Women Have the Power to Save Us, and Probably Will. They SHOULD Take the Lead*
“It seems that the men of MAGA feel as entitled to their wives’ votes as they do their reproductive rights.” Malcolm Ferguson, The New Republic.
Making America Great Again clearly means returning to an era when married women were the property of their husbands. The self-described “protector” of women — “whether they like it or not” — is the literal embodiment of a serial assailant, a toxically masculine abuser of women, who attacks their sexual and bodily autonomy, reproductive rights, and independence from male control over their decisions. Women, who have had enough and understand the assignment, are stepping up. They have the power to save the country from this macho despotism . . . and probably will. It’s past time for a qualified woman — Vice President Kamala Harris — to take the lead.
In today’s Letters from an American, Heather Cox Richardson provides important details on women’s support for Vice President Harris in both numbers and rationale:
“Rather than keeping women in his camp, Trump’s strategy of reaching out to his base to turn out low-propensity voters, especially young men, has alienated them. That alienation has come on top of the Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization decision that overturned Roe v. Wade, the 1973 Supreme Court decision that recognized the constitutional right to abortion.
“Early voting in Pennsylvania showed that women sent in 56% of the early ballots, compared to 43% for men. Seniors — people who remember a time before Roe v. Wade — also showed a significant split. Although the parties had similar numbers of registrants, nearly 59% of those over 65 voting early were Democrats. That pattern holds across all the battleground states: women’s early voting outpaces men’s by about 10 points. While those numbers are certainly not definitive — no one knows how these people voted, and much could change over the next few days — the enthusiasm of those two groups was notable.
“This evening, a Des Moines Register/Mediacom Iowa poll conducted by the highly respected Selzer & Co. polling firm from October 28 to 31 showed Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris leading Trump in Iowa 47% to 44% among likely voters. That outlying polling result is undoubtedly at least in part a reflection of the fact that Harris’s running mate is the governor of a neighboring state, but that’s not the whole story. While Trump wins the votes of men in Iowa by 52% to 38%, and of evangelicals by 73% to 20%, women, particularly older women, are driving the shift to favor Harris in a previously Republican-dominated state.
“Independent women back Harris by a 28-point margin, while senior women support her by a margin of more than 2 to 1, 63% to 28%. Overall, women back Harris by a margin of about 20 points: 56% to 36%. Seniors as a group including men as well as women are also strongly in Harris’s camp, by 55% to 36%. . . .
“The fear that women can, if they choose, overthrow the patriarchal mythology of cowboy individualism that shaped the modern MAGA Republican Party is likely behind the calls of certain right-wing influencers and evangelical leaders to stop women from voting. For sure, it is behind the right-wing freak-out over the video voiced by actor Julia Roberts that reassures women that they do not have to tell their husbands how they voted.”
The “right-wing freakout” itself is cause for alienating women. MAGA men cannot fathom their wives voting for anyone other than Trump and lying to them about it. Fox News host Jesse Watters would equate a vote for Vice President Kamala Harris by his wife Emma — with whom he cheated on his first wife — as having an extramarital affair. “That violates the sanctity of our marriage. What else is she keeping from me? What else has she been lying about? . . . It’s over, Emma!” Given his prior infidelity, I suspect mandatory full disclosure in Watters’s marriages goes only one direction.
In all my research, I have been unable to find that women’s suffrage was meant to serve as a wife’s rubber stamp of her husband’s vote. If that had been the case, the 19th Amendment should have just given married men a second vote, (or a third, or fourth, or fifth for the men living in Utah — so long as their wives were of voting age). Yet, “[r]ight-wing men” — small, weak, abusive, insecure, domineering, and fearful men — “are insisting that wives should vote as their husbands do, or that women should lose the ability to vote altogether.” Heather Cox Richardson. If they are not married (to men) and have no children, J.D. Vance suggests, they should not have the right to vote because they aren’t sufficiently invested in the future of the country (and don’t have a man to tell them how to vote?).
Watters was reacting to the YouTube video for the progressive evangelical Vote Common Good in which narrator Julia Roberts informs women they have the ability to surreptitiously take the off-ramp from MAGA extremism: “In the one place in America where women still have a right to choose, you can vote any way you want and no one will ever know. . . . Remember, what happens in the booth, stays in the booth.”
Watters had previously shared the creepy story that while married to his first wife he tried to woo younger Emma who worked on his show as a producer to date him: “the first thing I did was let the air out of her tires. She couldn’t go anywhere. She needed a lift, I said, ‘You need a lift?’ She hopped right in the car,” he admitted, exploiting manufactured vulnerability, as some men do, disguised as kindness in order to bed her.
Liz Cheney, according Heather Cox Richardson, “has emerged as the key figure to urge Republican women to vote against Trump, and it is becoming increasingly clear that Trump’s reelection is in trouble in part because white women are abandoning him. The early hints that this is happening, like the huge gender gap showing up in early voting, have sparked a right-wing frenzy of attempts to restore the power of white men over the women in their lives.”
It’s no wonder Trump vowed revenge, including a televised trial before a military tribunal, against Cheney, intimating she should be subjected to a nine-gun firing squad. “This is how dictators destroy free nations,” Cheney responded. “They threaten those who speak against them with death. We cannot entrust our country and our freedom to a petty, vindictive, cruel, unstable man who wants to be a tyrant.”
Watters is only one of a several MAGA pundits “seething at the possibility of their wives voting for Vice President Kamala Harris.” Turning Point USA’s Charlie Kirk said on the Megyn Kelly Show, “It is so repulsive. It is so disastrous. It is the embodiment of the downfall of the American family. I think it’s so gross. I think it’s so nauseating.” Another conservative content creator, Mike Cernovich said, “Unless this changes, Kamala Harris takes PA and it’s over.” MAGA Men Are Freaking Out Over Their Wives Secretly Voting for Harris
And what does Charlie Kirk’s American family look like? Depending on how you interpret J.D. Vance’s comments, it could include spouses (statistically women) remaining in abusive relationships. Did JD Vance say women should stay in abusive marriages?
In September Trump declared he would be women’s “protector.” On Wednesday he added that his “protections” would be forced on women: “Well, I’m going to do it, whether the women like it or not. I’m going to protect them,” reminding us of the 2016 October-Access-Hollywood-surprise and his long history of (alleged) sexual predation of women. (Emphasis added.) See Trump as ‘Protector’ of Women (by the author). Reacting to the YouTube video for the progressive evangelical Vote Common Good, Trump said, “I mean, can you imagine a wife not telling her husband who she’s voting for? You ever hear anything like that?” This from a man convicted of 34 counts of fraud for having falsified business records to conceal payments to purchase Stormy Daniels’s silence about a sexual encounter in Lake Tahoe while Melania was at home with their newborn.
Trump’s attempt to stanch the bleeding hasn’t worked. “Polls have shown a stark gender divide among voters, particularly young voters, in the presidential election: A majority of women support Harris over Trump, and Trump has been outperforming Harris among men. In trying to close the gap, Trump’s appeals to women have tended to veer into patronizing, vaguely threatening statements.”
Among the most bizarre and creepiest was Tucker Carlson’s Jeffrey Epstein-esque mixed metaphor at a Trump campaign event. He equated the country to a “hormone-addled 15-year-old-daughter” who slams her bedroom door and gives her parents the finger. “There has to be a point at which Dad comes home. When Dad gets home, you know what he says? You’ve been a bad girl, you’ve been a bad girl, and you’re getting a vigorous spanking right now. And no, it’s not going to hurt me more than it hurts you. No it’s not. I’m not going to lie. This is going to hurt you a lot more than it hurts me. And you earned this. You’re getting a vigorous spanking because you’ve been a bad girl.” “You’ve Been a Bad Little Girl”
O . . . kaaaay.
The Vote Common Good video reminds us that it is women who hold the collective power to bring about positive change, beginning the process of dismantling the toxically masculine misogynistic era of Trump, as the Vice President’s agenda explains:
“A NEW WAY FORWARD
“Vice President Harris and Governor Walz are fighting for a New Way Forward that protects our fundamental freedoms, strengthens our democracy, and ensures every person has the opportunity to not just get by, but to get ahead. As a prosecutor, Attorney General, Senator, and now Vice President of the United States, Kamala Harris always stood up for the people against predators, scammers, and powerful interests. She promises to be a president for all Americans, a president who unites us around our highest aspirations, and a president who always fights for the American people. From the courthouse to the White House, that has been her life’s work.”
“SAFEGUARD OUR FUNDAMENTAL FREEDOMS
“Vice President Harris’ fight for our future is also a fight for freedom. In this election, many fundamental freedoms are at stake: the freedom to make your own decisions about your own body without government interference; the freedom to love who you love openly and with pride; and the freedom that unlocks all the others: the freedom to vote.”
“Restore and Protect Reproductive Freedoms
“Vice President Harris and Governor Walz trust women to make decisions about their own bodies, and not have the government tell them what to do.
“Donald Trump handpicked members of the United States Supreme Court to take away reproductive freedom — and now he brags about it. In his words, ‘I did it, and I’m proud to have done it.’ He even called for punishment for women who have an abortion.
“Since Roe v. Wade was overturned, Vice President Harris has driven the Administration’s strategy to defend reproductive freedom and safeguard the privacy of patients and providers. As Governor, Tim Walz led Minnesota to become the first state to pass a law protecting a woman’s right to choose following the overturning of Roe. Vice President Harris has traveled America and heard the stories of women hurt by Trump abortion bans. Stories of couples just trying to grow their family, cut off in the middle of IVF treatments. Stories of women miscarrying in parking lots, developing sepsis, losing the ability to ever have children again — all because doctors are afraid they may go to jail for caring for their patients. As President, she will never allow a national abortion ban to become law. . . .”
“Protect Civil Rights and Freedoms
“Vice President Harris and Governor Walz believe many fundamental freedoms are at stake in this election. They will fight to ensure that Americans have the opportunity to participate in our democracy by passing the John Lewis Voting Rights and the Freedom to Vote Acts — laws that will enshrine voting rights protections, expand vote-by-mail and early voting, and more. Her Administration will also continue to protect Americans from discrimination, building on her work to secure $2 billion in funding for Offices of Civil Rights across the federal government. And as President, she’ll always defend the freedom to love who you love openly and with pride. In 2004, she officiated some of the nation’s first same-sex marriages and as Attorney General, she refused to defend California’s anti-marriage equality statewide referendum. As President, she’ll fight to pass the Equality Act to enshrine anti-discrimination protections for LGBTQI+ Americans in health care, housing, education, and more into law.”
“Trump’s Project 2025 Agenda
“Donald Trump is a threat to our fundamental rights and freedoms. He brags that he is ‘proudly’ responsible for handpicking Supreme Court Justices who overturned Roe, unleashing Trump Abortion Bans in states across the country, putting women’s lives at risk and threatening doctors and other health providers with jail time. He said there should be ‘punishment’ for women who have an abortion and calls abortion bans ‘a beautiful thing to watch.’ If elected, Trump will ban abortion nationwide, restrict access to birth control, force states to report on women’s miscarriages and abortions, and jeopardize access to IVF.
“Trump and his allies continue to demonize and attack LGBTQI+ individuals and families. His Project 2025 agenda will eliminate federal rules that protect LGBTQI+ Americans from discrimination. And Trump is directly attacking the bedrock of our democracy: the right to vote. His baseless claims of a stolen election in 2020 inspired states to slash voter protections and purge their voting rolls.”
R.VanWagoner https://medium.com/@richardvanwagoner publishes. https://richardvanwagoner.medium.com/subscribe
*My brother the very talented fiction writer and novelist, Robert Hodgson Van Wagoner, deserves considerable credit for offering both substantive and technical suggestions to https://medium.com/@richardvanwagoner. Rob’s second novel is a beautifully written suspense drama that takes place in Utah, Wyoming, and Norway. This novel, The Contortionists, which Rob himself narrates for the audio version, is a psychological page-turner about a missing child in a predominantly Mormon community. I have read the novel and listened to the audio version twice. It is a literary masterpiece. The Contortionists is not, however, for the faint of heart.
**Richard J Van Wagoner is my father. His list of honors, awards, and professional associations is extensive. He was Professor Emeritus (Painting and Drawing), Weber State University, having served three Appointments as Chair of the Department of Visual Arts there. He guest-lectured and instructed at many universities and juried numerous shows and exhibitions. He was invited to submit his work as part of many shows and exhibitions, and his work was exhibited in many traveling shows domestically and internationally. My daughter Angela Van Wagoner, a professional photographer, photographed more than 500 pieces of my father’s work. The photographs of my father’s art reproduced in https://medium.com/@richardvanwagoner are hers.