Why Republican women still voted for Trump

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

80. He Who Must Not Be Mentioned Here.

It is possible not to consider Hillary to have been the finest candidate of all time and NOT be being sexist or misogynist. Honest.

It was my personal experience that the most fervent Hillary supporters were caught up almost completely in the thrill of having the first woman President, without carefully looking at all the issues, or comparing who the few primary challengers stacked up against her.

It really does matter that she didn't appeal to sexists and bigots enough. It's hard to recognize that. I haven't quite figured out for myself if this country really is ready for a woman President in the generic sense. Probably, because even when Hillary Clinton got the nomination, she did win the popular vote, despite all the mud that was thrown at her. Please don't misunderstand me. I am as outraged as anyone here that she lost. For years I've muttered that I don't know why I bother to vote in the Presidential column when, almost no matter where I live, my vote doesn't count. If, in 2016, Trump had still won the way he did but Democrats had taken the House and Senate, it's distantly possible that there would have been an immediate move to get rid of the Electoral College. Of course, were Democrats in charge they'd probably have passed legislation strengthening Social Security and Medicare, as well as the ACA. And they'd have impeached Donald by now, although we'd have Pence as our President, but again, in my FantasyLand version of the outcome of last year's election, Democrats would stand up against him.

Generally speaking, demographics are in our favor, but so long as Republicans control so many state houses and are hell bent on erasing the right to vote for so many, those demographics won't help us out as much as they should. We, as a party, need to be doing a lot better job of bringing young people in, get them to run for office at all levels, especially for their state legislatures. It just does not feel as though the party as a whole is doing so.

I live in New Mexico, which overall tends to elect Democrats. It is a competitive state for both parties, however. Both of our Senators and two of our three Representatives are Democrats. Our Governor, Susana Martinez, is a Republican. She was first elected in 2010 when the Dem running had been Bill Richardson's Lt Gov, and he'd become extremely unpopular here. Susana was re-elected in 2014 because the Democratic Party here is often in disarray, so five candidates were in the primary and the voters, in their infinite idiocy, chose Gary King, son of a former Governor, based most likely on name recognition. He lost big time in the general election.

We're coming up on another Governor's race, and it's already something of a cluster-fuck. Sigh.

Here's another thing to keep in mind. We do not have to come together real soon over who our nominee will be in 2020. Look at how toxic and divisive the Republican primary season was last year, and Trump still did incredibly well in the general election. Which proves that the voters of a party can pull together quite nicely after such divisiveness. As did the Democrats.