Republican women in the era of Trump — a study in moral contrasts
While there is no shortage of morally negotiable Republican women willing to grovel at Trump's feet, let's not forget the few who bravely stood up and called him out
One notable feature of the ongoing political confrontation in the USA as we proceed toward the most momentous presidential election in living memory is the contrast between some of the young women who held positions of authority in Trump’s White House (and who eventually testified against him) and a number of those later recruited onto Team Trump, often as his lawyers, who ultimately found themselves in disgrace.
From the first category take, for example, Cassidy Hutchinson, the former assistant to Trump’s Chief of Staff Mark Meadows. Ms Hutchinson offered some of the most damning testimony against the Trump administration at the January 6 Committee hearings and has written a memoir of her time in service.
Think also of Sarah Matthews, another significant presence as former deputy press secretary in the Trump White House, and Alyssa Farah Griffin, Trump’s former communications director. Each of these women bravely chose to speak out about the egregious behaviour they’d witnessed while serving for the Trump administration, ultimately coming to recognise the urgent threat to the American constitution that Trump poses.
On the other hand, on the debit side if you will, there are those women whose naked ambition led them to hitch their wagon to Trump’s dark star. I’m alluding here to his current lawyer, Alina Habba (managing partner of Habba, Madaio & Associates LLP, of Bedminster, New Jersey, if you’re interested) who is busy making a gigantic fool of herself in just about every federal courthouse in America.
And let’s not forget Trump’s former lawyers in the Georgia election interference case. One of them, Jenna Ellis, ended up spluttering a lachrymose mea culpa to a Georgia courtroom over her ill-judged endorsement of Trump’s election denial dogma. She it was who could usually be seen gurning behind her then mentor — the enfeebled and now disgraced Rudy Giuliani.
While you’re down there, say a prayer for another of Trump’s erstwhile female “attorneys” — Ms Sidney Powell. That finger-puppet also found herself gagging on humble pie in the face of overwhelming evidence of her robotic readiness to disseminate the fraudulent election garbage propagated by Team Trump.
The ideological clash I’m sketching out here is also reflected in the opposing positions adopted by high-profile Republican women lawmakers. The most stentorian voice in this category is surely the far-right Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Green, shameless purveyor of risible QAnon conspiracy theories. The odour of the trailer park may still cling to MTG, as she’s known, but her bonkers social media posts and ability to raise funds for Trump’s lie-machine put her, in the opinion of some of the more perceptive cable news pundits, in pole position for Vice President in a Trump second term. The very idea is bone-chilling.
Firstly, however, MTG may need to see off New York Republican Elise Stefanik (above) — the highest ranking woman in the Congressional GOP leadership. Stefanik has been heard on cable news channels loyally parroting Trump’s constant reference to the jailed January 6 rioters as “hostages”. This may look like an ill-disguised pitch for the Veep role in a Trump White House, but it also bespeaks the GOP’s abject surrender to the MAGA mob and shameless alignment with the Big Lie of election interference.
Contrast that with the courage of Liz Cheney. You may not agree with Ms Cheney’s conservative politics but her decision to put the Constitution over her party and her career by joining the January 6 Committee remains a shining example of ethical integrity, a virtue now entirely absent from the moral vacuum that is the wider Republican party.
According to the Pew Research Centre, “48% of women voters cast ballots for GOP candidates in 2022 while 51% favored Democrats. In 2018, 40% voted for Republicans while 58% supported Democrats.” The political machinery is now accelerating at a dizzying pace, rendering statistical forecasts largely pointless. Whether the numbers will favour the Democrats in November 2024 may depend on whether any of the few sane Republican women referred to above are able to reach out and convince female voters that democracy itself is at stake.
Following her defeat yesterday to Donald Trump in the New Hampshire Primary, Nikki Haley gave a rousing speech to her supporters, exhorting them to fight on, rhetorically asking whether they wanted to see a re-match of Trump versus Biden in November.
Nikki Haley has already played the gerontology card, insisting that both Trump and Biden are too old and senile to be president again. She may be right.
But don’t get too excited. If they do face off against each other, it won’t be a replay of the Rumble in the Jungle, or the Thriller in Manila. More likely Rock-Paper-Scissors in the Retirement Home or Arm-Wrestling in the Assisted Living Centre.