How Are the GOP Wives Voting?

 

by Pa Rock

Citizen Journalist

The Republican Party, one of the most paternalistic organizations in America, may be dealing with a gender revolt within its ranks.  

A political maelstrom began building earlier this week when a political action group calling itself "Vote Common Good" released an ad for the Harris-Walz ticket that was voiced by actress Julia Roberts.  In the ad Ms. Roberts is speaking to American women.   While discussing the sanctity of the voting booth, she says:  "In the one place in America where women still have a right to choose, you can vote any way you want, and no one will ever know."

That language takes a subtle swipe at domineering husbands, and by employing the word "choose," it is also a dig at the Trump abortion bans.  The commercial is a masterwork of political messaging, and one that has many Republican's outraged.

In the ad a woman emerges from the voting booth after casting her vote, and her husband asks her if she made the "right choice."  At that point she winks at a female friend.

Reaction to this blatant appeal to connubial treachery from Republican hacks has been swift and severe.  Jesse Watters, a Republican mouthpiece for Fox News, said that if he found out that his wife, Emma was "going into the voting booth and pulling the lever for Harris, that's the same thing as having an affair!"

Charlie Kirk, a conservative activist and a founder of Turning Point USA, discussed the ad with Fox News host Megyn Kelly on her radio program.  Kirk, who was clearly unhappy with the concept of the Julia Roberts ad, said:

"I think it's so gross.  I think it's so nauseating where this wife is wearing the American hat, she's coming in with her sweet husband who probably works his tail off to make sure that she can go you know and have a nice life and provide to the family, and then she lies to him saying, 'Oh yeah, I gonna vote for Trump,' and then she votes for Kamala Harris as her little secret in the voting booth."

Former GOP congresswoman Liz Cheney reacted to Charlie Kirk's tirade by referring to him as a "twit."

Donald Trump even pushed his way into the discussion over how wives vote.  In a call-in to Fox and Friends after the ad came out, Trump, who was famously photographed on Election Day of 2016 trying to observe how his wife was voting, disparaged Julia Roberts as well as the ad itself.   He said he was disappointed in Ms. Roberts and predicted that she would look back on the ad someday and "cringe."  Then the cringe-worthy, elderly politician went on to say:

"But the wives and husbands, I don't think that's the way they deal.  I mean, can you imagine a wife not telling her husband who she's voting for?  You ever hear anything like that?  Even if you have a horrible - even if you had a bad relationship, you're gonna tell your husband.   It's a ridiculous ad, it's so stupid."

The thrice-married Trump apparently considers himself an expert on interactions between husbands and wives.  And as for the "ridiculous" and "stupid" ad, it certainly seems putting the fear of the ballot into more than a few Republican blowhards!

The fundamentalist clergy also checked in on the matter.  According to a posting in "The Guardian" by Rebecca Soinit, "This week, the fundamentalist Christian pastor Dale Partridge argued in a series of tweets that 'in a Christian marriage, a wife should vote according to her husband's direction'"-  and, one must suppose, the Constitution be damned!

Just remember, ladies, that within the confines of the voting booth, you still have freedom of choice - whether your men folk like it or not!

 

Great work "Vote Common Good" and Julia Roberts - you have produced a winner!