Thread: Trump gives young feminist the brush-off on equal pay and abortion

Trump gives young feminist the brush-off on equal pay and abortion: 'You're going to make the same IF you do as good a job – and I happen to be pro-life'

By David Martosko, Us Political Editor For Dailymail.com

Published: 12:27 EST, 12 October 2015 | Updated: 15:52 EST, 12 October 2015

Donald Trump gave a young feminist the back of his hand on Monday, dismissing her demand for absolute pay equity by insisting that women and men should earn the same salary only if their job performances match up.

'I want to get paid the same as a man, and I thinik you understand that,' the unidentified woman asked him during the Q&A portion of a bipartisan 'No Labels' event in New Hampshire.

'So if you become president, will a woman make the same as a man? And do I get to choose what I do with my body?'

Following applause from a crowd comprised largely of political centrists, Trump said: 'You're going to make the same if you do as good a job – and I happen to be pro-life. Okay? I'm pro-life.'

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Trump took questions following a 30-minute speech at the Manchester, NH event organized by former Utah Republican Gov. Jon Huntsman and former Connecticut Democratic Sen. Joe Lieberman, the No Labels group's co-chairs.

The feminism questions, asked by a woman who appeared to be a college student, came in two parts.

'So maybe I'm wrong. Maybe you can prove me wrong,' she said at first. 'But I don't think you're a friend to woman [sic].'

Trump jumped in, joking with the audience of 2,000 that 'I knew I shouldn't have picked her.'

He rattled off his gender-equity bona fides, including what he said was a history of putting women at the top of mission-critical business enterprises.

'I respect women incredibly,' Trump said. 'I have had women working for me in positions that they've never worked in terms of construction, in terms of so many different jobs. I had a woman who was in charge of the building of Trump Tower, many years ago, before anybody would have even thought of it, and did a fantastic job.'

'I have given women more opportunity than I would say virtually anybody in the construction industry,' he said.

His young inquisitor, though, demanded a chance to ask a specific question, focusing on pay equity and abortion.

The New Hampshire audience wasn't a typical Trump-friendly crowd. Its rowdiest moment came earlier in the morning when a spandex-clad mascot, 'Mr. Problem Solver,' led the audience in call-and-response protest chants.

Organizers put together a day-long summit largely for political centrists with limited partisan appeal.

They applauded loudly when another questioner, Harvard graduate student Micaela Connery, asked Trump whethher 'divisive language' he deployed on the presidential campaign trail serves to 'undermine' his message.

Trump was having none of it.

'I went to Ivy League schools. I know what's divisive. I know what's not divisive, in all fairness,' he said.

'I don't want to necessarily be politically correct all the way down the line. ... I see politicians, they're afraid to say anything because it's not politically correct. And they know the answers, and they refuse to give 'em because they're afraid it's not going to be politically correct!'

'And I'm going to have to be who I am,' he said.

Unlike most of the Q&A participants who asked their questions from the audience, the young feminist made her pitch from right behind The Donald on the stage and declared that 'I don't think you're a friend to woman'

Trump suggested, however, that as the Republican field continues to thin out he will have fewer campaign wars of words with the survivors.

'Many are going to be dropping out, I think, very soon, if they're smart,' he said. 'They're going to be dropping out. Many. Too many people! Too many people!'

'When it becomes a different kind of a situation, you'll see I'm going to be much less divisive.'

Trump described himself as a 'counter-puncher' who seldom picks fights, a quality that he finds lacking in the White House.

'I don't think anybody in this room wants to have somebody that's not going to fight back,' he said.

'The problem we have in this country is we have people now who don't fight back. ... The country is being hurt tremendously by it.'

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Conservatives want to deny the fact that Mitt Romney lost the election because he lost the women's vote. Republicans need to wake up and understand that we can't win these important elections without the women vote. To win the women vote our candidates have to understand the women's issues and solutions. I think Donald Trump will do much more for women in the areas of job creation and through that wages and other opportunities, which make him the best candidate for President of the United States in that regard.

But in that regard, he needs to understand and comprehend that discrimination isn't about "if you do as good a job as someone else", that is not the issue of an equal pay for equal work question. When you put a condition of performance on the payscale against women, you are admitting that you do not understand that there is no reason to even presume there would be a difference in performance based on one's gender. The notion that women are entitled to equal pay for equal work assumes the same performance. People regardless of gender to perform better should make more money than those who perform worse, regardless of gender.

His answer to this question was not a good moment for Trump. He needs to spend some time grasping the issue of equal pay for equal work so he can correctly respond to these questions. Trust me, there will be ads all over the TV that capture his statement at this summit that will hurt him with the women vote.

Women are not required to meet any different performance standard than men. There are men performing way below the standards that women are performing, yet men make more money, a lot more money, than women doing not only the same work, but a higher quality of work. On this issue, Trump failed.

The second part of the young woman's question was under your administration will I have the right to control my own body. The answer under the law is yes, of course you do. His job as President of the United States has nothing to do with his personal belief or notion or creed or whatever it is pertaining to "Pro-Life". He will never have to face the decisions a woman has to face with regard to her body, the question wasn't about what his personal view is of his body or someone else's, the question was will a woman have the right to control her own body under his administration and under constitutional law which as President he is obligated to uphold and protect is "yes, absolutely."

So on this issue as well, Trump failed.

It's a long way to the nomination and even longer to the general election. Trump will fail to win the General Election if he doesn't grasp these women's issues and address them correctly, according to law and our Constitution. This election is not about taking civil rights away from the American People including women. Women already have the constitutional right to demand equal pay for equal work. Women already have the constitutional right to control their own body and terminate an unwanted pregnancy. Until he clears his head of the twisted garbage the religionists have implanted during the primary, then he will lose the General Election, for the same reason Mitt Romney lost the General Election, because he will lose the women vote, for the same reasons Mitt Romney lost it, for the same reasons all Republican candidates will lose the General Election.

It's the Great Tragedy that has beset my beloved Republican Party, a viral infection of religionist based "freedom for me, but not for thee", and "equal rights only if you prove you're equal".

It's sad, because those views are so contrary to the real principles of the Republican Party upon which it was founded and have given so much to our country and citizens.

There are few fans more devoted to this candidacy than I am. I truly believe that he will Make America Great Again. But even I have a problem casting a vote for a candidate who can't address these two very simple issues correctly. Even I have a huge problem with a candidate for President who doesn't understand his job as President includes a sworn oath to uphold the US Constitution with regards to all matters, but especially with regards to women who are the majority of our population.

A little more time spent getting up to speed on women's issues and a little less time Tweeting should be the Trump Order of the Day.

And it's not all Trump's fault. He's for equal pay for equal work, so why didn't he say so? Because there are conservatives who oppose the equal pay for equal work bill. He's Pro-Choice, and believes in a woman's right to control her own body. You think for a minute that if one of his daughters had an unwanted pregnancy she wouldn't have been swooped off to the most private and best facility in the world to terminate that pregnancy? Oh puleeze! There wouldn't have even been a discussion about it. So why does he not answer this young woman's question correctly and instead disses her with "I'm Pro-Life, okay?" Because our twisted and sick Republican Party won't support the equal pay for equal work bill or a Pro-Choice candidate who upholds the rule of law and the US Constitution.

So when it all comes tumbling down, Republicans need to realize that they created the political dilemma for our candidates that is so bad that it makes someone as competent and good as Donald Trump look like a fool.

"When you put a condition of performance on the payscale against women, you are admitting that you do not understand that there is no reason to even presume there would be a difference in performance based on one's gender."

Again, theory vs. reality. I worked in a craft union, that with other crafts goes after women members as Women in Trades project. http://www.aflcio.org/Issues/Civil-a.../Working-Women

It sounds nice---why shouldn't lady plumber get what a man plumber gets? Well, when do you see women plumbers threading 3 inch pipe, Passing up 100 lbs of old sewer pipe out of a ditch 15 feet down, crawling way back in some filthy, rat-s--t laden hole and dragging a forty pound tool with them that they then have to use above their head? In the carpenter trade women never have to: wrangle 60 lb sheets of plywood up some narrow stairway to upper floors, swing a 12 pound sledge to drive splintering 2x4 stakes into hard clay soil, carry 100 lb. beams around.....No, basically they are eye candy for some jackass, someone's girlfriend who is broke because of their mutual drug habit, some bimbo that has gotten knocked up twice and is always running out of money. Then they have to be given the easy jobs, so that the company doesn't get sued for their lack of production.

We had a smart alecky female apprentice who just journeyed out and was given the easiest job on the team of providing hand signals to a crane operator. Unfortunately this was in a nuclear power plant. She gave the wrong signal, the crane hit a guard rail, and Bingo! the power company was awarded a $200,000 fine by the US nuclear regulatory commission. Too bad she didn't crap her designer jeans.

And for that matter, the jobs where they do excel at are usually just helping some snoot nosed corporation to fleece the US consumers. Carly Fiorina as a good example.

Judy wrote:

Conservatives want to deny the fact that Mitt Romney lost the election because he lost the women's vote. Republicans need to wake up and understand that we can't win these important elections without the women vote. To win the women vote our candidates have to understand the women's issues and solutions.

Actually Romney won the higher percentage of the white woman vote. Yes, he did lose by a large percentage to black and Hispanic women, but an argument could be made that it had little to do with women issues. I say that because we know Obama took most of the black votes, male and female, simply because he was black. As for Hispanic women, I think immigration was the issue that guided them to vote Obama.

That young lady standing there with her hands on her hips and a bossy look.... she looks just ridiculous.

W

Originally Posted by ALIPAC

That young lady standing there with her hands on her hips and a bossy look.... she looks just ridiculous.

W

Why would you say that? I thought she looked adorable and brave. Her question was very good, hit two important issues in one little sentence.

Originally Posted by MW

Judy wrote:



Actually Romney won the higher percentage of the white woman vote. Yes, he did lose by a large percentage to black and Hispanic women, but an argument could be made that it had little to do with women issues. I say that because we know Obama took most of the black votes, male and female, simply because he was black. As for Hispanic women, I think immigration was the issue that guided them to vote Obama.

Well, he didn't get this white woman's vote or Mom's, or my sister's, or any other female in our family. It doesn't take too many of those to lose an election.

In Romney's case, he lost the gender cap by the widest margin of any President since 1952.

___________________________________

http://www.gallup.com/poll/158588/ge...p-history.aspx

November 9, 2012

Gender Gap in 2012 Vote Is Largest in Gallup's History
by Jeffrey M. Jones
Obama wins women's vote; Romney has eight-point edge among men

PRINCETON, NJ -- President Barack Obama won the two-party vote among female voters in the 2012 election by 12 points, 56% to 44%, over Republican challenger Mitt Romney. Meanwhile, Romney won among men by an eight-point margin, 54% to 46%. That total 20-point gender gap is the largest Gallup has measured in a presidential election since it began compiling the vote by major subgroups in 1952.

Gender Gap in Voting for President, Final Pre-Election Polls, 1952-2012
Track the 2012 race and compare it to past elections >

Notably, Obama's 12-percentage-point advantage among women is slightly less than the 14-point advantage he had over John McCain in 2008, while Romney improved on McCain's performance among men by eight points. Thus, the narrowing of Obama's winning margin between the two elections, from seven points to two points, can be ascribed mainly to men's shifting more Republican.

Gallup's historical estimates of the gender gap are based on its final pre-election estimate of the major candidate vote for each election, with the results adjusted, if necessary, to correct for any difference between Gallup's pre-election estimate of the vote and the actual election results. In the 2012 election, Gallup's final unallocated estimate of the vote, based on Nov. 1-4 tracking, showed Obama favored by 48% of likely voters and Romney by 49%. Thus, for this analysis, Obama's support among men and women was weighted upward slightly to match his actual 50% support in the election, and Romney's was weighted downward to match his 48% support level.

The gender gap has been evident in presidential voting since at least 1952, though it tended to be somewhat muted in the 1960-1972 elections, averaging just four points. Two of those elections, 1964 and 1972, were landslide victories for incumbent presidents. The other two were highly competitive contests. The actual percentages of the major-party vote each candidate received from men and women can be found in Gallup's election center.

Prior to this year, the largest gender gap in Gallup polling history was 18 points in the 1984 election that saw Republican Ronald Reagan win a second term in office. Majorities of both men and women voted for Reagan in that election, but he won among men by 28 points (64% to 36%) and among women by 10 points (55% to 45%). It is unclear to what extent the presence on the Democratic ticket of Geraldine Ferraro, the first woman to be a major party's nominee for vice president, had on the vote of women that year.

Women have supported the Democratic candidate in each of the last six elections. Men favored the Democrat in only two of the last six -- 1992 and 1996 -- and in only four of the 16 elections since 1952.

Overall, since 1952, men and women have differed as to the party's candidate they favored six times, including 1960, 1968, 1976, 2000, 2004, and 2012. In 2008, McCain ran even among men, while women preferred Obama by a large margin.

Implications

The gender gap continues to be a significant factor in U.S. presidential elections, and the preferences of men and women have never differed more than in the 2012 election. There are a number of possible reasons for the increase in the gender gap this year. For example, Romney's business background may have been more appealing to men than to women. Obama's campaign stressed maintaining the social safety net, raising taxes on the wealthy, maintaining abortion rights, and requiring healthcare coverage for contraception -- all in contrast to Romney's more conservative positions on these issues of potential interest to women.

The Democratic Party will likely attempt to secure Obama's election advantage among women by carrying forward the themes that seemed to work in future elections at all levels of government. It remains to be seen whether and how the Republican Party will change course to try to broaden its appeal to women without forfeiting the strong support of men.

____________________________

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a...me_voters.html

We Won the White Vote

Romney lost. So why do his advisers brag about the demographic groups they won?
By William Saletan

In the three weeks since the election, we’ve heard excuses and explanations from Mitt Romney, his pollsters, and his chief campaign strategist. Romney’s pollsters published their initial thoughts on Nov. 12. Two days later, Romney and his chief pollster issued a postmortem report to his campaign donors on a pair of conference calls. This week, we got another review from Romney’s polling firm, an op-ed from his senior strategist, and a follow-up interview on CBS.

The overall tenor of these reflections is that Romney and his advisers are proud of what they accomplished. They won the demographic groups they set out to win. The only problem is that these groups didn’t add up to a majority. The operation was a success, though the patient died.

Let’s take the putative success stories one by one.

1. Incomes over $50,000. A few days ago, in a review of the exit polls, Glen Bolger of Public Opinion Strategies, who polled for Romney’s super PAC and for Karl Rove’s American Crossroads, pointed out that “Romney won middle income voters ($50-100K) by six points.” Bolger was troubled that Romney lost the election while winning this group. But two days later, in a Washington Post op-ed, Romney’s chief strategist, Stuart Stevens, converted this statistic into a boast. “Romney carried the majority of every economic group except those with less than $50,000 a year in household income. That means he carried the majority of middle-class voters,” Stevens crowed. Brushing aside the campaign’s critics, Stevens concluded that “any party that captures the majority of the middle class must be doing something right.”

Sorry to break it to you, gents, but if you check the most recent U.S. census data (Table A-1 of this report), you’ll discover that 49.8 percent of Americans have less than $50,000 a year in household income. And if you look at the right-hand columns, you’ll find that median household income is slightly more than $50,000. So when you brag about winning “every economic group except those with less than $50,000 a year in household income,” that doesn’t mean you won middle-income voters. It means you don’t know what middle-income is. And it means you’re dismissing 50 percent of Americans, which makes you 3 percentage points more out of touch than Romney and pretty much kills you in any election where lower-income people show up to vote.

2. Whites under 30. In his op-ed, Stevens touted Romney’s success with young voters: “While John McCain lost white voters younger than 30 by 10 points, Romney won those voters by seven points, a 17-point shift.” But wait a minute. The joint national exit poll says President Obama beat Romney 60 to 36 percent among voters under 30. How does Stevens turn this into a Romney triumph? By excluding minorities. According to the exit poll, roughly 35 to 40 percent of voters under 30 were black or Latino. Set those people aside, and voila, Romney won young voters.

3. White women. In his Nov. 12 analysis, Bolger discounted the idea of a Republican problem with women:

The first thing I want to point out about the exit polls is that Mitt Romney won white women by 14 points—56%-42%. … So, the next time you hear Republicans are struggling with “women”—push back with that. Yes, the GOP is getting killed with minority women—4% with African American women, 23% with Latino women—but the whole “war on women cost Romney the election” is simply not true.

Really? Let’s look at that exit poll again. Romney’s performance among white women was 6 points worse than his performance among white men. His performance among black women was 8 points worse than his performance among black men. His performance among Latino women was 10 points worse than his performance among Latino men. Shrugging this off as a problem with minorities, not women, ignores a gender pattern that extended across all ethnic groups. Oh, and Romney won the election by 7 points among men. That tells you all you need to know about the GOP’s awesome relationship with women.

4. Independents. In his Nov. 26 analysis, Bolger noted: “Romney won Independents by five points. That’s better than George W. Bush in 2004 by six net points. … Romney was the first national candidate in exit polling history to decisively win Independents and lose the election.” This paradox completely shocked the Romney team, as Slate’s John Dickerson reported three days after the election:

They believed Obama would win only if he won over independent voters. So Romney focused on independents and the economy, which was their key issue. The Republican ground game was focused on winning those voters. “We thought the only way to win was doing well with independents and we were kicking ass with independents,” says a top aide. One senior adviser bet me that if Obama won Ohio, he would donate $1,000 for every point that Romney won independents to my favorite charity. (That would be a $10,000 hit since Romney lost Ohio but won independents by 10 points).

Again, Romney won the battle but lost the war. Capturing independents by five points gave Romney a 1.5 percent advantage in the overall vote—not nearly enough to overcome the 4.5 percent advantage Obama got from the predominance of Democratic voters, who outnumbered Republicans 38 to 32 percent.

In all four cases, the pattern is the same. Romney won the groups he targeted, and his team continues to point out proudly that he won them. But mathematically, these groups no longer decide elections. In a Nov. 12 memo, Romney’s polling firm asserted that “our research did what it is designed to do—provide strategic counsel to campaigns about key target groups and messages designed to help them win.” But what happens when the “key target groups” aren't key? You can exclude blacks, Latinos, surplus Democrats, and people who earn less than $50,000 from your target groups and your poll analysis. But you can’t exclude them from the election.

Romney, in his postmortem conference calls, pretended not to have played this game. "The president's campaign, if you will, focused on giving targeted groups a big gift," he argued. Specifically, Romney said Obama had targeted “the African-American community, the Hispanic community and young people.” By contrast, Romney claimed his own campaign had focused on “talking about big issues for the whole country.” Stevens, in his op-ed and in his follow-up interview, made the same pitch: While Obama played small ball, Romney “wanted to talk about big national issues.”

Please. You guys played the same demographic game the Democrats did. The difference is, your target groups don’t add up to a majority. Narrowing the electorate on paper to the groups that favored you isn't how you retool for the next election. It's how you lost.

William Saletan's latest short takes on the news, via Twitter:
Tweets by @saletan

http://www.slate.com/articles/news_a...me_voters.html
____________________________

Romney lost the women vote, referred to as the "gender gap", by 20 points, the highest in US history since 1952, when Gallup started doing the post-election surveys.

What race women are is irrelevant. In this country, it's 1 person, 1 vote, regardless of race.

When Republican platforms are anti-women, anti-equal pay, anti-women's rights, you are insulting the intelligence of most women. There is no honest woman who wants to be paid less than man for equal work, and I doubt any man in her life would want her to be, so who are these people opposing equal pay for equal work? MORONS. And at the end of the day, the same is true on abortion rights. No honest woman would want to force their female family members into childbirth against their will and no man who cared about her would either. Sure, it's easy to stand back and judge a policy when it may not apply to you and decide what someone else should do. It's like in college, we used to talk about how all the Catholics were opposed to abortion, until they needed one.

These truly bizarre inexplicable platforms in the Republican Party platform is killing our country, because you're forcing voters to choose between equal pay for equal work and the right of someone in their family to terminate an unwanted pregnancy and other issues we stand for like stopping illegal immigration and ending free trade treason. The first two platforms serve no purpose, no public policy, are totally UnAmerican, and are just too weird for most Americans to cast a vote for.

Yes, you can get candidates into Congress through sections of the country, but only for awhile, and not long enough to achieve our other important goals which need strong majorities in both chambers of Congress and the White House.

So I'm hoping the National Republican Platform Committee has the common sense, intelligence and loyalty to the American People to change it and support equal rights for everyone, including women and go neutral and silent on abortion, the way it used to be.

Then that frees our candidates to go out there and be candidates for all the people of the United States, the way it was intended.

http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/2016...-plant-n443476

Trump Accuses Tough Questioner of Being a Bush Plant

by Leigh Ann Caldwell

After a member of the audience defiantly challenged Donald Trump at an event in New Hampshire Monday evening, Trump said the young woman was a plant by the Jeb Bush campaign.

Trump tweeted quoting a conservative website that said the woman was an intern for Bush.

Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump

"@Politics_Reddit: That feminist who called out Trump last night? She's a Jeb intern. http://www.theconservativetreehouse....p-narrativehit …" Jeb always gets caught, sad!
6:02 AM - 13 Oct 2015

The woman, identified as Lauren Batchelder, demanded to know if Trump would ensure that woman are paid the same amount as a man if he became president and if she would have say over her body.

Trump responded that a woman "will make the same if you do as good a job." In response to the abortion question, Trump simply said, "I'm pro-life."

The Bush campaign responded that she has never been paid but volunteers at events.

"Like many in NH, Lauren is a student at St. A's who is passionate about and active in politics and attended this event on her own accord. While this question was not sanctioned by the campaign, we can't help but notice Mr. Trump does seem to be very sensitive about being challenged by women," a campaign aide said.

Captainron:

It seems you are familiar with hard labor as am I. Have you noticed how when you see a crew working on road repairs you never see a woman swinging a sledge hammer or shoveling hot asphalt? You can always tell the females under the safety helmets and jackets, they are the ones on the end holding a stop sign. Yet you want to bet that if they do get a lower wage (which I am not sure is true) it will be described as "a woman working on a road crew gets less money then the men." This is one way they cook the books to claim women are being screwed on wages.

Yes, I was a good student but had to buy a home at an early age. So then I combined my woodworking interest with home upgrading and got into carpentry. I got into the union, but just as the Carter recession was pushing our state way over the cliff. So it was really a struggle and I went through several years mostly unemployed, barely able to make the bills. Then...I started saving really fast. Just enough to get scammed by a mortgage broker in the early 90's. So basically a total of 20 years went to waste. And the work was always fraught with all sorts of frustrations.

Yes, women would get those easy jobs. In this case they would have them hold a marker as a guy sighted lines for building layout. Then for example to get women to go in via Women in Trades they take them to a power mitre saw and say "Yes you can do finish carpentry!" But women don't even try to hang 80lb office doors , like I do by myself. Then to put the hardware on, you have to drill through metal over your head with a lot of strength. And you have to get everything accurate or it will come loose or not work right. Or you may have a very expensive section of a store fixture that was custom made clear across the country, and one miscalculation or slip up and you've wasted a thousand dollar item and set that part of the job back while they get a replacement fabricated. Women are afraid to tackle those kinds of things----unless they have very close supervision. So they really are just permanent apprentices.

This is all just a politically correct farce, and done to appease the "minority social justice" police. We also had blacks, and usually they had to be given the more basic jobs that they could figure out. In Seattle they would often give them weatherproofing jobs, instead of the actual construction work. They would get that wrong, too. It's all just a big farce and the Carpenters union boss was known as a dirtbag tax evader and organizer of illegal aliens. A worse deal than the Teamsters in the 1960's.