By Cindi Branham
November 1st has come rushing in upon us like a MAGA trying to be on the front row of a Trump rally. It’s here, and this will be my last column before the November 5th election.
I’ve tried to point out what another Trump term would be like for all of us. I’ve tried to show you the big picture, beyond the smaller reasons we might vote against the better choice for leadership. Now it comes down to reminders, last warnings and a few confessions.
Are you still having problems voting for a woman?
Think of it from a completely different perspective: you’re not voting for a woman; you’re voting for all women. Every woman you’ve ever known or loved. Even the ones you don’t give a hoot about.
It’s tough to be a woman running for president, but not as tough as Trump, Vance and their allies will make life for us and our future generations.
A second Trump term will give us women a new life, and we won’t like it. A nationwide abortion ban. Why?
They say they want to force more babies to be born, out of fear of declining as a nation, since a population that isn’t rising is failing. It’s a maintenance thing, but it’s also rooted in the power that comes with being the strongest nation in the world.
At what cost? That of subjugating all women to the will and service of the demographic pushing us in this direction: White, Christian Nationalist males. They are willing to ignore and suppress the talents, ambitions, freedoms and potential contributions of over half the population. “Half the Sky,” if you will.
For selfish purposes? Yes, but it amounts to weaponizing the US government against all women. Policing their menstrual calendars, their travel to obtain abortions and punishing them when they do.
I don’t for a second think it will stop there, and my readers shouldn’t, either. Women in jail for naturally occurring miscarriages. Women dead and made infertile because they were denied a life-saving D & C, even after a fetus has died.
A ban on birth control, and whatever sick form of control and degradation they can think of.
Project 2025 will be implemented if Trump is elected, giving absolute power to one or a few – removing all the checks and balances created by the founders. Replacing career experts with simple loyalists. This will surely do one thing: Create a situation in which absolute power corrupts to the point that no one is safe.
Turning the Department of Justice and local police forces into agents of the state, directed by a dictator president and his racist whims won’t help any of us, but it will hurt some of us more than others.
I used to think that the forces against reproductive choice were in it for the money and the seats in pews.
I told many to “follow the money,” and add up the many dollars to be made in suppressing abortion and enhancing adoption. How?
First, the Church (any church, pick one) made money from an adoption as the source many parents approached to get the process started. This also gave that church the ability to extract a promise from the parents to raise the child in that church.
This is where the “seats in pews” motivator comes from. Church attendance has been dwindling for decades and this is one way to slow it. These members also make donations to the church throughout their lifetimes.
Adoption agencies make tens of thousands of dollars in a single adoption. So do the adoption attorneys who are necessary in the procedure.
If you add all this up, you see how the money to be made can grow to nearly $100,000 per adoption, making it out of reach for many Americans who truly want a child.
I realize now that it’s also very much about a shrinking group of men achieving complete control over women.
Van Jones said this past week: “He’s Lawless; She has to be Flawless. They aren’t taking the same test.”
It’s a double standard of monumental scope. Ask yourself: Am I adding to this resistance to electing a woman president of the United States? Am I doing enough to convince my friends and family to not contribute to this double standard by voting in the woman?
Because in the end, this attitude affects every woman, not just VP Kamala Harris. We have precious few days to make a difference in this election.
There’s been a subtle campaign afoot across the country. It’s been in the form of sticky notes in that place that only a woman can embrace the quiet, the public or work toilet stall. And read:
Woman to Woman
No one Knows How You Vote
Vote for all Women
Vote Harris-Walz
A very nice local woman stamped the phrase above onto hundreds of sticky notes and gave them out. I’ve placed many around our area and now in a few states, given some of mine to women friends who did the same.
I know, because from knocking on doors in past campaigns I’ve come across a particular type of women. They may be voting for Democratic candidates, but they can’t let their husbands know. Is that you? Vote for Women this time around.
Immigration is the answer, birth rate, jobs, etc., just like it always has been. But if immigration means that America’s population continues to brown, you can be sure Republicans will crush it in a heartbeat, just like they stopped the biggest immigration bill in generations this past summer.
Trump is a bumbling, unfocused front man. They want Project 2025 implemented, and now. They realize that as America turns brown, and women grow more resolute in their vote, their time is limited to take over forever.
The billionaires decided that Vance would be better for that task. Trump can talk and visit, slur out a word salad, and that’s what he’s good for. Vance’s work will be in the background.
Woman to Woman (Men, are You Listening?): You cannot sit it out. You cannot vote for a 3rd party without betraying all the women in your life. You must vote for the woman, and you must get everyone around you to vote for her.
Michelle Obama said, “It’s reasonable to be frustrated…your rage does not exist in a vacuum. If we don’t get this right, we as women will become collateral damage to your rage….women, you have every right to demand that the men {and women} in our lives do better by us.”
Our time is running out, too.
