Sometimes, particularly in the toxic world of social media, it's difficult to know whether people are being honest and earnest in their questions or whether they're trying to make a statement.
Usually, after a modicum of research it becomes apparent, as was the case with the recent query posted by online anti-Trump activist John Collins:
I know that's an attempted jab, a straightforward slight, smacking of an arrogantly patriarchal mindset, directed at women who see the world differently than him.
But the fact remains that the gender gap in political parties is real, and a sizeable advantage among women voters is all that stands between the modern Democrat Party and electoral oblivion.
That's why men like Collins, a man far more interested in the advancement of his own political agenda than the well being of women, keeps up the charade.
These types hide behind a faux-feminism that really only translates to abortion on demand and progressive politics, while simultaneously promoting the rights of mentally ill men to access women's restrooms and locker rooms, accept awards and honors reserved for women, and participate in women's athletic events.
But on the off chance that there are those who truly do wonder why women (or anyone) vote Republican, even when they are less than impressed with the quality of character candidates the party fields, let me offer a succinct, three-fold explanation.
1. Economics
It really makes no difference whether you look at women in the workplace or in the home. Economics matter to all. Despite the persistent talking point about Republicans favoring "tax cuts for the rich," most women are aware of the current strain on the family budget. It may be the belief of Mr. Collins and others that women are somehow a more irrational, emotional voting bloc, but that's both insulting and untrue.
Women are aware their dollars have less purchasing power now than they did. They know that energy prices, and gas prices, and grocery prices have all skyrocketed during the Biden/Harris years.
Feeding themselves and their families is a top priority for many women, and the current trend tells them that voting Democrat will continue to jeopardize it.
2. Safety
Single women like to feel safe. Married women like to know they and their families are safe. Policies and politicians that produce lower crime and safer neighborhoods are going to appeal to women voters, while those that promote chic but flabbergasting idiotic social crusades like "abolishing the police," or that pretend floods of illegal immigrants are all harmless "refugees" even as murders, fentanyl, and human trafficking plague communities overrun by the migrant influx are going to repulse them.
Additionally, thousands of women have been protected in the last year by their right to bear arms.
This is a right that only the Republican Party seems intent on defending.
3. Democracy
Most women in America approve of our republican forms of government and the democratic principles they are based on.
Like many of their male counterparts, they recognize that a movement exhaustively committed to imprisoning its chief political rival, that brazenly orchestrates an intra-party coup to replace a sitting president who received 14 million primary votes with a candidate who received no votes from its members but was selected by a shadowy cabal, is no friend of those principles.
Ultimately, this isn't nearly as nuanced, as complex, or as complicated as activists and professional partisans make it.
Most women and men who vote for Republicans in the upcoming election will do so because they believe their lives were better off when that party was in charge of the federal government than they have been under the current Democratic Party's domination.
To Mr. Collins or anyone else who finds that unreasonable, I'd simply suggest that glibly taunting those whose current condition might not be as privileged as your own isn't the best way to persuade them.
