Originally Authored at TheFederalist.com
Kamala Harris has done her best to make abortion the central issue for female voters this election. Of course, Democrats can’t even define “woman” (They aren’t biologists!), but they have no problem defining women’s issues as “reproductive freedom,” which is just lefty-speak for abortion at any time for any reason. Luckily for the Republican Party and the rest of the country, not all women are abortion-loving childless cat ladies — which was abundantly clear in both of Trump’s town halls on Wednesday.
The first was an all-female audience, the exact crowd you might expect to grill the former president on abortion policy for an hour — but no. Border security, immigration policy, the economy broadly, Social Security, women’s sports, the child tax credit, onshore manufacturing, energy policy, interest rates, Russia and Ukraine, Hamas and Israel, the disastrous Afghanistan withdrawal, sanctuary cities, Democrats’ weaponization of government, the hurricanes, and FEMA — every single one of these topics was discussed before abortion was uttered once. The first 50 minutes of the hour-long town hall were consumed by issues other than abortion. Taking the lives of the next generation in utero may be the first thing Democrats want to talk about, but it doesn’t crack the top eight issues affecting Americans every day.
The second was Univision’s “Latinos Ask” town hall, and again, only one question broached the abortion topic. Women’s concerns about grocery prices, the national debt, and border security all preceded it.
Unlike Democrats’ front woman, Republicans understand that females are more than just their lady parts. While Donald Trump has made clear he’ll tackle important women-specific issues — such as keeping grown men out of their athletic competitions — he knows that all Americans, not just the girls, have way more on their minds this election cycle than where the nearest abortion mill is.
Luckily for Harris, the propaganda press will talk about whatever she wants them to. That’s why, rather than emphasizing the issues concerning all Americans such as the border and economy, they’ve made hay of the polling “gender gap” and framed the race as the “boys vs. girls” election. In their telling, Harris is the ladies’ abortion queen while Trump and his supporters ooze toxic masculinity.
“The gender gap has come to define a deadlocked presidential race, with a galvanized group of women voting for Harris because of her support for abortion rights and Trump wooing men with uber-masculine rhetoric,” read an article in The Wall Street Journal this week.
Here’s Axios: “The election has been defined by the masculinity and femininity on either side … A surge in reproductive rights activism has helped tip elections toward Democrats since the Supreme Court’s overturning of Roe v. Wade. Harris’ campaign is seeking to build on that momentum. The GOP has leaned into Trump’s macho appeals.”
The media can spin the divide however they want, but it doesn’t make Harris’ boy problem go away. She’s fake and shrill, and they don’t like her. (At least the polling deficit helps explain Harris’ latest cringey campaign stunts — such as yucking it up with Howard Stern or drinking a beer on late-night television — to try to show male voters what a great bro she is.)
While the media are right about abortion extremists flocking to Harris and her unlikability among men, however, they miss the Trump plot. First, it’s not like women universally oppose Trump; 4 in 10 support him.
Second, and more importantly, his rhetoric isn’t “uber-masculine.” It’s uber-American. “The thing that will bring our country together is success,” Trump replied to a question about unity Wednesday night. “You never really know about courage until you test it,” he said in his response to another. These aren’t dog whistles to incels; they’re maxims for everyday Americans fed up with Democrats’ status quo.
Abortion policy is important, and it’s true that just like many women are voting for Harris because of her abortion radicalism, many others oppose her on the same grounds. But the choice voters face this election isn’t primarily between “masculinity and femininity.” It’s between strength and weakness, corruption and courage, and whether the candidate loves this country or hates it.
That’s the real problem with Kamala Harris’ campaign. When you take the superficial “boys vs. girls” framing out of it, the right choice for voters is clear. And while Republicans can fret all day about Harris’ double-digit lead with female voters, Trump has picked up steam with virtually every demographic, including the ladies.
Unlike Kamala Harris, Trump isn’t stupid. He knows that law and order, grocery bills, women’s sports, and child tax credits aren’t “macho” things, they’re for everyone. He also knows the economy and illegal immigration — issues the Biden-Harris regime has dramatically exacerbated — consistently top the list of voters’ concerns.
Maybe that’s why, when a staffer recently coached Trump not to say certain negative things about Kamala Harris because “the women won’t like it,” Trump said he refused to indulge in the “gender gap” games.
“The women want to see our country come back,” Trump said. “They don’t care.”
He’s right. We don’t.