The Left's Original War on Women
If we have been paying attention, the ideas and causes of Democrats and the left take on many incarnations. As far back as giving women the right to vote, Republicans in the House of Representatives passed women’s suffrage by a vote of 200 to 102. In the Senate, again it was Republicans passing suffrage by a vote of 56 to 25. By the middle of the last century, Democrats had managed to convince women that they were the ones who cared about women’s rights. Even today, as they blithely erase women’s sports because, equity, or something, they will tell you that Republicans do not care about women. But there is one arena, where Democrats and the left make no bones about how they feel about certain women. That would be conservative women.
Conservative women, be they lawmakers, members of a Republican President’s administration, or even First Ladies, learned long ago, that along with how conservatives and Republicans are treated differently by the judicial system than Democrats, they are treated much differently than liberal Democrat women. Republican female members of Congress know all too well, that their appearance will be judged long before their ideas and accomplishments. Back when the media still had a modicum of impartiality, First Lady Betty Ford was praised for her courage in overcoming drug and alcohol addiction after her time in the White House, and starting the treatment center that bears her name. Ford was also very candid about her fight with breast cancer, prompting millions of American women to get tested. First Lady Barbara Bush had an “everybody’s mom or Grandmother” appeal about her and was always favored highly with Americans. Nancy Reagan would not enjoy the favorable coverage of Betty Ford or Barbara Bush. She was portrayed by the media as an out of touch elitist, and her “just say no” anti-drug campaign was ridiculed as simplistic. The media tended to leave First Lady Rosalyn Carter alone. Perhaps they felt like she had enough to deal with in First Brother-in-law Billy Carter, and her husband’s failure of a presidency. Hillary Clinton and Michelle Obama have, of course been celebrated, and defended by the mainstream media as paragons of virtue to be looked up to by all American women. After all, they are Democrats. End of story.
The era of President Donald Trump brought the arrival of many things. The most obvious, the immediate dropping of any veneer of objectivity about anything pertaining to the Trump presidency. And a pretty large amount of viciousness was hurled at First Lady Melania Trump. Trump had been a model in the years before she met Donald Trump, and it was very easy to see why. An immigrant from what is now the country of Slovenia, Melania Trump was tall, graceful, and elegant, and the picture of style. She studied design prior to immigrating to the U.S., was a successful businesswoman in her own right, and speaks six languages. But none of that mattered to the media. All they wanted was some racy photos taken prior to her meeting Donald Trump. Racy photos make it much easier to portray someone as stupid.
Now, the media has appeared to set their sights on a new conservative woman, a new target, Casey DeSantis, wife of Florida Gov. and presidential candidate Ron DeSantis. Casey is a few years younger than Melania Trump, but exudes the same elegance, grace, and style as Melania. She is also very accomplished. Casey graduated from the College of Charleston in South Carolina with a Bachelor of Science in Economics and was a member of the International Economics Honors Society. She is also an accomplished equestrian. She worked for the PGA Tour as a producer and on-air host. Prior to being Florida’s First Lady, Casey worked in television at two different stations in the Jacksonville area. Casey worked several positions including covering general assignments, the police beat, and held weekend and morning anchor spots. She won Emmys for on-air talent and was nominated twice for investigative reports.
Last year she also survived breast cancer. Quite a resume for someone only 42 years of age.
But as usual, the left just cannot abide strong successful conservative women. So, the tearing down of Casey DeSantis has begun in earnest. The Daily Beast kicked off the trash-a-thon of Casey DeSantis with a recent snark-filled Op-Ed dubbing her “Walmart Melania.” This stemming from an appearance in Iowa where she was wearing a jacket that said “where woke goes to die” on the back. Make no mistake, it is not Casey DeSantis’ wardrobe that the left has a problem with, it is the fact that Casey DeSantis is attractive, smart, accomplished, a wife and mother, obviously embodying the “you can have it all” role model liberal women have espoused for themselves for years. There’s just one problem, Casey DeSantis is a conservative woman. That is not who is supposed to be the you-can-have-it-all woman. There is a specific template for conservative Republican women laid out by Democrats and their mainstream media stenographers. It is a combination of June Cleaver, the 1950’s stay-at-home mom who vacuums in her pearls, wears heels to the grocery store, and certainly doesn’t know any black or brown people, and the robed robot women of “The Handmaids Tale.” And when someone like Casey DeSantis or Melania Trump get past that template, they are a threat that must be taken down, by any means necessary.
Conservative Republican women are the one group of women that it is ok to bash. Their politics are not the “correct” kind, and therefore are perfectly ok to ridicule and demean. For the next fifteen months, conservative Republican women will be trashed for everything from what they are wearing, to certainly what they think. They will be portrayed as uneducated, out of touch, and stupid, with just a touch of hillbilly thrown in, if possible, for good measure. This will be done by people who would be challenged to find their way out of New York or Washington D.C. and those people will remind you over and over again, that Democrats, are the party that cares about women.
