White Women Voters

Never in American history has there been a more public “womanizing” president. From Stormy Daniels and Karen McDougal – both clearly paid off, directly or indirectly, by Donald Trump or his backers – to Trump’s “grab them by the pussy” recorded quote (later categorized as normal “locker room talk”), Trump’s infidelities and general treatment of women as sex objects seems to have had little or no impact on his seemingly unwavering support from white women voters. Let’s start with the 2016 presidential election.

“The data indicate how deeply divided Americans are by race and gender: 94 percent of black women who voted and 68 percent of Hispanic or Latino female voters chose Hillary Clinton, but 53 percent of all white female voters picked Mr. Trump.

“The data can be broken down further: 51 percent of white women with college degrees voted for Mrs. Clinton, while 62 percent of women without one voted for Mr. Trump, a reflection of his success with working-class whites.” NY Times, 11/9/16 Post-election analysis might have dropped that 53% to 52%, but it is clear that white women literally provided the margin of victory that swept the Donald into office.

Trump’s post-election attempt to seem like a repentant sinner, embracing evangelical values on the most-shallow level, clearly was not how he really felt. His support for obvious womanizing/abusive GOP candidates and officials, such as Alabama Senate candidate Roy Moore or White House staffer Rob Porter, even as Trump himself faced over a dozen women claiming inappropriate sexual conduct, rolled over into Trump’s dismissive tweets against Professor Christine Blasey Ford’s allegation of an attempted rape by Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh (see below).

Even overlooking a second woman’s serious complaint about another of the nominee’s alleged sexual assault during Kavanaugh’s years at Yale, several GOP Judiciary Committee members simply will not take such accusations seriously enough; they seem to have made up their minds without hearing testimony. Trying desperately to cast these accusations into a “he said/she said” stalemate that they believe must be resolved in Kavanaugh’s favor, the GOP leadership of that committee has rejected calling corroborating witnesses or asking the FBI for a follow-up on its background check. Trump’s growing support for Kavanaugh also reflects the GOP’s and the President’s rather consistent and cavalier attitude over such accusations.

Even with Trump support, Roy Moore lost to a Democrat in a special election that otherwise totally belonged to GOP: “Two Alabama women have accused Moore of assault or molestation — including one who says she was 14 at the time — and six others have said he pursued romantic relationships when they were teenagers and he was a deputy district attorney in his 30s.” Associated Press, 11/21/17.  In early 2018, scandals erupted in the White House itself, as Trump openly supported staff secretary Rob Porter, whose two former wives publicly detailed abuse, as well as departing speechwriter David Sorensen, whose ex-wife made similar claims.

But Trump’s tweets against Professor Ford, who was a mere 15-years of age at the time of the alleged sexual attack by then 17-year-old Brett Kavanaugh, in the face of quite a few psychologists saying that girls’ failure to report sexual assault for fear of the obvious consequences was more the rule than the exception, was particularly heartless and disrespectful.

On September 21^st, Trump tweeted: “Judge Brett Kavanaugh is a fine man, with an impeccable reputation, who is under assault by radical left wing politicians who don’t want to know the answers, they just want to destroy and delay. Facts don’t matter. I go through this with them every single day in D.C.” and later “I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents. I ask that she bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place!”

Indeed, Ford’s fear of being excoriated in the press, the fate of too many women weighing whether to report an assault, was proven completely justified in the light of what actually happened once she was clearly identified. Death threats, insults, dismissive reactions and an inane presidential tweet. That she passed a lie-detector test, had corroborating notes with a psychologist she consulted because of the trauma, and that the “scandal” that was quite the buzz within the Georgetown Prep at the time (where the incident was purported to have taken place and pictured above) seemed to fall on deaf ears.

A gaggle of Trump-supporting women, all of whom “knew” Kavanaugh gathered to make collective statement that Kavanaugh could never have committed that assault because was such a moral and upstanding guy. Really? That’s proof? Mere character witnesses with no first-hand knowledge?

Let see what that prep school environment was really like: “Multiple accounts from 1980s-era classmates depict an alcohol-soaked party culture among the close-knit network of single-sex, mostly Roman Catholic private schools in the country’s wealthiest state [Maryland]. At raucous house parties and drunken beach vacations, boys from Georgetown Prep and other all-male academies would meet up with students from nearby all-girl private schools like Stone Ridge, Holy Cross, Georgetown Visitation and the non-sectarian Holton-Arms School. Binge drinking was a routine part of the social scene, with minimal adult supervision.” Washington Post, September 20^th.

Yeah, but Brett was such a moral and upstanding guy, he could never have been a part of that culture, right? Except in 2015, in a recorded talk at Catholic University, Brett Kavanaugh actually said: “We had a good saying that we’ve held firm to, to this day, as the dean was reminding me before the talk, which is: ‘What happens at Georgetown Prep, stays at Georgetown Prep.’…  That’s been a good thing for all of us, I think.” Did the incident happen? If it did, was Kavanaugh too drunk to remember? But wait, there’s more.

On September 20^th, the Guardian (U.K.) reported that two prominent Yale professors told women Yale law students that their physical attractiveness and femininity could play a role in securing a clerkship with Kavanaugh. They were purportedly given advice on what to wear for the relevant interviews. Further, Kavanaugh’s relationship with and total support for former 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Judge Alex Kozinski, and whether he was aware of Kozinski’s purported inappropriate behavior, have also become issues. Kozinski “retired” in December after at least 15 women, many of them his former clerks, accused him of sexual misconduct.

Even if we assume Mr. Kavanaugh’s innocence under this accusation, which we must, the lifetime appointment of a Justice of the United States Supreme Court merits a rather exhaustive investigation to vindicate him if he is innocent; any person accused of such a heinous sexual assault deserves a clear path to prove innocence.

For Republicans, if they persist in this appointment without a detailed investigation, if Kavanaugh’s selection is not withdrawn (or he withdraws) or rejected by the GOP-led Senate committee and brought forward for a floor vote in the Senate, they must be very confident that the white women who voted for Trump and his GOP-supporters will remain loyal to Trump and the Republican Party. Oddly, they just might continue in the bizarre trend of Trump supporters’ continually voting against their own best interests in some messianic belief that Trump is the iconoclastic savior of our nation.

For Democrats, this GOP-effort needs to be hammered home as a deeply anti-woman bias that is increasingly defining the Republican Party. And if they take the Congress, assuming Kavanaugh is confirmed by the GOP Senate, an impeachment effort just might roil an already-horribly polarized electorate into seething rage with unforeseen consequences. The writing is on the wall. Will those who matter actually read it? And if they don’t, will it matter?

I’m Peter Dekom, and whatever else is said or done about Mr. Kavanaugh, all the progress to equalize men and women in this country has taken one giant step backwards.