Guardian's "Women Are Pissed" Looks at NorCo

An excellent British newspaper, the Guardian, has been doing a series it calls The Promise. After voting twice for Barack Obama, the county went red in 2016 and voted for Donald Trump. This series explains what happened and periodically asks whether the enthusiasm for a New York billionaire who claims to speak for blue collar workers. The latest story, "Women are Pissed," asserts that "doubts have grown locally about whether Trump could win the county again, which could have implications for his national staying power. And women are at the center of the story." The women featured include incoming NorCo Council members Peg Ferraro, Tara Zrinski and Lori Vargo Heffner. Zrinski and Heffner never held office before.

Tara Zrinski: We Need More Women in Office

“There were people who, when I knocked on a door, said, ‘You’re a woman, I’m voting for you, we need more women in office’,” said Zrinksi, a first-time candidate. “And I heard that theme a lot.”

Lori Vargo Heffner: What's For Supper?

“[W]hen I get done with a campaign event, I still have to go home and do the laundry. I walk in and my dad goes, ‘What’s for supper?’ I’m still expected to have those traditional roles, beyond my workday. Whereas I know that my colleagues who are male had wives to support them and be home for them, and their wives were at the events with them.

“I don’t want to demean my male colleagues. People just have different expectations of women, I think.”

Peg Ferraro: Women Have Come Into Their Own

“I just do not appreciate the gender thing,” Ferraro said in a phone interview. “I think if they’re qualified, we all have to be judged equally. I think sometimes the perception is that women are a little bit more caring, women are a little bit more honest, trustworthy. But that was years ago, when I ran the first time. We’re talking the 80s.

“At this day and age, I think that women have come into their own enough that I’m hoping that we can be looked at for our competence, and our skills – for what we bring to the table. Not just because we’re a women.”

In the meantime, Authoritarian Donald Trump managed to kill two birds with one stone yesterday. At a ceremony ostensibly honoring the Navajo code talkers who foiled the Japanese during WWII, he inexplicably referred to US Senator Elizabeth Warren as Pocohontas. he managed to insult native Americans and women in one fell swoop.

"But do you know what? I like you," he said to the code talkers.

Afterwords, the code talkers sent a few messages.

"Bilagáana t'óó hodiilzha' "(Ditsy Anglo), said one.

"Ahályání!" (Idiot!), said the other.

Interestingly, in a display of Trump's  typical insensitivity, the ceremony was conducted under a portrait of Andrew Jackson, whose nickname was "Indian Killer." In 1830, he signed the Indian Removal Act that relocated 60,000 native Americans away from the Southeast US. It is believed that 15,000 died along the way.