The Rich Mothers of the Insurrection

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By the indefatigable @ninaburleigh - top journalist on Trump women (inside and out of his family).

The Rich Mothers of the Insurrection
Pro-Trump women’s groups were the Trojan horse of the deadly Capitol riot.
newrepublic.com
7:02 AM · Feb 3, 2021

https://newrepublic.com/article/161208/trump-women-capitol-riot-funding

One of the scariest female characters in English literature is Madame DeFarge, the wine shop owner whose face is the blank, pitiless gaze of the French Revolution’s Terror in Dickens’s A Tale of Two Cities. DeFarge sat beside other women, watching the guillotine’s river of blood flow as they worked their knitting needles. In French legend, these women are known as “les tricoteuses”—the knitters—women performing an ultrafeminine domestic chore as a terrifying symbol of implacable fury.

I’ve found myself thinking of Madame DeFarge and les tricoteuses as it’s become clearer that women played an important role in the organization of the January 6 insurrection. Groups like Women for Trump and Women for America First were the advance guard of the Capitol riot: a diversion in lipstick and heels. Using hyperfemininity as a shield, they enabled a fascist rampage right under the nose of the federal authorities. Instead of clacking their knitting needles by the guillotine, they fingered their pearls as the rioters erected a gallows.

Women for Trump and allied rightist women’s organizations were the Trojan horse of the deadly insurrection. Wouldn’t the Park Service have been more wary about granting an Ellipse permit to the Proud Boys or their allies? Wouldn’t the Capitol and D.C. police have been on high alert if the Oath Keepers instead of the riders on the pink EMPOWER bus had organized the gathering in their name?

I’ve studied the role of women in Trump’s misogynistic enterprise for five years, covering the evolution of conservative women in the years that preceded his rise. America’s most influential far-right women may be hobbled by subservience to the patriarchy, but they know exactly how to work it both to their own advantage and for the benefit of their movement. They use their perceived weakness as a tool to advance their covert ambitions, deploying hyperfemininity and fashion to mitigate the brutality of the cause. They trade the political dignity of all women for individual access to money and power.

*snip*

[Mme. Defarge]

1. You're telling Moi!

Plus ça change, plus c’est la même chose.