Republicans have worked hard to turn their "angry mob" charge into a generalized smear on Democrats. But Majority Leader Mitch McConnell reminded us once again Thursday where that histrionic claim about the left all started.
When asked by NPR about his initial characterization of last week’s Capitol Hill protesters as an “angry mob,” McConnell responded, “We were literally under assault ourselves. Trailing members for their homes, getting in their faces here in the Capitol. An effort clearly to try and intimidate us."
McConnell went on to say one of the things he was most proud of was that Republicans "stood up to the mob," a sentiment that’s been expressed by several GOP senators.
So let's be really clear about who mostly made up “the mob” during the anti-Kavanaugh protests: women. Republicans may not be assigning genders to the “mob” that countless of them have since denounced, but women predominated those protests, and the Republican caucus clearly despised them and the gall they had to get in the "faces" of GOP lawmakers. They were “paid,” they were “screamers,” it was “mob rule.”
More and more this week, Republican lawmakers and their supporters have revealed how much they truly detest women.
Crowds at Donald Trump's rallies newly began chanting "Lock her up!" after Trump mentioned the ranking Democratic member on the Senate Judiciary Committee, Dianne Feinstein. They rounded out the trifecta on Friday when Trump brought up Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and a smattering of supporters agitated for putting her in the brink too. The implication is clear, it's not just Hillary anymore. Every female Democratic lawmaker with power is now worthy of derision and, yes, jail time! Their very existence is both intolerable and punishable.
Republicans also lavished nearly $30 million last month on campaign ads demonizing either Hillary Clinton or Pelosi. The tried-and-true message they’re selling to their heavily white male base: “For god’s sake, man, don’t let the womenfolk take charge!”
And what about that military fella who once delivered a misty speech from the White House briefing room about days of old and how "sacred" women used to be? Now we find out chief of staff John Kelly is annoyed by women, especially the ones who don't act appropriately deferential, like that pesky Massachusetts Senator, Elizabeth Warren.
In fact, when Warren called then-Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly last year about the newly implemented Muslim ban, she was downright rude.
“What an impolite arrogant woman," Kelly wrote in a Feb. 8, 2017, email after speaking to Warren. "She immediately began insulting our people accusing them of not following the court order, insulting and abusive behavior towards those covered by the pause, blah blah blah.”
Blah blah blah. Women are supposed to listen, not talk. Kelly framed the interaction as the "absolutely most insulting conversation I have ever had with anyone."
As if the phone call weren’t bad enough, pushy Sen. Warren actually had the nerve to give us a little more insight into that interaction on Friday after news of Kelly's slam first surfaced. She had been attempting to establish communications with him and his staff and was a bit testy when she finally got him on the line in the midst of the crisis.
Warren said Kelly accused her of fabricating claims of her efforts to speak with him. “I happened to be looking at all the emails between his staff and my staff when he said this, so I started reading them to him. He accused me again of making it all up,” she wrote.
Talk about impolite—what could be worse than a woman challenging a man’s lies by quoting facts? How dare Warren call Kelly and read him the riot act when his staffers were ignoring a federal court order. What business is it of hers that the Trump administration was “illegally detaining Massachusetts residents (and their family members) at Boston Logan Airport,” as she put it?
Not to worry, though, the White House political shop seems to be getting the message that Trump and Republicans have a little problem with the ladies after multiple polls this month have shown female voters prefer Democrats to Republicans by about 30 points. That was true in a Pew Research poll that found just 30 percent of women view Trump favorably as well as post-Kavanaugh polling showing female voters prefer Democrats by a 30-point margin in the generic ballot. Anyway, White House aides are going to fix all this by getting Trump to name a female replacement for Nikki Haley as Ambassador to the U.N., reports Politico.
“The political shop thinks it’s very important to announce a woman before Election Day because of the president’s approval rating and the Kavanaugh stuff,” said one source in regular contact with the president, although others added that pressure to appoint a woman is coming from across the White House.
Oh, yes, that’ll do it. Trump’s spent the past couple weeks openly mocking Kavanaugh accuser Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, he’s railed about the “false accusations” he himself has endured, and whipped up repeated rounds of “Lock her up!” chants at any given female with power. In the meantime, Republicans have joined Trump in calling the anti-Kavanaugh protesters a “mob” of “unhinged … arsonists,” telling them to “grow up.” But if they just name a woman to fill Haley’s post, that should fix things, because women, who organized a nationwide protest following Trump’s election that dwarfed his own inauguration and have been rallying and donating and registering and running ever since that fateful November day in 2016—they can be distracted and placated with some throw-away gesture like that. You know how women are—emotional and distractible. There, there, dear.
These people detest women. It oozes from their pores. And now they just happen to be saying it out loud four short weeks before an election that will likely hinge on the largest voting gender gap since the ‘80s. Surely, Republicans rue the day women were given the right to vote, especially the angry impolite arrogant unhinged ones. They're the worst.
