Spanbauer: White women voters are failing us
Congressman Steve King speaks at the end of the Roast and Ride fundraiser June 3, 2017, in Boone, Iowa.
November 11, 2018
Congratulations white women, we’ve done it again! After 53 percent of white women voted for Donald Trump, no one thought we were going to be so ignorant again, but we certainly showed them wrong. We’ve proven yet again that we are willing to sacrifice our gender in support of our race. Throughout the nation, white women voted without empathy and in support of bigotry, xenophobia, racism and anti-semitism.
With predictions of a blue wave and reports of a record number of young voters and early ballot turnouts, Nov. 6 and the nastiness of election season could not come sooner. Amongst a majority of young voters, there were high hopes for current political tides to turn. In big ways, landmarks were crossed and barriers broken. In others, the same story unfolded.
The 2018 midterm elections gave us our nation’s first two Native American female congresswomen ever: Sharice Davids and Deb Haaland. Davids, who will represent Kansas, also openly identifies as a lesbian. Colorado, which has been previously known as the LGBT ‘hate-state’, elected the nation’s first openly gay governor. Trump’s islamophobia did nothing to deter the appointment of Rashida Tlaib and Ilhan Omar as the first two Muslim women in Congress. Historically, red states also elected their first female and minority representatives. A record number of women ran for office. Millennial voter turnout increased 188 percent from 2014. Florida passed Amendment 4, giving millions of convicted felons in Florida, or roughly 40 percent of their male African-American population, the right to vote. The Democrats even won back the House.
These are noticeable changes from the trauma of the 2016 presidential election. However, it’s clear that one demographic is still unwilling to get on board. In battleground states where it mattered most, white women failed to take empathy and rationality into account in the voting booth.
In Texas, Democratic candidate for Senate Beto O’Rourke only received 39 percent of white women’s votes. Things were worse in Georgia where only 25 percent of white women supported Stacey Abrams, instead choosing to back Trump-endorsed Republican, Brian Kemp. Overall, white women across the nation voted for Republicans on average of 49 percent.
Closer to home, J.D. Scholten made remarkable strides against Republican incumbent and white supremacist Steve King in Iowa’s 4th District Congressional race. In a largely white and, therefore, Republican state, Scholten came within 10,523 votes of King’s majority, proving that change is on the way. Kim Reynolds, unfortunately, was also re-elected governor of Iowa by a three percent margin. Reynolds, who has been outspoken about her support of the fetal heartbeat bill, the nation’s strictest abortion legislature and stands by King and his Nazi-sympathizing ways.
Women who voted for politicians like Reynolds and King across the United States this midterm election have made the conscious decision to vote against women’s rights, minority rights and human rights, Whether or not you fully support aspect of the politicians you vote for, a vote for racists is a vote for racism, the same way a vote against women’s rights is a vote against all women. While African-American women seem to be the most ‘woke’ at the polls, white women need to wake up to the fact that white, male politicians do not have our best interests at heart.
White women need to stop casting votes in blind support of our race, rather than in support of our gender. We need to begin voting with others in mind. We need to remember that, as white women, others face different, and many more forms of oppression than us.
Just because we are white in America, does not mean we are no longer held responsible for upholding the rights our gender deserves. Women cannot succeed until every woman of every color and every background has an equal chance in this country. In those regards, white women, it is on us to stop voting for Republicans.