ATTN: Republican Women
A short story to illustrate how to talk to republican women in your life about voting for Harris.
I recently Tweeted out a cartoon made for me by a friend based on a story I told on the Daily Beans Podcast about my mother. The tweet went viral and has amassed 158,000 likes in just two days, inspiring me to tell you the whole anecdote.
When I was born, my mom was the City of Stow, Ohio Clerk of Council. She presided over projects ranging from Parks and Rec to clean water for Cuyahoga county while I stayed at a neighbors house. She was also a member of the nonpartisan League of Women Voters for Stow and worked on nine campaigns across the state. She would eventually be appointed by Governor John Rhodes as the registrar of Motor Vehicles. But she quit her government service when I was 2 years old to be a stay at home mom, because apparently, I was a hellion.
But her fervor for politics and voting never waned. She would take me to the polls every election - EVERY election - and that instilled in me the importance of voting.
The 1980 election was no different, and I remember it as though it happened yesterday. The voting booths were made of wood back then, with cloth curtains and metal curtain rings. The wood was walnut and the drapes were blue. I can even remember the smell. And while the words she used to explain to me the importance of voting escape me, I’ll never forget what she said before she disappeared behind the curtain:
“In here, no man can tell me what to do.”
That’s always stuck with me, and I was reminded of it when I saw a report about MAGA wives being afraid to ditch trump because of what their husbands and friends might think. I know that a lot of us have MAGA women in our lives, and I want to encourage you to remind them that their vote is secret. That no one can tell them how to vote. Go ahead and be outwardly MAGA when you’re around friends and family, but when you get in that voting both - you can do the right thing.
It’s well-known that the most effective GOTV (Get Out The Vote) tool is to speak to people in your community about voting who you know personally. So I say get out there and talk to the republican women in your life, and remind them that in that voting booth, no one can tell them what to do.
~AG
Back in 2020, I replied to a guy on twitter who got all up in his Christian supremacy and stated to the world why his wife was happily voting as he instructed her to do.
AG, your story about your mom reminded me of that post, and my reply is now my pinned tweet:
Dear Mrs. Sumpter,
Your vote is yours and yours alone. You are not chattel, and voter intimidation and/or coercion is a crime.
If you vote in kind, great; if not, that’s great, too.
There are reasons your vote is private, and your husband is one of them.
Oh my. The memories! My mom was a voting poll worker for decades in Euclid, Ohio- not far from you. Growing up we knew we would have crockpot chili for dinner on Election Day. Some of my siblings and I carry that tradition on today- even if we early or absentee vote. I also can recall vividly the curtains of the voting booth, the thrill of signing the log under her proud eyes. Mom was a lifelong Democrat, and the most poignant thing I remember about her personal voting record was in 2004 when she was told by the priest at the Catholic Church she attended that she couldn’t vote for John Kerry because of his stand on abortion. It was the last presidential election of her life- and she didn’t vote. I guess she figured that God would know who she voted for, even if no one else would. I will never miss an election, and I will never let someone else tell me how to vote.