Biden-Harris ticket has the look of an American future unbound by inequality

Sunday, Aug. 16, 2020 | 2 a.m.

Hours before Joe Biden selected Kamala Harris as his running mate, President Donald Trump told a radio talk show host that “some people” would say men were “insulted” about Biden’s pledge to choose a woman to join him on the Democratic ticket.

And with that, voters got a crystallizing reminder of the stakes involved for all Americans in the 202 election. Biden and Harris represent a step forward toward greater ethnic and gender equality, while a Trump victory would mean four more years of full-on racism and assaults on equality and women’s health.

Let’s run the president’s comment through the Trump Translation Device and see what he was really saying.

“Some people”: Trump and others like him who are afflicted with a toxic mix of white-man privilege and misogyny. And it’s axiomatic that whenever Trump says “some people,” he’s referring to exactly one person: himself.

“Insulted”: Furious at the thought that a man — especially a white one — isn’t automatically given an inside track to any position of authority across society.

Trump didn’t offer details, but he was clearly crying white male victimhood, which is his default condition.

But Biden did nothing wrong. The nation is long, long overdue for female leadership in the White House.

A full 100 years after the ratification of the 19th Amendment, the fact that there hasn’t been a woman president or vice president is a shameful extension of our nation’s legacy of systematically discriminating against women.

This country has never lacked for extraordinary women leaders, and especially today, the breadth and caliber of female leadership in the U.S. is incredible. Look at the record number of women in Congress this year — 127 combined in the Senate and House. Look at the nine women governors or the 2,156 women legislators nationwide. Look especially at Nevada, where women now hold majorities in both chambers of the Legislature and on the state Supreme Court — the first time it has happened in this nation.

When it comes to Trump, women have been the most compelling force standing against his abuses of power: from the enormous women’s march the day after his inauguration, to House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and the women of the Congress, to the forceful repudiation of Trump in the 2018 elections, to Black women anchoring the electorate for Democrats, to the “Wall of Moms” in Portland, at every turn women have defended our democracy from a president who would destroy it.

In the broad arc of history, it is clear this is an era when women are taking the wheel of power and expertly steering us in the right direction.

Now, Americans are increasingly demanding that women be given equal representation. But there’s still a long way to go, especially at the federal level. Despite holding a record number of seats, women still make up only 23% of Congress.

So Biden was acknowledging a simple reality: Women rightfully demand and deserve power in our society. And with Harris, he has an extraordinarily capable vice presidential candidate.

As one of Biden’s opponents during this year’s primary, as a senator from California, and as the former city attorney for San Francisco and later the attorney general for the state of California, Harris is a proven leader and a political star.

With Biden and Harris in the White House, Americans would get relief from the Trump administration’s sweeping attacks on gender equality and women’s health. Trump’s across-the board assault includes:

• Trying to erode equal pay. One example: Tearing up President Barack Obama’s order requiring companies with 100 or more employees to report worker income based on race and gender. That data is used by policymakers to address the gender income gap. The women’s advocacy community sued and won a court ruling, but the administration is appealing it.

• Packing the federal courts and U.S. attorney offices with men. According to reports, only 24% of Trump’s judicial nominees have been women. And among the 93 U.S. attorneys across the country, only seven are women. “This is no coincidence. It’s an insult to qualified candidates who are women and people of color,” read an analysis for the Brennan Center for Justice.

• Weakening Title IX in general and specifically its protections against sexual assault on college campuses, which will disproportionately affect women.

• Widespread rollbacks of health protections, including blocking funding for Planned Parenthood and undercutting the federal Title X family-planning program over opposition to abortion. Planned Parenthood is already prohibited from using federal funds for abortion, and abortion is only a small part of the services the organization provides. Meanwhile, Planned Parenthood offers a wide variety of critical health services for more than 2 million patients and reaches millions more through reproductive education programs, contraception services and more. As for Title X clinics, those are no longer required to provide counseling on such topics as prenatal care, delivery and adoption.

These are just a few of many examples of Trump’s anti-woman agenda. Then there’s Trump’s stream of denigrating comments about women, the numerous sexual assault accusations lodged against him and his disgusting history of behavior from his days of walking in on undressed, underaged girls while running beauty pageants.

His comment about men being insulted about Biden opting against male candidates is part and parcel to all of this. It’s one of several times he’s cried reverse-discrimination and male victimhood, a false equivalency used for decades by opponents of affirmative action to erode equal rights.

History is swinging. Trump can stay stuck in the past, but the future of America involves more women leaders.