In a Wednesday piece for Raw Story , Washington Monthly columnist Nancy LeTourneau argued that Donald Trump and the Republican Party have “woken up a sleeping giant” by offending American mothers.
The writer pointed to the recent polls that show Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden leading Trump by historic margins in the suburbs and noted that the Democratic wins in the 2018 midterms were reportedly driven by successes in those areas. She also highlighted that these wins occurred in parallel to the biggest gender gap in American political history.
“The term ‘resistance’ has been used to describe everything from Black Lives Matter to the Bernie Sanders campaign,” she wrote. “But we must never forget the role that women (especially mothers) played. It all started with the Women’s March the same weekend that Trump was inaugurated.”
LeTourneau noted that Trump’s treatment of immigrant children caused some white evangelical mothers in Texas to speak out against him and pointed to the mothers who showed up in Portland, Oregon, last weekend to protest police brutality. She said she was not surprised given the “Mothers of the Movement” that was created by mothers whose African American children died at the hands of police brutality.
In addition, LeTourneau highlighted Trump’s push to reopen schools amid the coronavirus pandemic and his apparent lack of a specific proposal to do so safely.
“The president and his Republican enablers have woken up a sleeping giant and the day will come when they rue the day they did so.”
According to Mother Jones , Trump’s recent decision to send federal agents to Portland appears to be backfiring on him.
“The video that most people are seeing shows a bunch of scary-looking Trump thugs on the one hand and crowds of middle-class moms singing lullabies on the other,” the piece reads.
Although the publication claimed the stunt is intended to be a televised show of force, it argued that the strategy of the Portland moms may have thwarted the president’s plan.
As for reopening schools, CNN claimed that the move is a risk that is aimed at white suburban voters. In particular, the publication claims that the plan would allow many parents to return to work amid a struggling economy. However, CNN also notes that the plan is receiving pushback from worried parents and teachers who are concerned about the risk to children.
Despite some pushback, Trump has also received support from some COVID-19 experts who believe the benefits outweigh the costs. According to Dr. Amesh Adalja, an infectious disease physician at the Johns Hopkins Center for Health Security in Baltimore, the benefits of reopening schools is backed by epidemiological data.
