Will Voters See the Truth in Trump’s “Woman Card” Attacks?
The amount of respect still afforded to political pundits in 2016 is amusing. Their new expert opinion is that Donald Trump is making a major mistake in his line of attack on Hillary Clinton. By stating the obvious – that Clinton would not be the presumptive Democratic nominee if she were a man – he is going to only further alienate female voters. Somehow, even after watching their predictions about Trump fail over and over again, these talking heads still think they know how all of this is going to play out.
Of course, they’re not actually making predictions. They are trying to influence the views of those at home. After you’ve heard nine or ten pundits say that Trump is engaging in a sexist attack that will turn women off, you begin to believe it. Or at least, that’s the way it used to be. And the media just can’t quite bring themselves to admit that their power over the American consciousness – particularly the conservative American consciousness – is weaker than it has ever been.
But that doesn’t mean it’s harmless. The media hasn’t been able to thwart Trump yet, but that doesn’t mean he’ll remain invincible. Certainly, it is no liberal lie that Trump’s approval numbers among women are in desperate need of a turnaround. And Trump’s latest remarks about Hillary do play into the media’s characterization of him as a misogynist.
And yet, he’s telling the truth.
Trump said Thursday: “Without the woman’s card, Hillary would not even be a viable person to even run for city council positions. I think the only thing she has going for her is the fact that she’s a woman. She has done a terrible job in so many ways.”
Allowing for the usual amount of Trump Exaggeration, he’s not wrong. Even Hillary herself, when pressed to describe how she would be different from Obama, said that her gender was what set her apart.
The media wants desperately to make the 2016 general election about Hillary Clinton’s quest to shatter the glass ceiling and Donald Trump’s evil attempts to stop her. Trump doesn’t have the option of ignoring this obvious narrative. He knows it’s coming, and he knows he can’t afford to wait for the left to launch the first missile.
Now the only question is whether or not he can convince millions of low-information voters that his truth is the real truth.