Like many Americans, I’ve been disgusted not only by Donald Trump’s misogynistic attitude toward women, but by the way Republicans have fallen in line behind him. The shameless ones have brazenly defended his statements and actions, whereas other Republicans, who are privately embarassed, nonetheless look the other way, and try to convince all of us to do the same.
As gross of a spectacle as this has been to observe, I can’t even imagine what it must be like for the many professional Republican women who for years have staked their reputations on defending Republicans from the image that they’re a bunch of old white men who don’t care about the treatment of women. Giving voice to those women is Amanda Carpenter, who writes and speaks powerfully in a piece for the Washington Post.
Every word of the piece is worth reading, or if you prefer, you should watch the video. I’ve known Carpenter for roughly a decade, ever since shortly after she came to Washington, D.C., as a young conservative journalist, and she’s always been a person of tremendous integrity — an extremely hard-working professional who is dedicated to advancing conservatism.
She represents everything the Republican Party should be striving to be if they’re ever going to compete in future national elections. She effectively communicates that you can be a strong, confident, working woman without having to embrace liberal orthodoxy on issues such as the size of government and abortion.
Yet the 2016 election cycle has been extremely disillusioning for Carpenter, who served as a former top staffer for the Senate offices of conservative stalwarts Jim DeMint and Ted Cruz. Due to her criticisms of Trump dating back to the primaries (for both his sexist behavior as well as his liberalism), she and her family have been subjected to an unrelenting barage of personal attacks.
At one point, she even became the subject of a tabloid smear story that was promoted by representatives of the Trump campaign. The story put herself and those who know her in an impossible position — respond to the baseless story, and amplify it, or ignore it, and have people suggest silence must make it true.
As Trump vaulted to the nomination, she watched Republicans, one after another, fall in line behind him — even after the tape emerged of him openly boasting about sexually assaulting women. Eventually, even her old boss Cruz got on the Trump train. Like many principled conservatives, Carpenter has spent the 2016 election watching in sadness and disbelief as Republicans live up to every ugly stereotype she has spent her career trying to disprove.
In her piece, Carpenter asks a very important question:
Republican women have, for years, fended off accusations from the Democrats of the party’s allegedly anti-woman beliefs. 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.
A party that is too worried about its base to defend women such as Amanda Carpenter is a party that has no future.
