Last updated on July 17th, 2023 at 06:05 pm
How do you fool the ladies after your party rebranding failed? You get a bunch of women folk to parrot the lines of the Koch Brothers, ‘cuz nothing fools the ladies like another lady.
The latest conservative strategy regarding how to win women voters is to inform women that they shouldn’t care about equal pay because… Obamacare roll out glitches.
Greg Sargent was not impressed with the “winning message” (and thanks to Mr. Sargent for calling attention to this gem) :
GOP pollster says Dem focus on equal pay is nothing but distraction from Ocare: http://t.co/W7ASyAzWED #WinningMessage
— Greg Sargent (@ThePlumLineGS) March 31, 2014
Nia-Malika Henderson and Jackie Kucinich must have had a tough time controlling their reaction as the GOP’s 2014 plan was explained to them for their Washington Post article. They reported, “The troubled roll out of the Affordable Care Act is an issue that GOP candidates believe they can use to return fire on the criticism that the party is hostile to women.”
So, roll out with some glitches = GOP no longer hates women! Cool trick. Women especially love being told by the Koch Brothers what matters to them.
What about that Republican policy war on women?
Oh, no worries! Remember that incredibly inaccurate, misleading “Obamacare victim” ad the Kochs were running in Michigan to help Republican Terri Lynn Land? The ad so misleading that even conservatives wouldn’t back its Obamacare claims? That’s the basic idea behind their strategy.
Sure, the Kochs had to dump that ad after being pummeled by factcheckers, but hey! The ladies don’t need to know pesky details. They’re too busy to care about equal pay anyway, according to Texas Republicans. Too busy to care.
So the Kochs are going to keep using that essential strategy of pasting a woman onto their Obamacare horror stories in order to mansplain what you ladies should be thinking. The WaPo article continued:
In Michigan, Republican Terri Lynn Land, running in a close race for another open Senate seat, marked the anniversary of the Affordable Care Act and stressed her opposition by highlighting the voices and stories of women who said they were negatively impacted by the law. That strategy also is being used by Americans For Prosperity, a conservative nonprofit backed by the Koch brothers, that has also used women as the face of their ads attacking the health care law.
Jennifer Stefano, regional director for Americans for Prosperity, said they have run ads designed to appeal to women because “women carry the burden of failed economic policies.”
Apparently in this GOP fantasy, women do not bear the brunt of no health insurance for themselves and their family. Oh, no. Their biggest concern is how the roll out was bad or the policy in general is a “failure”. It’s a failure that you can take your kid to the doctor even though he has a pre-existing heart condition. Yep. That’s what the moms of America are thinking. Rather than thinking gosh, I’m so glad my kid can get help, they’re thinking about policies that help the Koch Brothers make a bigger profit.
BUT LADIES. We saved the best for last.
You don’t care about equal pay anymore because… OBAMACARE!
Republican pollster Kellyanne Conway said reminding both genders of the problems with the Affordable Care Act would trump Democratic attacks on the equal pay issue.
What can I say? I think the GOP/Koch Brothers have finally sorted us ladies out. We are more concerned about the Koch Brothers than our own kids, and equal pay. Meh. All we can think about are the Obamacare glitches. Plus, bonus points for totally ignoring any specific policies that would help women, and instead focusing on being negative and sans solutions for another policy that is helping women. This reads a bit dismissive to me, but heck. It’s not like they have a lot to offer women.
We don’t need equal pay when we can vote Republican and lose the healthcare protections afforded to us under Obamacare, like free mammograms. Plus, Republicans want to take our birth control away because they’ve recently become obsessed with our unfertilized eggs and how mean ladies are picking on corporations like Hobby Lobby, so TOTALLY.
This is totally working.
This is what happens to a party when it is dictated to by the top of the 1% of the 2%. It should surprise no one that the Koch brothers have no idea just how insulting their mansplaining strategy is, or that women will see through it.
Sarah has been credentialed to cover President Barack Obama, then VP Joe Biden, 2016 Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, and exclusively interviewed Speaker Nancy Pelosi multiple times and exclusively covered her first home appearance after the first impeachment of then President Donald Trump.
Sarah is two-time Telly award winning video producer and a member of the Society of Professional Journalists.
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