Demonstrators fill the streets on Jan. 21 during the Women’s March in Washington. (Oliver Contreras for The Washington Post)
For a year now, we’ve heard that President Trump has “gotten away with” all sorts of unacceptable behavior — equating neo-Nazis with opposing protesters, attacking the free press, launching a mean-spirited and counterproductive vendetta against so-called sanctuary cities, maligning women, vilifying dissenting Republicans and embracing totalitarian dictators. But has he gotten away with anything?
After all, we are not yet at the point of impeachment hearings. His chance at reelection, if he remains in office, is almost three years away, and for now, he has GOP House and Senate majorities to run interference for him. Nevertheless, the bill for his racism, dishonesty and incivility is coming due.
Try as he might to avoid the association with GOP wipe-outs, Trump was effectively on the ballot in Virginia and Alabama, triggering a huge backlash among nonwhite voters and women, segments of the electorate whom he has most consistently insulted. They got mad — and then turned out to vote. The Post reported in November:
African Americans [in Virginia] accounted for 21 percent of voters, according to exit poll results, identical to their share in last year’s presidential election and one point higher than in 2013. In total, nonwhite voters made up 33 percent of the electorate, the same as last year but up from 28 percent in the previous governor’s race.
Black voters favored [Democrat Ralph] Northam over [Republican Ed] Gillespie by a 73-point margin, while Hispanic voters favored Northam by 33 points.
Democrats had worked feverishly in recent weeks to court African American voters, and former president Barack Obama held a rally with the ticket in Richmond last month. Obama also recorded a robo-call that went out Monday and Tuesday to encourage people to vote.
Likewise in Alabama, CNN reported:
African-American turnout played an important role in [Democrat Doug] Jones’ victory. Of the 20 counties that saw their turnout rise in comparison to the 2014 midterm elections in Alabama, an election comparable in size to the Senate special election, half were rural counties in the state’s agricultural “Black Belt” where African Americans make up between 59% of registered voters (Hale) to 82% (Greene). Based on unofficial but complete returns in those counties, Jones received between 69% of the vote (Hale) to 88% (Greene and Macon).
Trump isn’t getting away with anything as far as African American voters are concerned.
The same backlash against the Trump GOP is seen among women voters — starting with the Women’s March the day after the inauguration, continuing with record numbers of women running for office and culminating in big wins for Democrats in Virginia and Alabama. Virginia Gov.-elect Northam got 61 percent of the women’s vote, five points more than Hillary Clinton did in 2016. He also did seven points better among white women than Clinton did. And he did eight points better than Clinton did among white, college-educated women. That’s the #MeToo phenomenon in action.
Likewise in Alabama, NBC News reported:
Fifty-eight percent of Alabama women voted for … Jones, including 35 percent of white women, according to exit polling. While that latter figure might not sound like much, it’s more than twice the 16 percent of white Alabama women who voted for President Barack Obama in 2012, the last presidential race in which exit polling was conducted. … White women who typically support Republican candidates were a key factor in the outcome. Some crossed party lines to vote for Jones and many others simply declined to go to the polls.
It seems that the deep-seated anger over the election of someone who bragged about sexual assault and routinely ridiculed women (often on the basis of their appearance) has found its expression at the ballot box.
That revulsion against Trump among women voters is seen in national polling as well. The most recent Monmouth University poll finds: “The gender gap in the president’s rating crosses party lines. Republican women (67%) are somewhat less likely than Republican men (78%) to give Trump a positive rating. These results are down by 9 points among GOP women since September and by 5 points among GOP men since the fall. The biggest drop has occurred among independent women — just 14% currently approve of Trump’s job performance, which is down by 25 points since September.”
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) surely tapped into that anger when she struck back against Trump’s smear insinuating that she’d trade sex for campaign money. On the “Today” show on Wednesday, she declared, “He’s often berated women and made them feel that they cannot be heard as well. He is a bully and he has been attacking different people across this country since becoming president.” She continued, “This is a moment in time, unlike any other, with the #MeToo movement. Women are feeling the ability to tell what happened to them, some of the worst moments they’ve lived, and tell it publicly, and that is powerful and it is affecting everything. People are looking for justice. You are seeing quick justice, whether it’s in Hollywood or in corporate America or in Congress.” It’s hard to quibble with that insight.
In short, it’s payback time for many Americans, and so long as Trump remains atop the GOP, the party will pay the price for having thrown its lot in with an accused sexual predator and obvious misogynist.