's prosperity via special tax breaks for billionaires, leaving no money to fund social necessities like infrastructure, Medicaid, Medicare, or Social Security.
Trump "helps" women by destroying their ability to make their own personal health decisions.
Until all voters become aware of Republican failures, they will continue to support our lockstep toward a dictatorship of a foul kleptocracy.
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We need parties that are in contact with reality. Two or more would be nice, but one is enough. One party in contact with reality, making decisions by internal negotiating and fighting between its inevitable factions, is better than two parties one of which believes in voodoo economics and not in global warming.
5
Thoughtful essay.
One question - how do you feel about women having personal agency when it comes to health care, especially reproductive care?
Because Republicans by and large not only are anti-choice, they are anti-birth control, and anti sex-education. This leaves women who have sex with men in quite a bind, in fact it is an untenable situation.
Until the point when men and women no longer want to engage with each other sexually, this will be a problem not only personally, but in terms of basic equity.
Because a man's choices in health care is not impacted by his sexual relations in any way, while almost every aspect of women health care is.
As a female, I cannot support any politician from any party who does not recognize my rights, as an adult, to make the critical and personal health decisions for myself.
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Ellen: I think you are mischaracterizing the Republican position. Many social conservatives do not believe that abortion is a morally acceptable form of birth control. Responsible adults do not engage in sex without considering how an unwanted pregnancy should be prevented. Few forms of birth control are 100% certain and that is why abortion in the first trimester is legal but should be much rarer than it is. At the point when the baby is viable outside the womb, any abortion where the life of the mother is not in imminent danger should be considered infanticide, not merely "a choice".
3
"Ellen: I think you are mischaracterizing the Republican position. Many social conservatives do not believe that abortion is a morally acceptable form of birth control."
Earl W,: I believe it is _you_ who are mischaracterizing Ellen's position. Nobody believes abortion is a method of birth control. Abortion is a termination of a pregnancy.
1
Reproductive rights are a hallmark of the Democrats, but they are way down on the list when people go into the voting booth. The economy, is the first three choices and probably the fourth. Even women who are of the age of getting pregnant have enough cognative dissonance that they half expect it will never happen to them. Add to that, visiting a liberal state can get you a safe legal abortion fairly easily. So, the abortion issue works wonders for self righteous "right to life" Republicans, but barely budges the needle for, "it doesn't affect me," Democrats. It's all about getting votes, and getting someone to emotionally pull that lever. People go in there and say to themselves,"I'm no baby killer," so they vote Republican. It's wedge issue that mostly works for Republicans.
7
As much as I respect Ms. Cupp for her determination to promote the GOP agenda, she skews the statistical information from the Pew Research Report, which states:
“But today, a 56% majority of women identify as Democrats or lean Democratic, while 37% affiliate with or lean toward the GOP. The share of women identifying as Democrats or leaning Democratic is up 4 percentage points since 2015 and is at one of its highest points since 1992.”
The 20% difference in affiliation is highly significant, and the women who are Independents will likely lean Democratic in November, given the misogynistic attitudes and inhumane policies of the current administration.
Moreover, the historic number of women running for Congress this year is very telling. More than 40 percent of Democratic nominees for the US House of Representatives so far are women, according to an NBC News analysis. Meanwhile, fewer than 10 percent of Republican nominees are women, NBC found.
Finally, the Cook Political Report’s House editor Dave Wasserman recently wrote on the topic:
“There have been 65 contests featuring at least one man, one woman and no incumbent on a Democratic primary ballot. Women have defeated men in 45 of those 65 races, and women were the top vote-getters in an additional two Georgia races headed to runoffs. Men defeated women in just 18 cases.”
Women’s getting out to vote will be critically important on Nov. 6th; the beginning of the end of the Trump era depends upon it!
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Cupp is trying to convince herself that Democrats don’t understand women who voted for Trump and other Republicans. It’s actually pretty clear.
That she uses a “well educated suburban mom” from Wisconsin as her model is telling. It’s a Republican fantasy, the hard nosed business woman focused on capital reinvestment rather than things like equality and justice. In using her as the model, Cupp conveniently pulls the curtain in front of so many other issues that affect women. It’s not surprising that a wealthy, well educated, suburban, Republican mom isn’t overly concerned about women’s reproductive rights, for example.
Cupp and other well educated, wealthy Republican women will be fine. For them, “business is booming.” And Republicans work very hard to keep it that way, shutting out other groups from the same opportunities and telling those people they don’t deserve the same opportunities because they’re “lazy” or some such thing. Cupp doesn’t talk much about that whole process, but she is somewhat uncomfortable with Trump. Perhaps what makes her uncomfortable is the way Republicans treat those who aren’t like her, especially as exemplified by what Trump says. Like a lot of Republicans she just wishes Trump wasn’t so obvious about it.
Rest assured, though. Everyone understands it perfectly and has for quite some time.
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I'm a suburban mom who probably isn't that different demographically than the mom in the article, other than party affiliation. I am definitely concerned about reproductive rights, since I still have reproductive organs that may work and I have a daughter who will be menstruating in the future. Even if I didn't have those things, I have empathy for others and don't want us to go back to the days of back alley abortions.
I also don't want to be harassed or discriminated against in my workplace. I want to be treated respectfully if I am a victim of sexual assault. These things should matter to all women, even if they like the Republican's stance on reproductive issues.
20
The problem with comments like these, M, from my perspective as a progressive, is that you confuse arguments about why women vote Republican with why Republicans are bad for women (not to mention the rest of us). The phenomena is real- even if rooted in the worst of motives, like racism- and must be understood and dealt with. Denial of reality doesn't help.
1
The suburban mom is actually an official with the *Republican* Party of Kenosha County. Here is Amy Maurer with the other local party officials:
https://twitter.com/tomscocca/status/1008371613304283137
4
I get your point. However, there are certain assumptions I am going to make - you are against women having agency of their own bodies, you are against education that includes contraception and you are against family planning, among many other things. I am going to assume you are in support of Trump unless you explicitly say you are not. If you don't support Trump, I am waiting for you to explain to me what you are for and how you are going to work to achieve those goals. Just to lecture me about your being a Republican as expect me to accept that, is doing EXACTLY what you claim the Democrats are doing.
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I'm going to assume that you are a liberal Democrat, in the same manner that you make assumptions about the essay's author. What I have to say to you, as well as all of my fellow liberal Democrats (and independents), is that we need to stop making assumptions about the motives of Republicans and Republican voters, especially when it comes to divisive issues such as abortion, women's rights and other "culture wars" and "identity group" politics. In fact, you know nothing about Ms. Cupp's positions that you claim to know. It might be more useful to consider the POVs that the author is presenting, rather than reflexively rejecting her words as a (condescending) lecture.
Liberal indignity over the appalling Trump and Republican politics in general (and believe me, I share that indignity most of the time) will not win us elections. Republican strategists know that single issue and identity politics divide the electorate and have caused culturally conservative voters to flee the Democratic Party over the past half century.
Identity politics is a losing game. Until Democrats return to championing positions that can unite more than divide—economic opportunity for all (no more insulting assumptions about group privilege, white, male or otherwise) affordable education and health care, and the like—we are going to continue to struggle to win elections.
2
Yes, not all women are Democrats. And we Democrats must realize that every voter, male or female, can be persuaded to vote for a Republican candidate. We Democrats must also realize that elections are won by inspiring voters -- not by persuading voters and not by fielding the lesser evil.
The reality is that Donald Trump won by inspiring voters. And yes he did inspire voters with a racist message that appealed to female voters as well as male voters. However, he also inspired voters with a message of hope for a better tomorrow, a tomorrow that looked like the 50's. That message also appealed to female voters.
We Democrats fail to recognize that working women have lost jobs as a result of federal labor, trade and tax policies. Women understand this reality.
47
So, when the author asks Ms. Maurer about regretting her decision to vote for Trump and the conservatives, the answer was she voted for her corporation’s benefit, not her own humanity. What this tells us is American women can be just as heartless, cruel and greedy as American men. We should probably not be surprised, but it is still very saddening. Women are the caretakers of our nation’s soul and if they abandon us, we are doomed for sure.
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Is this the Amy Maurer in the article? An official in the *Republican* Party of Kenosha County?
https://twitter.com/tomscocca/status/1008371613304283137
4
I hope Ms. Maurer sleeps well at night, with visions of her 1% tax cut blocking out any feelings of guilt for supporting the administration that is ripping children from their mothers.
6
Is this the Amy Maurer in the article -- an officer in the *Republican* Party of Kenosha County? https://twitter.com/tomscocca/status/1008371613304283137
3
"One of them is Amy Maurer, a 43-year-old well-educated suburban mom in Kenosha, Wis. "
That would be Amy Maurer, an executive board member of the Kenosha County GOP. "Republican party official is Republican" is not really making news; what's newsworthy is that Zito and now Cupp need to launder party officials as representative suburban moms.
540
Great catch!!!
13
That seems like a material omission from this piece. Maybe I’m naive.
3
I can speak only for myself. I vote in every election, big and small. It's my duty as an American. I'm registered independent because sometimes my favorite candidate is from one party (Biden, then Obama/Biden) and sometimes my favorite candidate is from the other party (McCain, in the McCain vs. Bush election. McCain is why my husband and I became unenrolled in the first place). I'm very tired of reading conservative articles that spend the whole column penning hit jobs on "liberals" or "Democrats." Your side won. Be happy. Cut the gloating and hit jobs. Make your best argument for your side and I'll consider them carefully as an American voter. As to the midterms, I'll be thinking of the Iraqi Interpreter weeping in the airport because the new Trump administration was sending him back to be killed for helping OUR troops in the war in their political greed to score points. I'll be thinking of the two year old crying for her arrested mother and on her way to a strange foster family or those immigrant kids whose father panicked and killed himself when they were taken: orphans now, just so Trump and his people can get their big political payoff. Orphans forever because Trump couldn't get his wall done. I'm FOR the wall, but NOT the cruelty to kids. That's why this independent will by voting against any Republican. Why? Because it's my duty as an
American and as a human being.
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@Sara from New England, I was rooting for your comment until you lost me at "I'm FOR the wall." Why are you for the wall, a physical southern barrier or a virtual one via air, sea etc?
I'll give you only one argument against. The United States like most "first world" advanced countries but including Russia and Japan has a declining population, i.e we are not replacing ourselves at a rate of 2.1 to 1, a number believed by demographers and other experts for a sustaining population. You won't have a future workforce paying for you social security, medicare and other social services. There won't be enough workers for jobs of all categories, from professionals all the way down to a dish washer.
If the U.S. can attract Norwegians as Mr Trump thinks we should do, go for it, white blue eyes blonde people. Does anyone think Norwegians are going to downgrade their lives to move to a forthcoming third world United States? If you did a poll in most European countries you won't get a significant number of white people to move here. Besides their populations are declining as well and they need immigrants, except their politicians are afraid to face their voters.
Angela Merkel's infusion of a million Syrians will fuel Germany's next growth. There are doctors, engineers, entrepreneurs, and yes some no-gooders. But you take the good with the bad. Chancellor Merkel is now the leader of the western world. Not Trump.
22
Thank you, Gary!
I was about to express the same thoughts, but you have done it perfectly.
1
Thank you very much for your thoughtful reply. I'm for a secure southern border with sensible barriers that respect local residents' property rights on both sides because I don't want immigrants dying in the desert and I don't want criminal gangs making money off of desperate people and undermining the rule of law. We should spend a whole lot more on making the process of legally applying for residency practical and possible.
I am a highly educated woman and used to be a Democrat but starting with the Obama years I changed and slowly became a Republican. The relentless push to replace meritocracy with diversity, and the blatant lowering of standards for the sake of social engineering from the Oscars to FAA and airport control did it to me. Then, I hated Democrats position on immigration and open borders here and in Europe. I alsohated the push to crown Hillary and to proclaim Sanders unelectable, the push ensure Jill Stein, a woman much more worthy than Hillary, to be excluded from the debates. The hypocrasy of the party and of HRC who both claimed represented americans but did everything to help outsourcing and globalization, two processes that decimated the USA. Finally their grab of the MSM and of this once respected NYT which has become a hysterical and exagerated and shameless propaganda tool. Trump will lose 99%, Trump will be the next Hitler, with Trump the stock market will collapse and we'll have a nuclear war with North Korea. Anyone who can rub two neurons together should stop and question their allegiance to this new and dismal Democratic party. When I voted for Trump, 2 years ago, I still called myself a Trump democrat, but I'm no longer a Democrat. So I will vote Republican in the next elections.
45
Interesting comments.
The problem with America is people that insist on identifying with and voting for a party instead of the most qualified candidates.
11
The frequent problem with foreign critique on America and Americans is the assumption there is one collective mode of what America is, and what it's problem is.
5
Your assumption is only partially supported by the facts. Many do go with what they think are the most qualified candidates. Thus Trump won in many areas giving him the victory.
Like the author my conservative leanings surprise a lot of people I know. To the angst of many of my friends I will support a few republican arguments. The truth is the definition of “Conservative” has been bastardized, there is nothing “Conservative” about Republicans running the government right now. I see nothing Conservative about saddling future generations with outrageous debt. I see nothing Conservative about our military budget. And I scratch my head and wonder why Republicans claim it’s un-Conservative to invest in children, weather it’s through education or health care, parental benefits. If single-payer health care is cheaper then why aren’t Republicans championing it? It’s it the Conservative and might I add, Christian thing to do, to respect this precious earth?
This is why people seem surprised. Conservative ideas are good. But you can’t just talk the talk, show me.
109
The question is why do you call yourself a conservative. Most of your professed beliefs seem to align with those of progressives.
2
Marylanders supporting Larry Hogan is the only example I can think of at the moment.
1