Why And How Women MUST Vote In November

As some Indiana readers of this blog probably know, one of my volunteer activities is with a relatively new organization, Women 4 Change Indiana. The organization was founded in the wake of the 2016 election that put a mentally-ill, racist misogynist in the Oval Office. It works to improve Hoosier governance, opposing gerrymandering, engaging in a variety of civic education efforts, and–in the weeks and days leading up to elections–to get out the vote.

Recently, I was tasked with producing brief–but hopefully compelling–messages about the importance of women’s votes. Women 4 Change highlights those reasons on its website, and (in case you’ve missed them) I’ve compiled them below.

For women, especially, the upcoming election is about one over-riding issue: what is—and isn’t– government’s business? The Dobbs decision did more than allow legislatures to eliminate women’s reproductive rights; it challenged the longstanding constitutional doctrine that there are certain things individual citizens get to decide for ourselves. That doctrine—called “substantive due process” or “the right to privacy” prevents government from making decisions that should be left up to the individual: what you read, who you marry, whether, when and to whom you pray, what political opinions you hold. In answer to the question “who decides?” the current Supreme Court says “government.”

In the upcoming election, women especially need to vote for candidates who will support the return of America’s traditional, non-partisan judiciary. When ideological or corrupt judges are on the bench, women and minorities suffer, and the public loses respect for the legal system and the rule of law.

Since polling shows that large majorities of Americans—especially women– care about gun violence, women should take care to explore candidates’ positions on guns and gun ownership. What do the candidates say about the “right” to own and carry assault weapons? Do they support “red flag” laws that keep guns out of the hands of dangerous individuals and perpetrators of domestic violence? Do they oppose reasonable background checks?

Americans are already experiencing the effects of a warming planet. Women who worry about the livability of the world we’re leaving to our children and grandchildren need to vote for candidates who support government’s efforts to combat climate change, and need to oppose candidates who are trying to slow the transition from fossil fuels to clean energy.

In order to leave our children and grandchildren a better world, women need to withhold support for candidates giving aid and comfort to racism, anti-Semitism, misogyny, homophobia and all the other “isms”–the bigotries that divide Americans into armies of “us” and “them.” Real Americans understand that people should be evaluated on the basis of their behavior, not on the basis of their gender, religion, sexuality or skin color. (When I sent this particular part of the text to the organization, I suggested additional language to the effect that every group is a mixture of good people and assholes, but for some reason, they didn’t include that language…)

Mothers and fathers both have important stakes in the operation of their public school systems—especially in maintaining and protecting the professionalism of teachers and librarians. Women are disproportionately harmed when religious fundamentalists take control of school boards and libraries, because the books that are censored when that occurs are most often those that portray “non-traditional” families in a positive light, but everyone is harmed when teachers are told what they can and cannot teach, and the entire student body is prevented from accessing library books that may offend some citizens.

Quite obviously, these reasons to vote also apply to men–at least the ones who aren’t terrified of living in a world they have to share with females, gay folks and people of color…

Women4Change is non-partisan, so the organization confines its messaging to pleas to turn out– exhortations to vote for the candidates of one’s choice. This blog  most definitely does not operate under that constraint. Every one of the above reasons is a reason to vote Democratic. The Grand Old Party I once worked for has disappeared, and the cult that has replaced it is wrong on every single one of these issues–and plenty of other issues as well.

I’ve given up trying to understand the people who look at today’s Republican candidates– in thrall to a narcissistic ignoramus and his legions of bigots who want to return us to the 1950s — and say “Yep, those are my guys!” I only know that those of us who haven’t drunk the Kool Aid need to vote–and we need to drag our sane friends and relatives to the polls with us.

17 Comments

  1. Maybe they didn’t use your “…mixture of good people and assholes…” because it seems like saying: “There were very fine people on both sides!” 🤐😬. Sorry, Sheila. I just couldn’t help myself.

  3. After reading the 15th & 16th clauses of article 1 section 8 of the constitution, anti-federalist and federalist #s 29, and being aware of the National Guard Act of 1903 (I haven’t read it completely) I believe the second amendment prevents the government disarming the well regulated militia (now the Guard). It doesn’t allow everyone to run around with an AR15 looking for someone to shoot.

  5. THIS I BELIEVE; I have long held the belief that the problems the humanity in America and the World will never be resolved until women hold 1/2 the seats of power and decision making process.
    Women make up 52% of the world population and hold less than 10% of political power and decision making.
    And the christian nationalist, evangelical right, maga, proud boys Supreme Court and so many other right wing groups want power taken, undermined and removed from women, even over control of their own bodies.
    This is wrong in a nation based on the land of the free, where all women can access a Clergy, Lawyer’s, and Medical Dr’s all well educated council, and have it taken by extreme politicians and judges wanting to return our nation to a time that never existed to gain their own power over the people of our nation.
    When religion ruled over governments it was called the Dark Ages, and we must not let that happen here.

  6. I recently read that the Taliban, in Afghanistan, recognizes that climate change is both happening, and in caused by the activities of humans. Meanwhile, the MAGABAN can’t allow for such thinking here!
    Vote the assholes out!

  7. “In the upcoming election, women especially need to vote for candidates who will support the return of America’s traditional, non-partisan judiciary.“
    As someone once prophetically said, “Once you own the courts, you can get away with anything”.

  8. I don’t understand the trance that Trump has on women in this country, but he gets a lot of support from them. Maybe they all want to get grabbed by their ____, but even blacks and Latinas are lining up for him despite his policies/ideas working against them. Young and old people like Miriam Adelson align with MAGA.

    Trump’s speech at the RNC was so dull it caused many people in the crowd to fall asleep. Elon Musk is enamored with Trump, but his motive is Trump will keep Elon’s taxes low. Women supporting Trump is mind-blowing, considering he is stripping away their rights. When white and black women come together to vote for a degenerate like Trump, there has to be a common theme.

    Quite frankly, the theme for the majority is they’re ignorant. I believe that is what all MAGA supporters have in common—ignorance. Aside from the billionaires and corporate executives who save millions under R’s policies, the remainder of MAGA stains is just ignorant. We used to call them LIVs, or low-information voters.

    Maybe the Founders were right not to give women the right to vote. The suffrage movement took over 70 years to allow women voting rights, but 1920 was a while ago. Maybe SCOTUS has an upcoming surprise for women hidden in P2025.

    Recently, the media has moved from begging Biden to quit to questioning whether Harris is the answer. “Maybe Kamala can’t beat Trump either.” Duh!

    She can’t come close! But can you imagine the blowback to the DNC if they don’t choose Harris? They will be called racist and sexist. They may have to swallow their pride and stick with her despite the obvious fact she is a weaker presidential candidate than Biden. It should be interesting.

  9. Gavin Pretor-Pinney, the founder of Cloud Appreciation Society “…considers how a cloud, composed of myriad small particles known as cloudlets, stays afloat: “A cloud stays up because it’s not one big thing but a group of tiny, tiny things,” he writes, which strikes me as an apt metaphor for how diversity and multiplicity ensure the buoyancy of any society.” From Maria Popova’s “The Marginalian, 7/21/2024…newsletter@brainpickings.org
    Well, the MAGA crowd is one (too) large thing, trying to impose itself on everyone else, has no tolerance for difference, must be voted out.

  10. There is ONE THING followers and devotees of MAGA care about: the subordination of Deep State and deep tax cuts to take the oxygen out of big government. That is the ONE THING they want from Trump and there is no other candidate in their minds who matches his high conviction to deconstruct Deep State. Everything else gets a pass if that is what it takes to grab headlines. If the only message coming from Blue is to defeat Trump, the campaign is lost. As a Democrat, I feel we need a refresh and an emboldened theme that mobilizes 51 % for the ONE THING they want … everything else are the candles on the cake to outshine the alternative.

  11. I expect to vote come November, Sheila, and to bring my mythical Uncle Harold and Aunt Mary with me. Elections, lest we forget, are ultimately about arithmetic when the noise subsides.

  12. The march against women has taken enormous strides with the ascent of MAGA—the primacy of a woman’s womb over her person, the insistence that women have only certain roles, mostly domestic, that the suffrage movement should be reversed (J.D. Vance’s view, one of several of his abhorrent moves to get closer to he who violates women and will pay big bucks because he did) …. People often align with such as these as they believe they, as individuals, are not included in the broadside, in this case their gender, or likely to be affected by the fallout. Wrong! But what will wake them up, as they’ve already cast their lot with those who devalue them? I wonder, seriously, how J.D. Vance’s wife, previously a Democrat, and a smart lawyer, will fare as the man she married is clearly not the man he is projecting himself to be now, in adoration to Trump as he seeks to satisfy his own ambitions, and turns the screws on women? And, how she, and he, will respond to the awful commentary on the white supremacist sites, attacking her (and him and their children) which these haters see as evidence of the “replacement theory” taking shape. She may well be shunted aside in the campaign (except, of course, for certain stops) and be isolated in the coming years….unless, of course, she decides being a Stepford wife can have its benefits…

  13. Americans have patiently waited for the courts to deliver justice to trump for his breaking of not only customs and precedents but the law. Hoping the Supremes would render justice in his cases and set the stage for fair play for all Americans came to a not surprising but shocking conclusion. The majority of the Supremes are using umwege juridical techniques to advance the Maga agenda.
    It’s a fact US is in a cold civil war for the survival of democracy. It seems a lot of Americans don’t understand how our lives can change drastically for the worse under an authoritarian, lawless dictatorship.
    Authoritarianism is an asset when fighting a war; a unified force going toward and through the enemy lines. Politically that’s what’s needed to defeat the Maga coup so we can get back to live our personal lives in a peaceful democracy and have power behind the just laws. I think most American women want that for themselves, families and loved ones. We’re beginning to take ownership of our inherent human rights and want to continue on that path in the future.
    I hope our presidential election won’t be illegally messed with and then the Supremes declare a trump win “official”!

  15. I admit to feeling a sense of relief that the decision has been made and the Democratic Party has the opportunity to move forward. The one thing they all agree on is the importance of defeating Trump.

  16. Well! Timely discussion about women in politics. This is the moment. Do not let the pursuit of perfection now become the enemy of what is good.

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