One Too Many Left-Wing Fingers Wagging

Just this am, a smart-ass Bernie Bro stuck it to me for not promoting the candidacy of Jill Stein and Gary Johnson on HillaryWomen News. I am 'shameful' he wrote, his finger metaphorically wagging at me.

Remember how I wrote over the weekend about the scientifically-validated 'disgust' effect promoted by Trump & Company and social conservatives in general? This morning -- and throughout the campaign -- Hillary supporters were also shamed by many of Bernie's supporters of both genders and every age. There were days when I seriously thought we were reliving the Salem Witch Trials in America, with all the shaming. There's one group who hasn't been shaming HWN for the last 18 mos. The group is college-educated white Republican and Independent women. Many of those readers don't want to lock us up -- as the far left and vast numbers of Trump supporters want to do.

This group of people actually is impressed with the balanced, thoughtful, informative approach -- and FACTS -- that we bring to the civic dialogue. Are we pro Hillary? Yes. Have we ever knowing shared a false meme, written lies or used a source lacking in any credentials? No. Because Republican and Independent college-educated women have careers, kids in school and a ToDo list that stretches from New York to Miami, they don't think a FB page named HillaryWomen News has to take our no-time to make a free collage of the four presidential candidates, rather than the two (Trump & Clinton) that were featured by CBS News in their new poll and our link. I am 'shameful' and seriously lacking in civic responsibility -- the Berner Bro wrote that - for only using the free picture of the fat cats. I told him to put his finger-wagging shaming women attitude in his pocket, where it belongs. The boys club knows no bounds in shaming women for thousands of simple misdeeds, while lecturing us on our civic duties as happened today to me. This trend is worldwide and in America it is increasing.

A New Women's Alliance

Still, there is a reality evolving --and I've believed it for years now. There is a new alliance building among women who are not so far left that nothing will get done in America and not so far right that the religious authorities control their every vote. Perhaps we temper each other, but it's a genuine connection that bears watching. If nothing else, it's calming and constructive to communicate with people who aren't shaming you as the Berners and Trumpsters do.

Politico writes that the defection of college-educated women from the GOP is epic. I've found in life that you cannot convince people who regard you as the immoral enemy of anything. Politics is no different than religion in this aspect. Democratic women Hillary supporters get it from both sides and have as much infighting in our own homes as Republican women are reporting.

Educated women, it appears, are defecting in droves from the GOP, and the numbers are stark. White men without a college degree prefer Trump over Clinton by a 31-point margin, and he leads among college-educated white men by 11 points. White women without a college degree? Trump wins them, too—by a margin of 17 points, 49 to 32. None of that is surprising: Those numbers are roughly equivalent to Mitt Romney’s advantages in 2012. But Trump is losing educated white women to Hillary Clinton by a staggering 30 points, 57 to 27 percent, according to Monmouth, and other polls have shown similar numbers. This is a huge change since 2012, when Romney won that demographic by 6 points. “[I]f Clinton can sustain the support of white educated women shown in recent polls,” writes the Brookings Institution's William Frey, “she can overcome supersized turnout of white working class men.” And that, he concludes, would be “historic”—“by making white college-educated women a lynchpin of a decisive Democratic win.”

So I'm done worrying about Berners -- but not their issues. If you can't bring yourselves to vote for Hillary, I will work with people who can. If shaming me post-primary is your top goal (it happened recently with several Bernie women who used to admire me, not only this morning), that is your decision.

A Realistic, Thinking People's Alliance

My focus is building new alliances with thinking people and that includes college-educated Republicans and Independents -- and especially women -- who are supporting Hillary. I want to see where we can find common ground on moving a progressive agenda forward on issues of fairness, science and common sense.

Take climate change for example or the significant decrease in welfare spending and real-world struggling children that comes when we help poor women to have access to birth control and abortion -- and that includes repealing Hyde. Or take the extraordinary results associated with teaching meditation to rowdy kids in our schools, rather than bringing back the paddle as Trump supports. These topics aren't relevant to Democratic minds exclusively. My greatest hope in our electing Hillary is that this honest, positive dialogue can begin, and I will be looking for ways to facilitate that happening. Do I believe that Sen. Susan Collins and Sen. Elizabeth Warren can find places of consensus? Yes. If we collectively tune out the yelling and screaming from the extremes on both sides, perhaps we can make lemonade out of onions -- or whatever the expression is.

This smart-ass young Bernie Bro who sought to 'shame' me this morning was the last straw. He truly helped to move me over the edge of wanting to make peace with Berners. I'm done with the guilt-dumping from Berners, having been called a murderer for not wanting to scrap Obamacare and start over. It's clear that many college-educated Republican women are also up to their ears in shaming and guilt from their right wing.

Judgement, guilt, disgust . . . I'm done with all those words that sabotage women worldwide. When we articulate our experience, it builds solidarity and respect with our own kind. On a positive note, when this Bernie Bro got an earful this morning, he did apologize. So I figure that he's ripe for learning about life from a new perspective and it's not one where men -- and especially men like Trump -- rule. It's called collaboration, and unlike men, women excel at it (which is not to say that we haven't sabotaged other women along the way). Nevertheless, the research is very clear here.

If Hillary's mandate comes from thoughtful women -- and men, of course -- but her majority will probably be 2 to 1 women, then WE who have elected her have a responsibility to put our heads together and move America forward, navigating all the ugly reality of Washington, state legislatures and our extreme flanks left and right. Remember that we are clever at negotiating rather than screaming. Many of us have navigated these halls for countless years. Let's put our thinking-women brainpower and empathy to work, along with thoughtful men who also respect female leadership. Our real problems are far bigger than Wall Street and big money.
Perhaps this is the real overthrow that must occur in our American democracy -- no longer staying quiet over the arrogance of our self-appointed male minders like this young dude this morning. We can do it if we try. I know we can; I know we can.

Peace out. ~ Anne