Republican women have been feeling a lot of frustration about their party’s misogynistic presidential nominee. Now, thanks to an outbreak of Trump-like rhetoric from Texas-elected officials, Republican women in that state have extra reason to feel abandoned by their party.
You’ve got Texas Agriculture Commissioner Sid Miller calling Hillary Clinton the C word in a tweet. You’ve got Rep. Blake Farenthold saying he would consider still supporting Trump if a tape came out of Trump saying “I really like to rape women.” And you’ve got Rep. Brian Babin saying “a lady needs to be told when she’s being nasty” after Trump called Clinton a “nasty woman” during the final debate. This is what some Texas women who’ve been deeply involved in the Republican Party are saying in response:
"There’s a common thought process right now with young Republican women, and that is, 'Is this the party for us?’” asked Randan Steinhauser, a member of the State Republican Executive Committee, the governing body of the Republican Party of Texas, and a prominent school choice activist in Austin. [...]
“He’s a disgrace and an embarrassment and has easily coasted into office,” [former George W. Bush administration staffer Jenifer Sarver] wrote of Miller in an email. “His use of the ‘c’ word says more about the GOP primary voters in Texas than it does about him.”
“He is vulgar and offensive and revels in being so,” she added. “I’ve always felt pride in being from a state that supports and nurtures strong women, but this new wave of openly sexist attitudes perpetrated by Texas GOP leaders is disheartening and shameful, and I worry about the message it sends to the little girls in my life."
And so on. It continues to be hard to feel too much sympathy for these women, who are mostly objecting to Republican men verbalizing the contempt for women they’ve long been writing into laws. Have them get back to me when they’re as pained by laws that keep women poor or put their health at risk as they are by the C word.
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