The White House hosted a cage fight on the South Lawn to kick off America’s 250th anniversary. Yes, really. Ultimate Fighting Championship on the executive grass. Naturally, three-quarters of Democrats cringed, while most Republicans cheered.
Now, the partisan circus is moving to the National Mall with the Trump administration’s “Great American State Fair.” Blue states are already pulling out. Oregon officials openly complained the event has morphed into a partisan circus. But look past the usual red-versus-blue bickering. There is a much quieter, far more interesting fracture running straight through the middle of the electorate. It is a gender gap, and it is threatening to ruin the party.
Women simply do not care about this milestone the way men do. They are less engaged, less excited, and hold vastly different ideas about what we should actually be celebrating.
New polling from Bowling Green State University and YouGov, surveying 1,200 registered voters, lays out the cold hard data. Interest in the 250th anniversary sits at 70 percent for men, but drops to 60 percent for women. When asked if they actually plan to show up to any events, only 45 percent of women said yes, compared to over half of men.
Then there is the question of what the party is actually about. Men want to talk about the Founding Fathers. In fact, they are twice as likely as women to say the celebrations should focus on the guys in the powdered wigs. Women? They want unity. Nearly half of the women surveyed believe the focus should be on bringing Americans together across our massive cultural divides. Only about a third of men agreed.
It is easy to write this off as standard political polarization. Women lean Democratic; men lean Republican. Case closed, right?
Wrong.
When you dig into the numbers, the real drama is happening inside the Republican Party. Democratic men and women actually view the anniversary through a remarkably similar lens. The gender gap there is practically nonexistent. But among Republicans, the divide is a chasm.
Take the Founding Fathers. Republican men are obsessed; Republican women are far less enthralled, trailing their male counterparts by 16 percentage points.
What about unity? A whopping 52 percent of Republican women want the anniversary to focus on bringing people together. Only 33 percent of Republican men feel the same. That is a massive 19-point gulf within a single political party.
Republican men want a loud, uncritical, flag-waving party. Sixty percent of them say the events should be “mostly celebratory.” Less than half of Republican women agree. They are skeptical. When asked if America’s founding principles still offer a solid blueprint for solving modern problems, only 46 percent of Republican women strongly agreed, compared to nearly 60 percent of Republican men.
This is not just academic trivia. It is a flashing red warning light for the GOP. If Republican women are feeling alienated by the hyper-masculine, chest-thumping patriotism currently on display, they might just stay home. In a tight election year, low turnout among conservative women could easily cost the party control of Congress.
But sure, keep showing those clips of men beating each other bloody on the White House lawn. There were no women in the ring that day. There were barely any in the crowd, either.
