After months of working the phones at the Democratic headquarters in Batavia, Ohio I am bitterly disappointed at the outcome of the 2016 presidential race. Donald Trump scared the bejezzus out of me when he won the Republican nominee for president and he still scares me.
I forced myself to watch his speeches and coverage of his rallies. I
cringed along with half the nation every time he came up with some
childish bully name for one of his opponents or went on a tweet storm
when someone insulted him. He
refused to release his tax returns so we
still know very little of his business acumen. He is still a thin-skinned bully and easily baited. As far as surrounding himself with good people, I have yet to see any.
There was a time when I, too, was hesitant about Hillary Clinton. After all I was a registered Republican when Bill Clinton was president. But as I learned
her history, as I examined the intense
campaign by Republicans in office to discredit her honesty and integrity, I came to admire her strength to get back into the fray and still hold on to her principles. I admired her
dedication to the disenfranchised, to the underdogs of our society, a dedication that began long before she was in college.
As election day came closer, I was encouraged
when one conservative newspaper after another endorsed Hillary Clinton. I was encouraged when
respectable Republicans refused to endorse Donald Trump. I was encouraged when the pollsters talked of a landslide win for Clinton.
But the underdogs were duped into believing she really was Crooked Hillary and came out in droves from the rural back roads and voted in their Daddy.
Like I said, I worked the phones for months before election day. Our call lists were comprised of registered Democrats and Independents. The first time I spoke to a woman who said she "would never vote for a woman president!" click, I sat there in shock. I realized there is a faction of our society who isn't just against Hillary and
the manufactured baggage she carries. There is a substantial population of women, predominately white evangelical women, who simply believe in, what is viewed by them, the traditional roles of men and women in our society. Daddy is in charge and Mommy stays home and has babies and bakes cookies.
For them NO woman belongs in the presidency. Not now, not ever. For them Donald Trump represents the patriarchal figure that embodies the traditional family structure to which they cling. Inter-racial marriages, gay marriages, and single moms are an aberration to the white Christian society they believe to be superior to the rest of the world.
So what if Trump is a
sexual predator. Those women probably asked for it just like all those rape victims of guys who emulate Trump's personality. So what if Trump is
currently involved in nearly a hundred law suits, stiffed his contractors and filed bankruptcy multiple times. That's how strong men operate. It's not for us women to worry our pretty little heads about complicated business negotiations.
And now that the votes are counted? Sure enough,
53 percent of white women, most identifying as evangelicals, voted for Trump.
So who's your Daddy? The answer is clear. Donald Trump.
Update: Excellent point of view from inside the Evangelical camp.
"The Evangelical Church Has Lost Its Witness In Supporting Donald Trump"
1/25/2017 Update: This very insightful and very nerdy blog post by George Lakoff, a Richard and Rhoda Goldman Distinguished Professor of Cognitive Science and Linguistics at the University of California at Berkeley, validates my point of view here.
A Minority President: Why the Polls Failed, And What the Majority Can Do
