Ahead of Election Day, I’d like to share two stories.
The first is a heartbreaking tale amplified this week by Vice President Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign. It centers on a married couple, Ondrea and Ceasar. “More than anything, I’ve always wanted to be a mother,” Ondrea says in the campaign’s video. When she got pregnant, the couple was elated – until she was 16 weeks along, and her water broke far too early. She then got the news no expecting mother ever wants to hear: Her child had no chance of survival.
Ondrea lives in Texas, which has especially stringent abortion restrictions following the 2022 repeal of Roe v. Wade – a landmark decision by a U.S. Supreme Court turned ultra-conservative as a result of former President Donald Trump’s judge appointments. Ondrea was denied abortive care, despite her daughter’s prognosis, which resulted in an infection so severe that it nearly took her life. And now, she might never again get pregnant.
She dreamed of having a baby. Trump’s so-called “pro-life” policies directly destroyed that dream. “He did this to me,” Ondrea says plainly, pain and weariness punctuating her words.
This is the America Trump created.
The second story involves my 6-year-old son and I sharing a cheeseburger. A Quarter Pounder from McDonald’s, specifically – a dinner we indulged in to celebrate some recent great behavior on his part. “This is actually amazing,” he said to me while digging in. The next day, news broke about an E. coli outbreak linked to that sandwich, which has sickened nearly 50 people so far, and taken one life.
This uptick in contaminated food – other recent cases involved Boar’s Head deli meat and frozen waffles – is largely attributed to the Trump administration’s rollback of federal food-safety regulations, which has allowed corporations to cut corners on product inspections in service of profits. I’ve spent the past week monitoring my son and myself, wondering all the while if I’d accidentally poisoned us.
This is the America Trump created.
And to be plain, we white women helped with construction. No, not just helped – 47% of us, or nearly half, voted for Trump in 2016, choosing him over former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton (45%). In 2020, that number increased to a 53% majority of us. This isn’t some new trend – white women habitually skew Republican when they vote. The explanations vary, with some experts pointing to white women’s proximity to (and sometimes, fears of) conservative white men, and others citing less informed, more selfish reasoning.
My fellow white women: We can’t do this again. Not to this nation, not to its people, and not to ourselves.
What’s At Risk
When you’re in that voting booth, you have a chance to do something that could stave off a nationwide backslide into a dystopian hellscape, and you should take advantage.
Perhaps that sounds hyperbolic – overly dramatic, even. But let’s be clear, the two scenarios I detailed above are mere panels in a broad, noxious, smothering quilt that Trump’s administration laid over the American populace through a deluge of hateful, harmful policies and rhetoric that has kept us collectively buried in desperation and confusion and division.
Policies and rhetoric that, it’s worth noting, have undoubtedly harmed women – yes, including those who have voted for him in the past. In addition to stripping away our reproductive rights, Trump has shown himself, countless times over, to be an abuser and user of women, one who feels that his fame entitles him to whatever and whomever he desires.
Trump does all of this while he and his kin in privilege reap the benefits of our subjugation – turning profits and otherwise reveling in the unique autonomy that comes with having wealth, power and social elevation, with no regard to the many backs stepped upon in pursuit of ill-gotten treasures.
And if he’s allowed back in office, things are only going to get worse. By now you’ve surely heard about Project 2025, a collection of nightmarish policy proposals and more crafted by the Heritage Foundation – the right-wing political research center largely staffed by Trump administration alumni that has maintained significant influence over conservative politics since the 1980s. Should Trump win re-election, he’s likely to enact much of it – which would not only see women’s rights further eroded, but also, the very structure and functioning of our democracy. (More so, that is, as Trump has already incited a failed coup after refuting official election results.)
This Election Day, we white women have the chance to wield our social status and comparative freedom to do something that could tangibly help others – the youngest among us are already leading the way, and we should follow their progressive example. White women can use our strength in numbers as just over 30% of the U.S. population to set America on a better path, one led by a better candidate who might possibly listen, who might actually care, when we tell her what’s wrong and what needs fixing.
And yes – you can cast your vote in secret, as many anti-Trump Republican women are expected to do, especially if you are fearful. You can also use your voice, and the additional weight your whiteness lets your voice carry, to speak up about what ails us as a collective. But either way, we need to vote – specifically to elect Harris, the candidate who is far more likely to hear us.
This fearful, ailing, chaotic nation is the America Trump created, or at the very least enabled – and he did so with white women’s help. Now, we must fight back. ◼️
