There seems to be some confusion about what the Women’s March is fighting for. As best as I remember, women’s reproductive rights were guaranteed in 1973.
Whatever Mike Pence may believe about getting dinner alone with women and homosexual conversion, the Trump administration has made no steps towards reversing Roe v. Wade. In contrast to his vice president, who has far less power and cares about a lot of more important issues (by that I mean things with a chance of changing), Trump appears to be a vocal supporter of the LGBTQ community and appears to have no aims at fighting steps towards income equality. Like everyone except those on the margins, he believes men and women should be treated equally. He actually hired women in executive roles in the real estate business decades before it was commonplace. Female unemployment is at all-time low.
The Women’s March bothers me because it conflates issues that have no bearing in reality. It is an emotional protest about things that have never happened. It’s all rooted in paranoia. The perfect example of this paranoia is the women who dress like handmaids, from the highly overrated Amazon series, “The Handmaid’s Tale.”
Margaret Atwood’s book of the same title was heavily influenced by the Iranian revolution, when the state became a theocracy in 1979. Trump is one of the only world leaders who has made the bold step of supporting the people in a protest against that very same totalitarian regime. “The Handmaid’s Tale” is a fantasy about how America could turn into Saudi Arabia. Atwood imagined a world where a caricaturized extreme Christian right would attain power. Trump’s election and morally scrupulous past proves the Christian right has absolutely no power over the culture. We don’t live in a fascist state and all fears of fascism descending should have been swept aside over the last year.
No one on the left seems to be aware of the huge economic growth the country is going through under the new administration. People on the left appear to have no grip on reality, because the media and each other feed this picture that Trump is a racist Nazi. The Russia story won’t die even though there is no evidence of any collusion. In a more objective version of reality, it would be clear to see that Trump just speaks a little too freely in the manner anyone in a bar would have 20 years ago. Archie Bunker would’ve been fighting with Trump, not holding some sort of communion for racist and sexist better days past.
The election is over and Donald Trump is no longer baiting the fringes of society with pseudo-racist and conspiratorial proclamations. No one in the media or the mainstream culture has noticed his pivot into a president who in spite of saying some off-putting things to leftists off the cuff without any clear self-interest is largely a moderate and sensible policymaker. The tax cuts the Democrats cried foul about are delivering exactly what they promised, lower tax rates with less room for creative accounting, which will almost certainly drive in more revenue for the government to rebuild America. Families of four making less than $50,000 per year are exempt from federal income tax. The economy is at a record high with huge — yuge — spikes in job creation. So again, what exactly are these women protesting?
The best argument I have heard against Trump is that he has sexually assaulted women. If there is validity to these claims, I support the stance that he should step down if it’s as bad as some have claimed, but it is un-American to presume guilt. In a binary race, many people believed Hillary’s policies were so bad that they voted for Trump in spite of the “grab em’ by the pussy tape.” They were not supporting Trump’s behavior and the majority of the voters were not racist. Never mind the fact that Hillary stood by someone who had far worse claims including actual rape (not just groping) slung at him.
If we are to live in a society that presumes guilt, the left is shackling us into a totalitarian state a lot faster than Donald Trump and voluntarily.
Jesse Bogner is a screenwriter and a journalist. His memoir and social critique, “The Egotist,” has been translated into four languages.
The views and opinions expressed in this commentary are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of The Daily Caller.