The following editorial originally appeared in the St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
Little ladies of America, put down your sewing kits and listen up: Donald Trump and the Republican Party have your cute little backs. They’re going to protect you — from making your own choices about reproduction, from deciding whether to own a cat, maybe even from traveling between states.
Heck, girls, today’s GOP will even protect you from the burden of thinking!
“WOMEN WILL BE HAPPY, HEALTHY, CONFIDENT AND FREE! YOU WILL NO LONGER BE THINKING ABOUT ABORTION!” the former president recently posted — helpfully putting it in all-caps so even female readers can understand it. “… I WILL PROTECT WOMEN AT A LEVEL NEVER SEEN BEFORE.”
Of course, you’ve already sampled Trump’s idea of “protection,” in the form of abortion bans in half the country that have now been officially confirmed to have cost women’s lives. Trump — who is more responsible for those bans than any other individual in America, thanks to his three Supreme Court appointments — knows how grateful you are to him.
But it’s not just Trump for whom you should be knitting scarves of gratitude, ladies. Other Republican luminaries these days are also offering invaluable advice on how the fairer sex can be happy, healthy and compliant.
There’s JD Vance, Trump’s running mate. When recently confronted with a 2021 interview in which he derided “childless cat ladies” who “want to make the rest of the country miserable too,” he snarked, “I’ve got nothing against cats.”
It’s hard to believe this duo is trailing among women by double digits in polls. Don’t you chicks know what’s good for you?
Then there’s Bernie Moreno, the GOP’s Senate nominee in Ohio, who derided “single-issue voters” — women who have the gall to vote for bodily autonomy. He declared it “crazy” that women over 50 would care about reproductive rights.
Hmm. Not to overload your female brains here, but is Mr. Moreno suggesting that anyone who can’t get pregnant should keep their damned noses out of other people’s reproductive decisions? What an unintentionally intriguing concept! Discuss among yourselves, girls.
But don’t discuss too much. Today’s Republican Party — which, remember, is protecting you — wants to ensure that you don’t have access to information that isn’t good for you.
For example, Missouri’s Republican lawmakers have considered outlawing billboards and websites that might provide information about out-of-state abortion options. (Sorry, honey, the First Amendment is only for men.) In Texas, they’ve even tried to prevent women from driving to other states for abortion services.
Women behind the wheel is generally a bad idea anyway, are we right?
So come Nov. 5, ladies, you should walk to the polling places — and vote to protect yourselves.
