Subject: FLAG: Meghan McCain on DJT
From: "Wei, Shu-Yen" <[email-masked]>
To: Comm_D <[email-masked]>
Date: Thu, 5 May 2016 12:26:32 -0700

Donald Trump Needs Republican Women Like Me. Too Bad. #NeverTrump.

It's not going to be easy for the presumptive nominee to convince women his misogyny is acceptable, but that's his problem.
[donald trump]
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GETTY | KRYSTALINA TOM

By Meghan McCain<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/author/15624/meghan-mccain/>
May 5, 2016

I saw Trump wrapping up his path to become the Republican Party's nominee for president coming well before it actually happened. The poll numbers coming out of the vital Indiana primary made it clear that it was inevitable. And yet when it finally happened Tuesday, I was still shocked. I watched Ted Cruz and his wife, Heidi exit the race, and I left my radio studio feeling numb and depressed. I'm sure it's like any disaster you see coming - you think you can prepare yourself, but when it actually happens, it impacts you in an intense and unpredictable way.

As I have written about here at Cosmopolitan.com and spoken at length on my radio show and on Fox News, I have been on the #NeverTrump bandwagon for a long time, and the idea of him gaining power and becoming our next president of the United States petrifies me. However, in the days since Trump has sewn up this nomination, I have also come to a realization: This is no longer my problem. I fought long and hard to stop Donald Trump from becoming the nominee and ultimately failed. Of course this is disheartening. At the same time, though, there is also liberation in sitting back for the first time in this election cycle and knowing that while my fighting is over, the really hard work is just beginning for Trump and his team. General elections are much different than primary elections and the chickens will come home to roost. Now Trump's rhetoric and the language he has used toward women ever since he announced his candidacy - and frankly, long before that - are on him.

I have been a Republican my entire adult life and I'm part of a Republican political legacy, and I am filled with guilt and conflict. Party loyalty has traditionally been important to me, but in this specific instance, I feel that voting for Trump wouldn't be a demonstration of loyalty but a betrayal of the conservative principles and ideology that make me who I am. I would be throwing away the belief I have always had in the Republican Party and the party I wanted it to evolve into. Like many of my fellow Republicans, I believe a Hillary Clinton presidency would usher corruption into our country, and I distrust and fear her as a leader with the same intensity I do Donald Trump. How so many conservatives I used to respect have traded their conservative principles for the cult of personality and celebrity has been something tragic to watch and downright baffling. When it comes to voting, I'm not entirely sure what to do: I am open to a third-party conservative candidate, or I may write in someone. But I hope that however this godforsaken presidential race ends, there will be some kind of reckoning when we rebuild this party. Or maybe the party is beyond rebuilding - only time and how this election plays out will tell.

The only solace I am taking right now is that I am far from alone in my feelings. As much as Trump and his surrogates want to spin that their candidate doesn't have a problem with women, as an old adage says, "facts are stubborn things." A CNN/ORC poll in March<http://www.cnn.com/2016/03/31/politics/donald-trump-women-poll-numbers/> showed that 73 percent of overall female voters had an unfavorable view of Donald Trump, as did 39 percent of Republican women. The reality is that Trump needs Republican women like me, and he needs us badly. It's up to him and his campaign to convince the women of this country that all of his misogynistic rhetoric is something we should swallow and accept in a leader. He has to explain why he thinks women who have abortions should be punished - something both sides of the pro-life and pro-choice movement are horrified by. He has to explain why he finds it appropriate to retweet someone calling a respected, intelligent anchor a bimbo.<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/news/a45328/donald-trump-megyn-kelly-twitter/> He has to explain why he has no problem going after the physical appearance of a competitor's wife<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/news/a55722/donald-trump-heidi-cruz-twitter/> or criticizing a fellow candidate's face<http://www.cosmopolitan.com/politics/news/a46090/donald-trump-insults-carly-fiorinas-face/>. This is the bed Trump and his supporters have made and now they have to lie in it.

In the 2012 presidential election, 53 percent of voters were women<https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/women/report/2012/12/12/47916/how-women-changed-the-outcome-of-the-election/> and 55 percent of them voted for Obama, meaning women were highly influential in the outcome of the race. The Republican Party simply cannot win without the support of women, and our presumptive nominee has done nothing but alienate us. Trump likes to talk (and talk and talk) about his book The Art of the Dealand about how he's the greatest dealmaker of all time. So game on. Let's see if he can make things work this time.