The good news is that people like Madeline Albright and Gloria Steinem are not yet using terms involving the a variation of the word ‘treason’ to describe Democratic women* who would rather not vote for Hillary Clinton. …Yet. No, Madeline Albright is merely saying that those women are going to Hell, while Gloria Steinem is being even more squishy and suggesting that Democratic women who are not for Hillary are just round-heeled, boy-crazy maniacs who can’t control their hormones. I’m not sure if this is because both women are fairly hardcore feminist ideologues, or whether it’s that they’re just old. You can make a pretty strong case for them simply being old.

If I seem a little upset about this, I am: you see, my mother is a Democrat. She’s also a Bernie Sanders supporter who does not trust Hillary Clinton at all. I love my mother dearly. Mom is not going to Hell** because she prefers Bernie Sanders to Hillary Clinton. Mom is not being ruled by her hormones, or anything else. Mom simply disagrees with Clinton on far too much to ever vote for her. So maybe I personally resent the obnoxious and frankly puerile things that Hillary Clinton’s fanatics are saying right now, because when they are saying those things about Democratic women they are absolutely personally insulting my mother. They may not be specifically doing so, but they are absolutely making personal attacks.

And, do you know something? My situation is not even remotely unique. Most of the country – and we forget this at our peril – is made up of people who wear their Republican or Democratic party affiliation far more lightly than we do. It is insulting to those people for Albright or Steinem to demand that women fall into line behind a corrupt and incompetent progressive/liberal/equivocating opportunist simply because Hillary Clinton has two X chromosomes and identifies as female.

Yes, I know I should be jaded about this. I know that I should simply wearily accept this latest bilge. But… no. America is better than this. We simply are. And even if Madeline Albright and Gloria Steinem aren’t ashamed of themselves, they blessed well should be. I’m aware that what I’m about to say will come across as trite to the cynical, but truly it is not: Have you no sense of decency, Mesdames? At long last, have you left no sense of decency?

Moe Lane

*God only knows what either would say about Republican women, except that it’d probably be precisely as unprintable as either person would think that they could get away with.

**There will be no jokes.