Why is this election so close?

For the last few months I have been reading and researching extensively in an effort to unearth the answer to this head scratching question: why is this election so close?

A race for the U.S. Presidency. One between a convicted felon, adjudicated rapist, serial liar, lifelong con, a cheater, adulterer, extortionist, a narcissist, a sociopath, inciter of a violent insurrection to overturn a free and fair election in an effort to prevent the peaceful transfer of power, a vacuous human being, vs. a hugely qualified, brilliant, effective, skilled, talented, strategic, focused, experienced former DA, AG, Senator and Vice President. A woman. A Woman of Color.

So why then is this election so close?

Two words —- White People.

Specifically —- White women.

Trump’s base is and always has been a mix of the aggrieved working class filled with rage and anger, Evangelicals and suburban women. But it’s not Black/Brown working class who are raging with anger, or Black/Brown Evangelicals lining up in droves behind Trump and his MAGA cult and certainly not Black/Brown suburbanite women clamoring for the opportunity to enlist Trump as their protector. It’s White people.

Then there is this curious fascination/adoration of Trump from White women. A boorish man who has been accused by at least 26 women of sexual assault, who blatantly objectifies women, who brags endlessly with pride that he and he alone is responsible for stripping women of their right to reproductive healthcare.

The question then becomes: why DO White Women Support Donald Trump?

 In September, Trump posted to his Truth Social platform, in all caps:

This message is obviously targeted to a specific group —- White women that Trump is hoping to tighten his control, crassly appealing to and exploiting their most base emotions.

Trump. The Protector. The Fixer. The Great White Hope that will rush in, scoop us up and rescue us from all that is evil in the world because God knows, we certainly are not capable of doing so ourselves. We need him to make us healthy, hopeful, safe and secure. And of course, because he tells us we will “no longer be thinking about abortion” is reason enough to stop thinking about abortion. Alrighty then.

Shortly after the Trump screed, I came across his co-president, Elon Musk’s post on his platform “X:”

To put this in perspective, according to the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers, White women have only voted in plurality for a Democratic presidential candidate twice since 1952 (emphasis added); once in 1964 for Lyndon B. Johnson and in 1996 for Bill Clinton, otherwise their plurality has careened in the other direction.

I’m a 1955 baby. Like every White woman before and since, I was thrust into the social construct known as patriarchy, a White male-dominated power system, dictating moral, social and political authority over everyone and anyone not White and male. We’ve lived it.

A social construct that goes hand-in-hand with racial privilege and Christian Nationalism. To be sure, it is a difficult topic for White people not only to talk about but to acknowledge. It’s messy. The whole patriarchy thing is inextricably entangled and steeped in racism and sexism and bigotry and misogyny and homophobia and islamophobia and xenophobia and transphobia, all while sitting piously in a church pew clutching their defining props —- the Bible and Jesus. After all, it was White women who were not only responsible for falsely accusing Black men of rape, but packed picnic lunches for the family to attend the lynchings.

The hard truth is, White women are direct beneficiaries of patriarchy and all the benefits it affords.

In 2016, after calling Mexicans rapists and murderers, publicly mocking a disabled reporter and bragging about sexually assaulting women at will, 53% of White women cast their vote for Donald Trump; this despite his sexist, racist and derogatory behavior towards them. It is a harsh reminder that more than half of White women were more interested in protecting their privilege

I was willing to give my Tribe the benefit of the doubt that first time around. But then in 2020, White people, particularly White women, were more than willing to overlook 4 years of utter chaos —- total ban on Muslims entering the country, ripping tender-aged children from the arms of their parents, putting them in cages or worse, his indefensible, gross mishandling of a once-in-a-lifetime global pandemic that he intentionally misrepresented and downplayed (because it might affect his re-election), leading to the preventable deaths of millions and millions of Americans, and oh, inciting a violent insurrection in the seat of our democracy because he was pissed he lost an election fair and square. In the starkest of these examples and too many more to even begin to list here, White women’s support of Trump increased 2% over 2016 to 55%.

And here we are today. 9 days away from the most consequential election of our lifetime. Bombarded daily with code words and buzz words of a wannabe authoritarian, whose former Chief of Staff called out his fascist predilections.

He holds his rallies in sundown towns and those with concentrations of militia members. His rhetoric is a clarion call to White men and women, always with an emphasis on “OUR” —- “OUR country, OUR cities, OUR government, defend OUR borders, defend OUR great American flag, protect OUR citizens, protect OUR people.”

And then there is Trump’s constant/slow drumbeat against the perceived evil Brown/Black menace - “We will not be invaded, we will not be conquered, we will take back what is OURS, we will make America safe again, we will make America strong again, we will make America proud again, we will make America wealthy again, we will make America great again,” all with a little sprinkle of transphobia - “We will keep men out of women’s bathrooms, we will keep men out of women’s sports and stop schools from making sex changes on students without parental consent (which has never, not ever happened anywhere in this country. Not even once.)

New York Times columnist, Charles Blow said, after the 2020 election:

“Let me be specific and explicit here: white people —- both men and women —- were the only group in which a majority voted for Trump, according to exit polls. To be exact, nearly three out of every five white voters in America are Trump voters. It is so unsettling to consider that many of our fellow countrymen and women are either racists or accomodate racists or acquiesce to racists…in any case, while women vote for Trump at higher rates than all other women, despite the fact that Trump has spent his first term, indeed his whole life, denigrating women.”

Are we to believe White women are supporting Trump because they believe he will “protect” their status and their privilege masked by their institutional racism? As long as the GOP extremist nominee continues to hammer away by debasing the “other,” instilling unfounded fear of personal safety on American streets, in American schools and communities, the white woman’s vote is a guarantee.

So what can we do with the election days away? Michelle Obama implored us all as women last night, at a rally in support of Kamala Harris —- take the time to reach out to at least one of our Sisters, take a minute to talk to her about the high stakes of November 5th.

Because in the end, it won’t be Donald J. Trump who will rescue us. It won’t be White men who will rescue us. In fact, it will be our Sisters of Color, in particular our Black sisters, who will and are rescuing us. Black women have been playing a central role in shaping the agenda and voter turnout for decades. Their organizing and mobilization role could well be decisive to say nothing of essential in sustaining a more inclusive democracy, now 9 days away.

White women —- will we rise to this moment?