Category: Opinions

Progressives claim to value women, but they routinely demonize conservative women who refuse to conform to the molds that the left tries to force us into.

By Nicole Russell | USA TODAY | March 31, 2025

As a conservative woman living in Texas, I often feel like I’m living a dual reality. I’m a mom and a writer, but that’s not all. I go to church, laugh with friends and wave at my neighbors while we are walking our dogs.

At dinner, my kids and I discuss the Beatitudes, the Bill of Rights and the best and worst things that happened that day (we call them highs and lows). I love to cook, hate to clean and probably need to have a better morning routine. My life is similar to millions of other women in America.

But online, in the legacy news media and in my increasingly ugly inbox, I live in a different world. In that world, I’m portrayed − and viewed − through a singular lens: my conservative beliefs. As such, I am easy to hate, mock and scorn.

I am far from the only woman who experiences this abuse. Progressives claim to value women, but they routinely demonize conservative women who refuse to conform to the molds that the left tries to force us into. That’s not only bad for women like me and for our society, but it’s also a poor reflection of reality. Tens of millions of American women embrace traditional values and conservative ideas.

We’re also more than our politics.

If the trivializing of an accomplished woman wasn’t so disgusting, I’d laugh. Can you imagine The Post smugly diminishing a progressive woman (or man) as “radiant, blond and apple-cheeked”?

Leavitt isn’t the only conservative woman to recently receive The Post’s patronizing treatment. A profile of second lady Usha Vance began with this sentence: “Most of what we know about Usha Vance we know because her husband told us.”

Never mind that Vance is an accomplished lawyer who clerked for Chief Justice John Roberts on the U.S. Supreme Court. Ignore that she graduated from Yale University with a law degree and a bachelor’s degree and from Cambridge with a master’s. Brush aside that she has served on the boards of the Washington National Opera and the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra.

We only know, according to The Post, what her husband allows her to tell us.

Another Post news story − a profile of conservative influencer Alex Clark published the day before the elections in November − is laced with opinionated and condescending observations. Clark, for example, is accused of engaging in conspiratorial thinking about the food industry, “consistent with the right’s Trump-inspired paranoia about deep-state master planning.”

Each of those profiles was written or cowritten by Voght, who worked for Mother Jones and Rolling Stone, both ultraliberal publications, before joining The Post as a politics reporter.

The disdain for conservative women isn’t confined to The Post. Recent Salon headlines have been even more pointed in their attacks, including this one: “The misogynist agenda of “MAHA moms.” Conservative aren’t just wrong, you see, they hate women, including presumably themselves.

Salon also gave us this affront to good taste ‒ “From ‘Mar-a-Lago face’ to uncanny AI art: MAGA loves ugly in submission to Trump.” The article, by senior writer Amanda Marcotte, is filled with cruel attacks on the appearance of conservative women in leadership positions, including Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem.

The article includes this gem: “Drag queens also embrace outlandish gender performance, but it’s to subvert rigid gender roles instead of reinforcing them. That, plus your typical drag queen knows how to make five pounds of make-up look cool instead of gross, but they won’t share their secrets with the ladies of the GOP.”

Drag queens are cool. Conservative women are gross. And that is what passes for journalism in 2025.

Tune in to ABC’s “The View” to see the progressive hosts, all women, rip on the conservative women in the Trump administration. No one is more misogynistic to conservative women than liberal women. Again, the irony would be funny if not so disgusting.

Voght and Marcotte are part of a bevy of legacy media reporters who seem to be liberals first and journalists second. That bias has destroyed the news industry’s credibility but perversely also has hurt more than helped their allies in the Democratic Party.

Conservative women are denigrated for their beliefs

For all their flaws, Democrats used to promote tolerance and inclusivity. They used to at least say they embraced women’s rights.

But tolerance apparently doesn’t extend to the many women who exercise their right to form their own beliefs and to vote for the candidates of their own choosing. In progressives’ eyes, those women, conservative women, deserve to have their accomplishments devalued and their appearance mocked.

I’m tired of being the butt of jokes and scorn because I’m a conservative woman and a mother. I’m sick of legacy media acting like women such as Leavitt, Vance and me are an anomaly.

And I’m done with seeing progressives in politics and journalism spew hate at women for embracing conservative political and social values.

Nicole Russell is a columnist at USA TODAY and a mother of four who lives in Texas. Contact her at nrussell@gannett.com and follow her on X, formerly Twitter: @russell_nm. Sign up for her weekly newsletter, The Right Track, here.

By Vickie Hart-Brant | March 29, 2025

Today, as I reflect on text and phone conversations with family and friends about what is happening before our eyes, I am more determined than ever to get more engaged and be the change I wish to see. The context is unclear, but I understand that sitting, talking, and texting will not affect change in this country. The erasure of Black history and culture is an assault and insult to the contributions of our ancestors and elders. Indisputably, America was built on the bLack of our ancestors. And we have every right to exist and be unhindered in our pursuits of life, liberty, justice, and prosperity as any other race of people. Why does generational wealth have to be a curse and not a blessing when spoken from the lips of Black people? It shouldn’t be! We are curators of our past, creators of our present, and influencers of our future. We have, we do, and we will continue to influence culture and the arts, math and science, the humanities, sports, and entertainment, theology, and philosophy, and well beyond words I can conjure when I think of the gifts and talents Black people share with the world every day–unabashed and with great confidence. And should I even courageously mention the theft of our culture and giftedness? The only reason we are a target of erasure is because we are anointed and powerful people. Don’t forget that…we have been to hell and back and continue to survive and thrive against all odds. Mama them taught us survival skills: “Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding; In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.” – Proverbs 3:5-6. It worked for my grandparents, my parents and it’s working for me and my siblings. And I pray that our children and their children and generations unborn will understand there is a power higher and mightier than the President of the United States of America and Congress. So I encourage you not to faint or lose heart in doing what is right, what is just, and honorable before God and the people of God, because it is promised that you will receive generously if you endure to the end. I am confident God will get the last say because throughout scripture we are warned and admonished on the treatment of the poor, widows, orphans and children, strangers, and the foreigner. Hear me, without apology, and screaming from the rooftop, I am Black, a bonafide HBCU and meritorious PWI (predominantly white institution) educated Black woman, and I am proud of my blackness! Somebody’s gotta say it, so it might as well be me—giants do fall! So, be encouraged my sistah and my brother! Fear not, God is able to keep you from falling or failing!💜🙏🏾

By Lola “C.R.T.”  Renegade 

Critical Race Truths: #where-truth-is-never-a-theory

“Blacks who claim respectability and allow that mirage to keep them quiet and from being actors in the necessary drama needed to change an oppressive society are instruments of continued oppression.”

(Black Robes White Justice:  Why Our Legal System Doesn’t Work for Blacks by Former New York Supreme Court Justice Bruce Wright).

In America’s neo-Nazi, hate-filled, and turbulent era of Trumpism, a wretched phenomenon has emerged—the rise of Black Confederates. These individuals, once on the periphery of American politics, have ascended to prominence within so-called Republican conservative circles, wielding influence and helping to shape the negative narratives of racists’ views of people of color. Their ascent from the fringes to the forefront has been fueled by self-loathing, distorting African American history for the comfort and appeasement of white racists, spreading countless lies, engaging in complicity, stirring controversy, embodying contradiction, descending into moral decay, displaying and embracing psycho-sociopathic behavior. The ultimate betrayal is to their African American freedom-fighting ancestors, who offered up the ultimate sacrifice—their lives—for people of color to have equal access to life, liberty, the pursuit of happiness, and an essential seat at the table. 

Truth be told, these race and truth traitors have always been among us, from the moment Africans were kidnapped from Africa and brought into America’s stolen land as enslaves. These defectors betrayed their fellow enslaves by disclosing to their white colonizing slave masters information of slave uprisings on plantations, leading to the assassination of those fearless Black souls seeking freedom. Art brings their characters to life, as is epitomized in the roles of Stephen (Samuel L. Jackson) in the movie “Django Unchained,” Colonel Isaac Johnson (Danny Glover) in the movie “Shooter,” and enslave catcher Bigger Long (Omar J. Dorsey) in the movie “Harriet.” Harriet Tubman knew their type well; she would threaten their lives when they wanted to abandon the Underground Railroad, taking them North to freedom and preferring a return to the plantations to live as slaves. She knew that once they left, they would hope to gain favor with their masters and give away the secret routes to freedom. Harriet was credited with stating, “I could have freed thousands more if only they knew they were slaves.”

Several months ago, race traitor and Black Confederate South Carolina’s U.S. Senator Tim Scott kneeled on one knee on the shores of the Atlantic Ocean to propose to Mindy Noce (they have since married). Fortunately for him, the Confederate state of South Carolina legalized interracial marriage in November 1998, the last state in America to do so. Remember, they were the first state to secede from the Union and ignite the Civil War to preserve slavery by firing on Fort Sumter in Charleston Harbor.  At that moment, with him on bended knee, I envisioned the spirits of over 12 million kidnapped and enslaved Africans, along with the more than 2 million thrown overboard during the brutal Middle Passage journey, rising from their watery graves to confront him on his votes in the Senate against disenfranchised people of color, as well as his putrid fealty to America’s modern-day slave owner, former President Donald Trump, and America’s alt-Reich. 

On their podcast, five Black instruments of continued oppression sat watching a video, enraptured by the rants of their mentally, morally, criminally deranged, draft dodging, truth arsonist, and felonious Svengali— Donald Trump (known as #45 (president) and also now as #34 (number of felony convictions from New York District Attorney Alvin Bragg).  Their (including Trump’s) Dunning-Krueger effect is on full display. On their podcast, they have dubbed themselves “America’s Starting Five,” an assembly of politically treacherous and unconscionable Black Republican men, which include U.S. Senator Tim Scott (SC) and Representatives Burgess Owens (IA), Wesley Hunt (TX), John James (MI), and Byron Donalds (FL). It’s worth noting that Scott was one of the “no” votes for the confirmation of Ketanji Brown Jackson, the first African American woman appointed to the United States Supreme Court. And Representative Burgess Owens just referred to Vice President Kamala Harris as “the greatest example of DEI” (Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion).  Perhaps Owens will one day discuss how he moved from security guard and chimney sweeper to Congress.   More than likely, the only requirements are to hate yourself and your race. 

Side note: I have no problem with their interracial marriages or relationships; in fact, I fully support any way the Browning of America can be expedited. I simply believe it is more than a coincidence that all of their spouses and partners are white.

During one of the Starting Five’s podcast episodes, Scott, crowing and looking like a toxic rendition of Foghorn Leghorn, dismissively asked, “Who is Alvin Bragg anyway?” as if the Manhattan District Attorney is insignificant for daring to bring charges against their Big Daddy Trump. Timmy has selectively forgotten that it was DA Bragg who led the unanimous conviction of Trump on 34 felony charges by a jury of his peers. But what can one expect from someone with the spine of a wet noodle? Former South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley plucked him from the ass pockets of obscurity, appointed him as a United States senator, and made him a household name. He repaid her by not supporting her presidential bid and instead declaring his love and loyalty to the racist, mentally ill, and monosyllabic Trump—whose very existence leaps straight from the pages of the DSM, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. Trump Ass Mints, anyone? 

These historically feeble identical quintuplets’ goal is to find more Black voters to lead to the soulless promised land of their dysfunctional MAGA (Make America Grate Again) Republican Party. The present-day Republican Party is not the party of President Abraham Lincoln, who is credited with reluctantly freeing America’s enslaves, and it has not been that party since Lincoln’s assassination. Today, its MAGA faction is rife with neo-Nazi racists, misogynists, inequality, xenophobia, hypocrisy, historical revisionists, election deniers, misanthropes, pathological liars, massive greed, criminality, and corruption. This politically radioactive group is in lockstep with their maniacal mafioso, Trump, who is intent on again turning American democracy into his very own kleptocratic kakistocracy and the White House into an outhouse, despised by true democratic nations throughout the world. MAGA’s overuse of the word conservative is simply a euphemism for corrupt, greedy, women-hating neo-confederates. 

The “starting five” and their accomplices are keeping plantation life alive as useful tools and sycophantic apologists to white neo-Nazis. Line them up, and they are easily recognized from their quintessential minstrel show as viewed in D.W. Griffith’s Birth of a Nation and their guiding GPS doctrine written by the slave trainer, Willie Lynch. Offer them promises of slight acknowledgment, 30 pieces of silver, and the power to destroy their own race and top it off with a transactional white partner/spouse, and they will happily dance and grin for the benefit of their Hitleresque colonizing audiences into the afterlife. 

I am a 67-year-old African American woman, a change agent for social justice, a pure patriot, and a dedicated super voter in Fulton County, Georgia. This is the same county where District Attorney Fani Willis has taken on the task of prosecuting the criminality of Donald Trump and his fake electors for attempting to undermine and overthrow our 2020 presidential election, effectively aiming to steal my vote, along with 11,779 other Georgians. One of the fake electors is now the Lieutenant Governor of Georgia, Burt Jones. You can’t make this shit up! This movie plot has been played before; it’s been in syndication all of my life. As a little girl growing up in the still-Confederate state of Mississippi, I watched my parents repeatedly leave home to cast their votes, uncertain if their votes would be counted, thrown out, or if the polling place would be moved without notice upon their arrival. 

The number of votes that the self-professed racist, sexual predator, obvious mental case, and misogynist Trump received in the elections of 2016 and 2020 convinced me that a solid 45 percent of Americans are stone-cold racists. It is beyond grotesque that any decent patriot would allow an unfit individual like Trump to be within miles of the White House. My radar for detecting racists is quite experienced and advanced.  The first decent white person I met was Mrs. Campbell, my eighth-grade science teacher; this was around 1970, and the first year we were forced into school integration. Until my escape on the Overground Railroad (Greyhound Bus) after completing high school, I grew up in the Mississippi Delta, a state still mired in the legacy of the Confederacy and, for many African Americans, still wreaks of racism, poverty, and inequality. 

I implore African Americans and other people of color to beware and not be fooled and fueled by these blatant shameless Negroaches and peddlers re-adopting second-class citizenship for Black and Brown people while they line their pockets, trading positions and wealth for our continuing inequality, injustice, and suffering.  These Black confederates are exceedingly excited to drive their Trump MAGA motor coach through African American communities, sit in black barbershops and churches for white racists determined to identify low-information and unsuspecting black voters to join with them to participate in their own demise.  Besides pardoning a few Black rapper felons and sending out a couple of dollars during the pandemic, Trump did nothing to move the economic needle for Black Americans. What Trump has done for African Americans and other people of color is set race relations in this country back more than 100 years with help from the Black Confederates. 

Racist America, understand this: My contemporaries and I, who endured this country’s Jim Crow Era, are not going back to that time. We will not be singing “Dixie” or longing for the land of cotton. Our history in this nation will never allow us to sit idly by and watch this happen again. If a bloodbath is what the U.S. Supreme Court, federal courts, and red states are setting us up for under another potential Trump presidency, then if we must, we will meet you on the battlefields. The backs of Black women have always been the bridge where many crossed over to save America from itself and will be again as we step up to elect Harris-Walz to the presidency — to continue the greatest Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion (DEI) Biden-Harris Administration in this nation’s history. Now that is the real problem the media and many white Democrats and Republicans had with Biden—not his age.