With Election Day just around the corner, conservative influencers are openly fretting about women voting, especially as NBC News reports that Harris has a 33-point advantage among women.
Some of those influencers are upset at the idea of a woman having the freedom to pick whoever she votes for, while others are throwing tantrums about women being allowed to vote at all. But the outrage is a predictable development from a movement that has prided itself on its performative machismo and outright misogyny.
Just this week, John McEntee, a former Trump campaign official and Project 2025 adviser, shared a video in which he openly suggests a repeal of women’s voting rights in order to have “male-only” voting. When Kamala Harris’ campaign called out his video, McEntee responded, “Relax, relax it’s only jokes…unless. 👀”
Elsewhere, Turning Point USA founder and far-right activist Charlie Kirk, a prime peddler of the whole “only real men vote for Trump” propaganda, has been having conniptions about women exhibiting any political independence. Kirk seemed appalled by a Democratic ad that reminds women their vote is private and needn’t align with their husband’s. During a recent podcast appearance, he shuddered to think some Republican women might “undermine their husbands” by voting for Harris, even though, as he says, their husband “works his tail off to make sure that she can have a nice life.”
Charlie Kirk is upset that Republican women may “undermine their husbands” and secretly vote for Harris while telling their husbands they voted for Trump, even though the husband “works his tail off to make sure that she can have a nice life.” pic.twitter.com/3ttLOqROBy
— Ron Filipkowski (@RonFilipkowski) October 31, 2024
Kirk seems quite worried about all of this, as indicated by his hair-on-fire reaction to the reported numbers of women voting. “Early vote has been disproportionately female,” he posted Wednesday on X, adding that “if men stay at home, Kamala is president. It’s that simple.” He ended his post by saying, “Men need to GO VOTE NOW.” This is in keeping with the hysteria elsewhere in the MAGA social media ecosystem, as far-right influencers like Mike Cernovich, Jack Posobiec, McEntee and others trying to rally MAGA men to the polls. You can almost hear the alarm as you read this post from the managing editor of the ultraconservative satirical news site the Babylon Bee:
Men, take charge of your country. You don’t have to let any of this happen. Vote.
— Joel Berry (@JoelWBerry) October 30, 2024
I guess MAGA women aren’t moving their “fat pig” husbands, as Trump called them, to the polls fast enough.
On Fox News, host Jesse Watters used a violent (if extremely vague) World War II metaphor to scold wives who vote differently from their husbands, saying that if his wife voted for Kamala Harris, it would be “D-Day” and “the same thing as having an affair.”
jesse: if i found out my wife secretly voted for harris, "that's the same thing as having an affair… that violates the sanctity of our marriage… that would be D Day" pic.twitter.com/nbZF3U4X1R
— helena hind (@cynicalzoomer) October 30, 2024
In the evangelical community, where the backlash to feminism has been particularly oppressive, MAGA men have been more explicit in denouncing women for exercising even the least political independence.
MAGA pastor Dale Partridge said on social media Tuesday that “in a Christian marriage, a wife should vote according to her husband’s direction” because “he is the head and they are one” — unless he says to vote for a Democrat, in which case that doesn’t apply. “This is not controversial,” Partridge declared.
Seems pretty controversial to me, though.
In a Christian marriage, a wife should vote according to her husband’s direction.
— Dale Partridge (@dalepartridge) October 29, 2024
He is the head and they are one.
Unity extends to politics.
This is not controversial.
During an episode of his podcast last week, Joel Webbon, another popular far-right pastor, doubled down on his earlier statement that the 19th Amendment should be repealed. Webbon said women’s political choices should be given to the men in their lives, whether that’s their husbands, fathers, brothers or uncles.
Christian nationalist pastor Joel Webbon thinks the 19th Amendment (women vote) should be repealed, arguing that women should get their voice from their fathers, husbands, brothers or uncles: “This is the Christian position”pic.twitter.com/qki23ykfTh
— Republicans against Trump (@RpsAgainstTrump) October 26, 2024
Days out from Election Day, the MAGA movement’s misogyny is on full display. They simply can’t contain their outrage over the fact that women — for now, at least — have the freedom to make their own choices at the ballot box. And it seems they’re finally starting to realize their juvenile bravado and unabashed chauvinism might come back to bite them.
Ja’han Jones is an MS NOW opinion blogger. He previously wrote The ReidOut Blog.