The Co-Opting of Republican Women

I saw this tweet from Molly Jong-Fast. It’s 100% true, and it’s something I find myself thinking about lately, with the passing of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. Her passing is being met by a right-wing rush to stack the Supreme Court with another pick who will decide cases based on the faith of some over others, and religion not separated from the state. Trump has nominated a woman, and the right are immediately rushing to suggest that we should all be ok with this nomination, because she’s a woman, because she is Catholic, and because they say she is a consititutionalist.

The right is co-opting Catholicism, feminism, and constitutionalism, with the insistence that they cram this nomination down our throats before the election of our next President. With all 3 of those, they are really co-opting Republican women. Anyone who really believes themselves to be a person of Catholic or Christian faith, a feminist, or a constitutionalist, should be fighting against what Trump and Senate Republicans are doing in ramming this Supreme Court nomination through, with 36 days left before an election people are already voting in.

Co-opting Catholicism

Any time I say on twitter, or anywhere, that I am Catholic, that is because I am Catholic, by my Father. Anytime I say I am Jewish, that is because I am Jewish, by my Mother. I was born and raised by both these ideologies and faiths. I was also raised by a moral philosophy to not just do unto others, as we would have others do for us, but for those we love. Our love should be limitless.

My parents are deeply flawed people, as am I, and I suspect, as we all are. They have taught me not to judge others, and to have compassion for other people. My brother and I were raised to be grateful for all we have, and to know that we are more fortunate than 1/2 the almost 8 billion people in the world.

It is offensive that the right is claiming Democrats are anti-Catholic, if we don’t support a Supreme Court nominee because of their faith. It’s not just that our Presidential candidate is Catholic, or that Democrats nominate more Catholic Presidential candidates and Supreme Court nominees, than the Republican party ever has. The right insists that we need religious representation in government, and it is fundamentally contradictory to a government that is supposed to have separation of church and state.

Our laws are not supposed to be influenced by religion, but Republicans want religious views to be the reason for a person to be a judge, deciding the laws of people who are supposed to be free to have any faith or no faith. They are gas-lighting religious freedom, to force religious doctrine on the entire country. They are using Catholicism, Christianity, and Evangelical Christianity to do it.

What does this have to do with Republican women? Many are Catholic and Christian, and their faith is being used as a prop. It’s being co-opted for a political agenda. That should mean something to people who believe their faith is sacred and not a political tool.

Co-opting Feminism

I often hear from people, particularly on the right, who say stuff like “I judge the candidate by who they are. I’m not going to vote for a woman, just because she’s a woman.” It’s ironic, considering Republicans are more likely to vote with their party, than to vote 3rd party or for a candidate from the Democratic party.

Women account for 51% of the United States. Despite that, their representation is not proportionate in elected office. In fact, we all know this country started with 100% male representation, and it has been a gruelingly slow process to add female representation. Currently there are 101 women in the US House of Representatives, which is 23% of overall representation. 87 of those women are Democrats. Of the 26 women in the US Senate, 17 or 65 %, are Democrats.

I won’t support a woman for appointed or elected office, simply because she is a woman, but that does play a factor. It should. Representation matters, and if you don’t get why that is, I suggest you research the concept. It’s important. White and male and Christian has been the default, the de facto option, since the founding of this country. In elected office, appointed office, in the rights of the laws, in the power and control of the economy, in business and in the home.

But how can I argue for representation of women, but not faith? Because our country specifically intended to not be governed by faith. Our country also specifically intended for all people to be equal, and that has to include proportional representation. Our country has always been made up of immigrants, different races, and genders. Upon the formation of our country, it was known immediately that religion had to be free for the people, and that meant no one religion’s doctrine cold be laws governing a religiously free people.

Women must be codified into our government, and that means representation, but also the law.

It wasn’t until 1972 that women could have a checking account in their name. Before that, it had to be in their father or husband’s name. Women have legally and financially been the property of men, for a lot of history. It would be folly to think we are so very far from that now.

At no point in a man’s life, is his ability to control his own body legally restricted. His body is never controlled by laws. The same is not true for women. People who claim to be pro-life are only concerned with controlling women. That may sound harsh, but try arguing against it. Once that pregnancy is done, if it is a female, her life is not protected by law.

Claiming any value for an unborn life, as more important or of greater value than the full worth and life of the woman, is a direct hypocrisy of any argument about valuing or protecting life. The woman must have full rights over her body and pregnancy, or one life is being negated for the promise of another.

My mom told me recently, about my great aunt. She was 7 months pregnant. This was before Roe v Wade happened. She suffered a miscarriage, but was forced to carry her still-born baby 2 more months, because white men demanded that the pregnancy be brought to term. Her life was put at risk, and she was not allowed to grieve the loss of her child, because she had to carry a dead fetus around for 2 months.

Now white Republican men, at various levels of government are attempting to force ectopic pregnancies to be re-implanted. This not a medical procedure that exists, and it would likely kill the woman forced to have such a procedure. Birth control isn’t just the easiest way to prevent an unwanted pregnancy, they also protect the life of women in a myriad of ways. They can help control bleeding, prevent decrease the risk of cervical and ovarian cancers, help manage endometriosis, and reduce risk of ovarian cysts. Yet Republicans systematically work to make them less available and unaffordable to women. They work to make it so that they are not covered under insurance.

The reality is, that abortions have been happening for centuries. There have been 2 groups of women, throughout that history. Those who could afford to have a private doctor perform a “biopsy”, and those who were forced to take desperate measures and seek a dangerous back alley abortion. Restricting access doesn’t prevent abortion, but the right refuses to hear that. They don’t care if a woman seeking an abortion is killed. They just want to control women, and if they can’t, then they will justify the danger they put women in.

If they really wished to protect life, they would focus on fixing our child welfare in this country, to provide real, better options for adoption. They would support better sex education in schools, to prevent unwanted, teenage pregnancy, they would fight rape culture, and hold rapists responsible for raping women, instead of punishing women for being raped. They would expand access to health clinics, because when women have full access to health care, they have more options.

Republicans are for the death penalty, for tearing babies away from their families at the border, and ripping families apart. They are also for having zero regulations around guns, despite knowing that common sense gun laws would simply regulate the 2nd amendment, and save lives. They don’t care about life, only imposing religious doctrine and maintaining control over people.

Now the right is co-opting feminism with the nomination of a woman who has a judicial career of not representing or ruling in favor of equality for women under the law. He faith requires that she submit to her husband. If she has a Supreme Court case, and her husband tells her how to decide, will she submit? I just can’t take the chance that she will not put her faith before her sworn oath to the constitution and to the right for women to be equal under the law.

What does this have to do with Republican women? Republican women are said to be strong women who believe in strong families, but their womanhood is being used against them in attacks on feminism while nominating a woman who does not represent the full equality of all women.

Co-opting Constitutionalism

Amy Coney Barrett, in accepting the nomination by Trump, spoke about Antonin Scalia, for whom she clerked: “His judicial philosophy is mine, too. A judge must apply the law as written. Judges are not policy makers, and they must be resolute in setting aside any policy views they might hold.”

This is a complete gaslighting of the function of the courts. No, they don’t propose legislation or enact legislation, but when they rule on a case, their opinion becomes a precedent. This is particularly true for the Supreme Court, and Amy Coney Barrett knows this. When a Supreme Court case is decided, the lower courts follow that ruling, and attorneys will cite opinions to make their arguments in lower courts.

This type of rhetoric is meant to gaslight the function and power of the courts. Meanwhile the Republican party has been stacking to the right in bad faith, under McConnell’s leadership for years. While over 300 pieces of legislation have been passed by the House, McConnell refuses to take any of them up, and instead holds the Senate hostage to primarily confirming judges. Many of the judicial confirmations that the Republicans have pushed through are completely unqualified, as rated by the ABA. Some have never served as a judge in any lower court, and some have never even argued a case in a court room.

When Republicans talk about constitutionality, they are co-opting the concept, hoping people won’t vet the meaning. It’s the same way they co-opt patriotism, and make it more about waving a flag, and less about voting and being a citizen who values the rights of all citizens, rather than only those who agree with them.

What does this have to do with Republican women? Republican women are a demographic known for standing on the side of constitutionalism, but the meaning of the concept is being co-opted and manipulated away from its true meaning. That should be unacceptable to Republican women.

Why Republican Women

Why did I title this The Co-opting of Republican Women? I could have addressed this more universally to all citizens. It is on all of us. Many are arguing that this is a done deal, and we shouldn’t try to fight this confirmation. It’s so close to the election, and Democrats (and women seeking equality under the law) don’t have the votes to stop it. I refuse to give up.

When the Republicans attempted to repeal the ACA, they did a lot of gaslighting about how they would have a better plan, but they refused to offer any concrete details. They didn’t want to admit that their plan was always to exclude preexisting conditions and gut Medicaid, as their solution for bringing costs down. They know that’s not a health care solution, it’s just a solution that enables health care providers to extort individuals for health care, and their allegiance is to the health care lobby, who donate to their dark money PACs. Their agenda and aim is not to serve their constituents, who have a right to have health care covered, and not based on going into bankruptcy for care.

When that repeal attempt happened, constituents flooded the phone lines and offices of Senators, to implore them to not repeal the ACA. Many recall John McCain giving that thumbs down, and saving our health care. We need that again. We need all Senators to hear from us, that we want our votes heard in this election, before the next SCOTUS is confirmed, just like McConnell and Senate Republicans insisted on us doing in 2016. To do otherwise, is to act in bad faith, and we cannot have that kind of dishonesty and greed in our government institutions. When partisan greed trumps bi-partisan governance, then our democracy becomes corrupted. That is precisely what Mitch McConnell has done.

The Republicans in the Senate argued that we needed to let the people decide who would be the next President, and that the next President should make such an important decision as nominating the next Supreme Court Justice. There is not just less time now, people are already voting. I ask that Republican women stand up to Republican men and say we will not be used in an act of hypocrisy. We will not have our feminism, faith, nor our allegiance to our Constitution be used as a way to act in bad faith. It takes 4 GOP Senators to hold up the principle of fairness and balance in our US Congress and our Supreme Court, for a generation.

If Trump wins, they will get their nominee. If Biden wins, then there will be a nomination under his administration. That is what happened in 2016, and Gorsuch was put on the court. Let’s demand McConnell and the Republicans in the Senate apply the rule they put to Democrats, to themselves now. Otherwise, everything means nothing, and their values are just props to get what they want. Power and greed will never result in an healthy democracy. We must demand better.

I addressed this to Republican women, because we need you to stand up right now. We need you to put country over party. We need you to stand up to the co-opting of Catholicism, feminism, and constitutionalism. We need you to refuse to allow these ideals to be used as a political football, and to be twisted from their true meaning. There is a fundamental requirement that there be fairness and balance in our governing bodies. If you truly believe in the tenants of feminism, Christianity or Catholicism, and Constitutionalism, please don’t allow them to be used in this act of hypocrisy.