Carrie Lukas explores for National Review Online a disturbing tactic progressives employ against Republican women.
Some progressives have decided that rather than convincing women that their candidates and policy proposals are better than those of conservatives, they will shame women who fail to vote for the Left by defining them all as racist and self-loathing tools of the patriarchy. …
… Brainwashed. Unsisterly. Traitors. Racist.
These are the labels being pushed on Republican women not just by leftist party activists, but by supposedly nonpartisan entertainment outlets. People don’t turn to Vogue for political commentary, just as they don’t turn on the latest television crime drama for a lecture about gun control. But that’s what’s served up. This subtle societal backdrop, caricaturing conservative women not just as wrong, but as inherently vile and cruel, encourages Democrats to feel just in shaming, silencing, and marginalizing them. So much for the Left’s mantra of “Make YOUR voice heard.”
Waiting for back-to-school night to begin, while exchanging names and pleasantries with parents of my daughters’ new classmates, I would never have brought up politics, and I carefully neutered descriptions of my employment to avoid revealing any ideological leanings. Yet the woman next to me felt no similar limitations and quickly offered a profanity-laced opinion of the president. A few laughed agreeably, offering their own digs not just about Trump, but about conservatives more broadly. I simply disengaged.
I suspect many right-of-center women have had similar experiences. This is a problem, not just because it silences people, but because increasingly women on the left seem to have no actual contact with women outside of their own ideological bubbles. They can’t fathom why, other than racism and sexism, some women reach different conclusions about politics and policy issues.
