As a result of the broadcast of the Trump tapes and women stepping forward to discuss Trump’s predatory treatment of them, we now see headlines and polling data showing that women are rejecting Trump and many will now be voting for Hillary. That’s great news!
But there’s room for the headlines to be more accurate, since the “women” now abandoning a vote for Trump are mainly white women who were either Republicans or Independents. A majority of women of color didn’t need to hear Trump spew on tape to recognize his racism, xenophobia, and misogyny. Nor did we need a prod to jump ship to become Democrats. We’ve been here all the while, along with white female Democrats who support our party.
Last summer, I wrote about “The black and brown firewall blocking Trump,” sure that the coalition that put Barack Obama into office, twice, would do the same for Hillary Clinton. I opened with these words:
We, the people of color of these United States of America, are going to be the salvation of this nation. We are the firewall that is standing strong against the travesty that we’ve just seen displayed at the Klanvention convened by Republicans in Cleveland.
Black folks are not buying what Donald Trump and the rest of his raft of Republican racists are selling. Neither are Latinos, Asian-Americans and Native Americans. As the traditional media tries to sell us on a neck-and-neck horse race between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump—ignoring the electoral college—and as Trump and other Republicans ramp up the racist, sexist, homophobic, xenophobic volume, there is one thing Democrats need to keep in mind: A big part of our voting base is black and brown, and that base is growing.
The coalition that elected Barack Obama twice isn’t shrinking.
What I saw presented — quite frequently —in media analyses of Obama’s victories was the fact that “women” played a key role, as did “millennials.” What was too often overlooked was that these categories were actually a reflection of the people of color firewall, rather than being what I call “default white.” Too often “women” as a cited variable does not mean us, and infers “white” to the readership.
This question was raised in 2012 by The New Yorker’s John Cassidy, who wrote “What’s Up with White Women? They Voted for Romney, Too.” He stated:
You don’t believe me? Here are some figures from this year’s exit poll, which the Edison Research company conducts for a consortium of media companies, and from previous ones. In 2004, Bush got fifty-five per cent of the white female vote, and Kerry got forty-four per cent—a “reverse gender gap” (one working in the G.O.P.’s favor) of eleven points. In 2008, McCain got fifty-three per cent of the white female vote, and Obama got forty-six per cent—a gap of seven points. Compared to four years earlier, the reverse gender gap in this demographic had decreased by four points, indicating that the Democrats were making progress in attracting the votes of white women. But this year, that trend turned around again. Far from narrowing further, the reverse gender gap among white women widened to fourteen points. Romney got fifty-six per cent of the white female vote; Obama got just forty-two per cent.
When I first saw these figures, I was surprised, too. How could Obama have done so poorly among white women and yet carried the overall female vote by eleven points—fifty-five per cent to forty-four per cent? The answer is that white females make up a smaller proportion of the overall electorate than they used to—thirty-eight per cent in 2012 compared to forty-one per cent in 2004—and Obama racked up enormous majorities among non-white women, who are growing in numbers. Ninety-six per cent of black women voted for Obama; seventy-six per cent of Hispanic women voted for him; and so did sixty-six per cent of women of other races, including Asians. Since about one in six voters is now a non-white woman, those votes were enough to cancel out the reverse gender gap among white women and turn the female vote as a whole into one of the key elements of Obama’s victory.
Another look came in this 2014 post-election loss examination for Wendy Davis, in Texas. It was titled, “White Women Let’s Get Our Shit Together.”
In the run-up to the Texas gubernatorial election, much hand-wringing was done over the Hispanic lady voter. But it was women like me—married white women, specifically—who failed Wendy Davis—and ourselves, and our families, and Texas families—on Tuesday night.
Also In 2014, Colorlines had this: “Democrats Have a White Women Problem.”
Progressive strategy often focuses on voter turnout in communities of color, but Democrats seem to be losing on the backs of white-women voters. Can they do anything about it?
When you look at Tuesday's election results by gender, it seems that the Democrats and Republicans split the women's vote pretty evenly, with a few percentage points in favor of Dems. But when you examine that data by gender and race, you'll get a wholly different picture that highlights an Achilles' heel for Democrats: white women.
Exit polls released by CNN show that white women's votes went to the Republicans by a margin of 13 percent. Fifty-six percent of white women voted Republican while only 43 percent voted Democrat.
And if you look at the numbers for black and brown women, you see just how big the race gap really is. Ninety percent of black women and 67 percent of Latina women voted Democrat. (It's worth noting that Black and Latino men also voted for Democrats more than white women did--86 and 58 percent respectively.) Even when you break it down by age, the white vote went to Republicans. These numbers mean even more when you consider that white people make up two-thirds of the electorate, with the vote evenly split between white men and women.
This same is true for category millennials, as ”white voters under the age of 30 actually preferred Mitt Romney in 2012.”
It’s thrilling to see more white women opt out of voting for Republicans and joining the multi-hued mosaic that is the Democratic Party. I applaud us joining together to defeat Trump, hopefully to take the back the Senate, and make inroads into the House. We have less than a month left to make these victories happen (so GOTV like crazy!).
However, post-election, there is work that needs to be done to consolidate this expanded coalition into the future.
As a lifelong feminist who has worked in coalition with not only my sisters of color, but also with white sisters in struggle, I found it disheartening that a majority of white women voted for Mitt Romney. How could they, when our reproductive rights are on the line, when women still don’t get equal pay for equal work, when far too many women and girls—across class, racial, and ethnic lines—are still victims of domestic violence, rape, and abuse?
Clearly, there are loads of activist, white female Democrats, who are passionately engaged in issues that go beyond those of gender. They just were not a majority as a Democratic voting bloc—and haven’t been for decades.
My sig line here has been “If you're in a coalition and you're comfortable, you know it's not a broad enough coalition,” a quote from Dr. Bernice Johnson Reagon, civil rights activist, feminist, and founder of the performance ensemble Sweet Honey in the Rock.
While addressing the West Coast Women’s Music Festival in 1981, longtime activist and musician Bernice Johnson Reagon spoke cogently and movingly about the challenges of coalition work. Among other points, she drew an important distinction between the safe, home-like space that those challenging the status quo may need to bolster themselves and to help define their work, and the challenging, stretching, and often uncomfortable space of coalition-building. Her remarks were presented in Home Girls: A Black Feminist Anthology (ed. Barbara Smith, Kitchen Table Press, 1983; Rutgers University Press, 2000) as “Coalition Politics: Turning the Century,” and are just as relevant for advocates in this century as they were for those in the last.
How do we as Democrats—and as women—consolidate this tentative new coalition with the women who may be voting for our party for the first time? If the majority of these women are white and may not be voting against Republican racism, voter suppression, and xenophobia, but have been inspired to cast a ballot in reaction only to sexism and misogyny—how do we work with them to expand their consciousness, and to embrace those of us who are women of color and solid Democrats? How to start the difficult conversations around privilege and intersectionality that need to take place?
In two short years we’ll be facing midterm elections—a make or break election for progress in the House.
The 2018 United States elections will be held (for the most part) on Tuesday, November 6, 2018. During this mid-term election year, all 435 seats in the United States House of Representatives and 33 of the 100 seats in the United States Senate will be contested.
We will need to be active on multiple fronts, defending our new president from wingnut depredations and investigations, preparing for the next elections, and building stronger internal coalitions. As a black female Democrat, I’ll state frankly that, from my perspective, we haven’t solved many of our own problematic issues with misogyny and racism.
Black women, our most solid Democratic voting group, had a checkered history within the suffrage movement.
The southern strategy the late-20th century Republican Party instituted by the forces arrayed against integration and desegregation was not the first wielding of the tool of racism to retard forces on the left. That same southern strategy was first used in the battle for women's suffrage.
I would like to hear thoughts from women (and male allies) about how we will move forward. In conversations here about initiating a dialogue with women rejecting Trump who continue on as Republicans (voting for the same party that made him who he is today), there has been a very wide range of often acrimonious disagreement. Discussions about the new wave joining us have attracted angst as well. There are people who have actively rejected Republican endorsements of Hillary. I often remind combatants on the left that Elizabeth Warren was a Republican only 20 years ago. How do we integrate newcomers into our sprawling and often contentious Big Tent?
During the period of feminism from the ‘60s through the ‘80s, one of the developments was “consciousness raising groups,” held within the predominantly white “women’s movement.” Women of color discussed issues of privilege, patriarchy, and racism within our own communities during that same time frame. However it wasn’t until 1989 that white feminist and anti-racism activist Dr. Peggy McIntosh published, “White Privilege: Unpacking the Invisible Knapsack,” which has become a core document in both the anti-racism movement and in women’s studies and activism.
At a time when Trump’s twitter trolls have relaunched a “Repeal the19th” hashtag, we need to find ways to educate new female (and male) Democrats—especially white ones—recoiling from Trump’s overt misogyny. We need to encourage them to also be mindful of and supportive of issues that transcend gender—like voter suppression, police brutality, immigration, and criminal justice reform.
This isn’t going to be easy. Progress forward never is.
We’re Stronger Together.
Let’s do it!