Why This Is the Perfect Time for a Two Women Ticket

Read Robert's column on Substack, Musings & Amusings of a B-List Writer.

By Robert S. McElvaine

Yesterday was the 55th anniversary of the moon landing. In the coming days, let us channel Neil Armstrong and take "one giant leap for humankind.”

TWO women?? “Crazy he calls me / Sure, I'm crazy.” I don’t think so.

The just completed "Republican” National Convention" in Nuremberg ... uh, Milwaukee, was the most anti-woman, anti-freedom, anti-American, anti-middle class and poor, anti-people of color, anti-democracy, anti-America, anti-ordinary people, pro-Russia, pro-sexual assault, pro-billionaire, pro-corporation, pro-authoritarian ... total misogyny, Acute Masculine Insecurity major party convention in American history.

The once Grand Old Party of Lincoln has devolved into a Greedy Old Party set on “Taking America back’—back not only to before the huge progress in the 1960s toward making the ideals of 1776 reality for all Americans, but to before 1776. The extremist “Republicans” on the Supreme Court have approved ending the basic ideal of a nation ruled by law, law that applies to all. Donald Trump is eager to become America’s first king since George III.

The Trump-controlled convention doubled, tripled, quadrupled … down on fake “manhood.” The choice of J.D. Vance, a protégé of Peter Theil, who has said he “no longer believe[s] that freedom and democracy are compatible,” that allowing women to vote was a mistake, and “longs for a world in which great men are free to work their will on society,” and who himself has taken extraordinarily anti-woman and anti-freedom positions, including outlawing abortion even in cases of rape and incest, thinks women should stay in marriages in which they are being violently abused, said our country is “effectively being run by a bunch of childless cat ladies,” made plain that Trump thinks he can focus entirely on riling up insecure males. Throw in Hulk Hogan, Kid Rock, Trump’s deranged lies in his acceptance and so much more. 

But … TWO women? No way Americans will go for that!

With Kamala Harris as the presidential nominee, all the anti-women vote is already going to the Evil Ones. Another woman won’t add significantly to that vote.

In 2016, I strongly supported Elizabeth Warren as Hillary's running mate. She would have brought more enthusiastic support from the backers of Bernie Sanders. I firmly believe that that ticket would have won, and we would have been spared the nightmare of the Trump years.

And, in the recent election in Mexico, a nation with a deep machismo culture, Claudia Sheinbaum won and her major opponent was also a woman. Are Norte Americanos more sexist? I don’t think so.

Gretchen Whitmer is an amazing human being. I urge everyone to read—or, better, listen to—her new book, True Gretch. She is smart, funny, relatable. She has gone head-to-head against Trump and his armed followers. And she has a team that has made her a major presence on TikTok and other social media. That is a large factor in getting young people to support the Democratic ticket and to come out and vote.

Imagine Kamala and Gretch running against this:

Women and secure men, believers in America, freedom, equality, inclusion, decency, and democracy vs men who are acutely insecure about their “manhood.”

Harris-Whitmer can not only save us from the catastrophe that Trump back in power would be; they have a real chance to win big and put this threat down.

Let's do it.

{Robert S. McElvaine is Emeritus Professor of History at Millsaps College and the author of eleven books, most recently The Times They Were a-Changin’ – 1964: The Year “The Sixties” Arrived and the Battle Lines of Today Were Drawn. He is currently at work on a new book, An Agreed-Upon Fiction: The Creation of the “Inferior” Sex – How It (Mis)Shaped History & The Present. He writes a column on Substack, Musings & Amusings of a B-List Writer.}