Editor’s Column: Male Supremacy Versus Democracy for Everyone is On the Ballot This Fall

With now less than three weeks before the critical U.S. midterm elections, President Biden made a powerful move this week to address what is naturally the most critical issue facing the nation now.

That is the unprecedented assault on women and their partners embodied in the pro-Trump majority on the U.S. Supreme Court that overturned Roe Vs. Wade earlier this year.

The usual pundits are completely missing the powerful impact of this reality on what is already beginning to be expressed in the midterm voting where record turnouts are already happening in advance of the Nov. 8 election day.

It is downright astonishing to see how miscalculations are operative in the lead up to this huge election. It is clear that Biden has seen this, which is why he’s singled the issue out with his speech and promises this week.

Let us be clear here. This is not an “issue” in the usual sense. This has been an assault on women, all women, and their partners, as well. It is a far bigger matter than all the election pundits are trying to convince us about. The so-called polls are identifying the biggest issues as exactly what the Republicans hope they will be, on the economy and inflation.

If this causes the Democrats to avoid the central nature of the abortion issue, then this is the best chance that the GOP has of tamping down the brewing revolt of women against this unprecedented assault on their bodies, to make the prisoners inside their own biology.

It is instructive to see how male supremacist ideology works as a dominant factor in our society, to the point of blinding the public to some of the most egregious actions taken in a war on women that we’ve been exposed to this year and that no one except women themselves acknowledge.

Given the nature of this full court press against women, rooted in deep seeded philosophical and ideological bias, many women are being subjected to self-doubt and fear about daring to locate the center of their political consciousness on this point.

They are being convinced to subordinate their righteous anger and concern for the impact of the Supreme Court ruling to the issues as defined by “their men,” namely, timeless concerns for the economy and inflation.

To the extent that women have been buffaloed into adopting their male perspective, it is only evidence of the powerful impact of their systemic oppression. But I think that most women are not about to accept this, though they are not likely to let on their true sentiments on this matter, except in the privacy of the voting booth.

Not unrelated to this is the serious threat to the rights of lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) citizens, as well. The incredible hatred behind the movement to ban abortion in any form is also geared up to reintroduce prejudice and legal assaults on anyone who identifies with any form of behavior that is not in agreement with the behaviors sanctioned by a white male supremacist social paradigm. That is, male dominant control of subservient women and children in a so-called nuclear family.

The dominant white male is, in this paradigm, to have dominion over his obedient spouse and children and the subordinate peoples of the territories that he is to have under his thumb.

It is vital for the public to wake up to the threat this represents to us all. When the public recognizes that democracy is under threat in the current political environment, it is as defined by this male supremacist paradigm. It does not allow for a rich and wide array of racial, personality, gender and other factors that go into the full range of what we’ve recognized over the centuries about the impact of “equality” and the affirmation of fundamental rights that apply to all human beings to fill out what our nation founded itself on as the Founding Fathers’ commitment to the notion that “all persons are created equal,” and are due the protections and rights of all such persons under the law.

The male chauvinist dominion over others versus the democratic ideal spelled out in our Constitution are where the battlelines are now, once again, confronting our population.