All the major cable news outlets seemed to want to talk about yesterday was the statements by Donald Trump denigrating Megan Kelley of Fox News. And especially stupid were the statements that Trump's offensive statements could cost Republicans the women's vote in 2016.
What the hell are these pundits thinking? They act like Trump is the only GOP presidential candidate guilty of misogyny, and if he would just go away, women would flock to vote for the Republican candidate in next year's election. Are they serious? I ask them to show me just one Republican candidate that is a champion of women's rights. There are none (and that includes Carly Fiorina).
It is true that the Republicans have a problem with the women's vote. A majority of women have voted against the Republican candidate in the last six presidential elections (1992, 1996, 2000, 2004, 2008, and 2012), and the odds are good that will happen again in 2016. But blaming Trump, no matter how odious his comments, for that is just silly. The blame lies with the policies the Republican Party have pursued -- and every single candidate vying for their nomination in 2016 supports those policies.
As a party, both with their elected officials and their base voters, they have consistently opposed policies that most American women support. They have opposed easy and free access to contraception for women, opposed equal pay for women, opposed letting women make their own decisions regarding their bodies (as men are able to do), have opposed fully funding children's education (and would even abolish the Department of Education), have opposed efforts to clean up our air and water, have opposed a livable minimum wage (which affects women more than men, especially single women with children), and want to cut food stamps and free school lunches for poor children.
Those are issues that are important to women -- and they are issues where the Republican Party parts with the wishes of women. And every candidate running for the GOP nomination toes the Republican Party line on all those issues.
The chances are great that Republicans will again lose the women's vote in 2016 (and women vote in larger numbers than men do) -- but it won't be because of anything Donald Trump said. And it won't be because the Democratic nominee is likely to be a woman. It will be because of the policies of the Republican Party -- policies that are anti-woman. They can try to deny it all they want, but the Republican Party truly is waging a war on the women of this country.
