FEMALE GOP INSIDER REFUSES TO SUPPORT THEIR NOMINEE

…Amanda Carpenter, a conservative’s conservative

 

That Access Hollywood video wasn’t boyish banter. That was a confession of an assault.

 

I was amazed when I read that the conservative former communications aide to Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), and to former senator Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), Amanda Carpenter, had written the following: “I can personally testify that Republican women have, for years, fended off accusations from the Democrats of the party’s allegedly anti-woman beliefs. And what did we get for it? The nomination, by way of a largely older, male voting base, of a brazen and unapologetic misogynist.  I want to ask the men leading the GOP some questions. Why didn’t you defend women from this raging sexist especially after so many Republican women — for so many years — eagerly defended the party from charges of sexism? You must make us out for fools.”

 

This diatribe was written after Ms. Carpenter learned that earlier this month, Eric Trump, Donald’s son, had sent out a fundraising solicitation showing a map of his father overwhelmingly winning the election. There was only one catch that Eric forgot to mention. The winning map represented a pollster’s projection of what would happen “if only American men voted”!

 

As Ms. Carpenter also wrote: It was fitting because, “The way Trump has conducted his campaign, it’s as if the Republican Party would like female voters to fall off the map completely.”

 

And this is coming from as devout of a Republican woman as their possibly is today.

 

This very conservative woman is totally offended by the types of voters Trump is attracting in droves.  She is referring to those Trump male supporters that show up at rallies wearing Tee-shirts that said, “Trump that bxxxh” and “She’s a cxxt, vote for Trump”.  She calls these men total sexist and misogynistic losers.

 

Based on how the women’s vote continues to lean towards Hillary, it is obvious that Trump and the RNC have decided that appealing to those male X-rated tee-shirt voters was more important than appealing to America’s women.  You know, the largest voting group in the United States.

 

Trump’s men have told their women that Trump’s Hollywood Access video was just “locker room talk”, and that they should accept this is how men speak behind closed doors.  Just “get over it, and vote Trump” is their plan.

 

Ms. Carpenters has also suggested that the Trump men should “…talk to some rape survivors. They need to hear what those women heard when Trump bragged about grabbing a woman’s genitals, aggressively kissing women without consent, and getting away with it because he’s rich and famous. That wasn’t boyish banter. That was a confession of an assault.”

 

When I think about that “Access” video, I always ask myself, “How can anyone believe his statement that this was just ‘locker room talk’ .”  Trump wasn’t in a locker room when he talked this way. He was mic’d up as a major media figure and scheduled to speak to another major media figure, in a professional media work setting.

 

Talk about making a giant, stupid gaffe, but Trump was acting as he always acts.

 

It is anticipated that if Trump loses as expected, the elected Republicans will pretend, post-election as if those videos were an unpredictable revelation. They’ll say they didn’t know he was such a deviant.

 

That would be a fools way of trying to head on down the political road.  Most people won’t accept that explanation. Trump’s chauvinism was well-documented through decades’ worth of his publicly available on television, radio and print interviews long before he became the GOP nominee.

 

Just look at Trump’s track record with women so far: As a GOP presidential candidate, Trump used his massive online platform to label Megyn Kelly a “bimbo” and question the looks of Senator Cruz’s wife,

 

Even after Trump denigrated the party’s own female Republicans, such as Carly Fiorina, Sen. Kelly Ayotte (N.H.), South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez, male GOP heavyweights are now using their clout to force Republicans to still fall in line for Trump.

 

Some traditional Republicans like Mitt Romney, Sen. Ben Sasse (Neb.) and Jeb Bush, tried sounding alarms.  But Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) sneered at Republicans, such as House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (Wis.), who were reluctant to lend their support. “It’s disrespectful of the Republican electorate to say, ‘I’m smarter than you are, and I’m not gonna support your choice,’ ” McConnell said in May.  But since the Hollywood Access video, Senator McConnell has gone mum on Trump.  The party honchos have insisted, again and again, that standing by Trump was still the right thing to do.

 

As late as July, McConnell had been telling his fellow members that they would not suffer any repercussions for Trump’s misdeeds. “I don’t think we’re gonna lose a single Senate seat because of Donald Trump,” he bragged to NBC News.  Yet Trump is now forecast to lose the election in a blowout. Down-ballot Republicans will most certainly become some of the collateral damage.

 

If Trump does lose, and the next GOP autopsy has any credibility, it will need to contain political obituaries for Trump’s most ardent defenders.  That includes people such as Sen. Jeff Sessions (Ala.), Dr. Ben Carson, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, Rudolph W. Giuliani, Newt Gingrich, Mike Huckabee and the others. Those who gave Trump credibility and used their influence to rationalize his obscene words and actions need to be named and shamed for what they did.

 

For all Republicans, the most dismaying thing about the election is not Trump himself, it’s that so many Republicans endorsed his nightmarish campaign.

 

Nearly all of those that gave in included shockingly, Ted Cruz, who courageously stood before the GOP convention and urged delegates to “vote their conscience” while he declined to support Trump. Apparently, the pressure became too much to bear. Two months later, he reversed course and was phone banking for the Trump-Pence ticket.  He will most likely pay dearly for that.

 

Now, Ms. Carpenter doesn’t speak for all Republican women, but she is not alone. She is just one of many women the Republican Party left behind in this election.  The GOP is about to learn a hard lesson when it comes to the votes of future Republican women: either defend them, or lose them.

 

There’ll be a new political map drawn that will be introduced on November 9^th , and it will tell the GOP all it needs to know.

 

Copyright G.Ater  2016