Sean Yoes
By Sean Yoes
AFRO Senior Reporter
syoes@afro.com
On Jan. 21, 2017, one day after Donald John Trump’s sparsely attended inauguration, millions of women around the world marched in solidarity, to a great extent, against his ascension and all that it represented: a triumph of sexism, racism, misogyny, bigotry and ignorance.
In the United States alone about five million women marched throughout the country and specifically in Washington, D.C., and about a half million marched along the streets of the nation’s capital. The protests were quite the international spectacle.
The image that sticks with me the most from those remarkable days of resistance was the sight of a Black woman in the D.C. crowd. There she was in a sea of White women with a totally unbothered expression on her face, sucking on a lollipop and holding a sign that read, “Don’t Forget: White Women Voted For Trump.”
Facts.
The woman named Angela Peoples, 30 at the time, the co-director of the LGBTQ equality organization GetEqual, had cogently, succinctly identified the villains (approximately 52 percent of White women voted for Trump according to exit polls). They were at the root of Trump’s seemingly implausible election in November 2016. Peoples also wore a hat that read, “Stop Killing Black People.”
Some things never change in America.
Four years later as we close in on another presidential election and the country is poised to choose between two septuagenarian White men, America is facing a perhaps unprecedented racial reckoning in the wake of George Floyd’s murder. And White women may be poised once again to choose Trump and fuel his re-election. A catastrophic outcome in the minds of millions.
However, a new poll suggests a majority (59 percent) of White, non-college educated women want to do just that: give Trump four more years to continue his American carnage.
All in Together, a non-partisan advocacy group partnered with Lake Research and Emerson Polling to examine the opinion of women voters in 2020. One of the surveys conducted by the partnership engaged 1,273 registered women voters nationwide between Aug. 30 and Sept. 1. The survey oversampled 668 registered women voters in the so-called battleground states of Wis., Minn., Ariz., N.C., Va., Colo., N.H., Fla., Mich., and Pa.
According to the results of the poll, women voters favor former Vice President Joe Biden over Trump by 11 points. But, that decisive advantage for Biden is fueled by overwhelming support by Black women and women of color. And when you dig deeper into the numbers, Trump enjoys a plurality and outright majority of support from White, non-college educated women on various issues.
Forty-Eight percent of White non-college women trust Trump more than Biden on issues of race relations, compared to 14 percent of Black women and 18 percent of Latina women.
On the issue of the coronavirus pandemic, 50 percent of White non-college women trust Trump over Biden, compared to 13 percent of Black women and 19 percent of Latina women.
As far as reopening schools is concerned, 50 percent of White non-college women believe more in Trump to grapple with the issue over Biden, versus 11 percent of Black women and 20 percent of Latina women.
And on law and order, 55 percent of White non-college women back Trump over Biden, compared to 14 percent of Black women and 28 percent of Latina women.
The bottom line is we’ve all seen what Trump has done in four years. More than 200,000 dead as a result of COVID-19 is just one grisly chapter of Trump’s American carnage. Imagine what he would do with four more years.
Ignore the wisdom of Black women at your own peril.
Sean Yoes is the AFRO’s Senior Reporter and author of, Baltimore After Freddie Gray: Real Stories From One of America’s Great Imperiled Cities.
