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Sarah Huckabee Sanders Tries to Insult Kamala Over Not Having Kids, and it Backfires on Her BIG Time

Really, Sarah? Are you going THAT low?

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The GOP presidential ticket this year has made pretty clear that they won’t be courting the women’s vote, mostly through statements by the poster boy for the patriarchy, JD Vance.

Honestly, they’ve given critics and the media miles of material to work with, from coining the term “childless cat ladies” as being something to be ashamed of to telling reporters that “two wrongs don’t make a right” when explaining why Vance opposes exceptions for abortion in cases of rape and incest.

At one point, the vice presidential candidate tore into working mothers as women who wanted to “shunt their kids into crap day care so they can enjoy more ‘freedom.'”

It seems strange to criticize someone on the ticket more than I do Trump himself, but as bad as JD Vance has been on the topic of women, it’s when other women join the chorus that I get really miffed.

Sarah Huckabee Sanders is the latest to the woman-bashing party.

During the White House Correspondents’ Dinner that was headlined by Michelle Wolf back in 2018, the comedian summed up Sarah’s views on (other) women (besides herself) pretty succinctly:

“We are graced with Sarah’s presence tonight. I have to say I’m a little star-struck. I love you as Aunt Lydia in The Handmaid’s Tale. Mike Pence, if you haven’t seen it, you would love it.”

Aunt Lydia is, of course, the cruel, merciless matriarch from the book of the same name and the TV series. The entire premise is a dystopian world in which women are used basically as baby vessels.

Boy, did Michelle Wolf have no idea how right she was.

At Donald Trump’s town hall in Michigan on Tuesday, Sanders was the host. And even though she was there with Trump, it seemed like she’d have been more at home with Vance.

She began by touting her own humility, because, you know, that’s what you do. When you’re humble, you brag about it.

And what is it that she used as the example of her humility? Well, the fact that she has kids, of course. And then she turned that into an attack on Kamala Harris, who famously does not have biological children.

Reader, let me warn you: This is the part where I get mad in a few different ways.

First of all, as a stepdad to two women, I’m pretty proud of my non-biological kids. I raised the one the turned out to be a psychologist from the age of 5 and the one who ended up an environmental scientist — and women’s advocate — since she was 8.

They may have called me by my first name, but that doesn’t mean I wasn’t up at 4 AM for volleyball tournaments and presiding over my eldest’s wedding. I screened boyfriends and turned them on to good music and helped them tone down some of their more frenetic tendencies.

I was a good dad. And Kamala’s “kids” think she’s a good mom for being a parent in every way except for having given birth to them. Heck, their biological mother thinks the world of Kamala.

Secondly, as a “real” biological father, I don’t know what the hell Sarah’s talking about, kids making her humble. In fact, I have five words for Sarah Huckabee Sanders: I couldn’t be more proud.

But there she was, bashing her own fellow mother for not being a “real” mom.

Forget about the deliberate mispronunciation of the vice president’s name, which she’s known how to pronounce for years. This is straight-up disgusting. This makes JD Vance look like he brings home roses every night.

Some people were angry at Sarah for the same reason I gave first: Step-parents are real parents in every way.

That number doesn’t even INCLUDE me or people like me, the parents of adult stepchildren. We stop getting counted once the kids pass 18, or never get counted to begin with if the stepkids are grown before their bio parent meets a new spouse. It could be double that number. That would be a quarter of the country, or about the percentage of America that elected Trump.

Other folks on social media simply stated the obvious:

But the one thing I didn’t see anyone point out — the thing that occurred to me FIRST, in fact — is the thing that I said I was mad about second, kind of.

I said my kids make me proud, not humble. I know what Sarah meant when she said it, even outside the obvious jab at Kamala’s kids not being biologically related. Kids remind you that there is more to the world than your own little existence. We always give our kids precedence when it comes to their needs. That’s the humility she tried to claim for herself.

But when she tried to turn it into an insult, she changed what she meant by humble, opting instead for meaning the opposite of arrogant. She thinks Kamala is arrogant.

Say that again in your head and then remember who she was hosting, the guy who she worked for. You know, the MOST arrogant man on the planet, who happens to have 5 kids (that he knows of) from 3 wives (and counting?).

I have a message for Sarah Sanders and for the Trump ticket and for all of the Republicans jumping on these insults: Women make up 51.1% of the US population. Get it right, and stop insulting them.

Andrew Simpson
meet the author

Andrew is a dark blue speck in deep red Central Washington, writing with the conviction of 18 years at the keyboard and too much politics to even stand. When not furiously stabbing the keys on breaking news stories, he writes poetry, prose, essays, haiku, lectures, stories for grief therapy, wedding ceremonies, detailed instructions on making doughnuts from canned biscuit dough (more sugar than cinnamon — duh), and equations to determine the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow. A girlfriend, a dog, two cats, and two birds round out the equation, and in his spare time, Drewbear likes to imagine what it must be like to have spare time.

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