An analyst says that Republican women in Congress are facing a "larger dilemma" over defying President Donald Trump and his reported ties to late sex offender Jeffrey Epstein amid the growing calls to release the Epstein files.
Salon's senior writer Amanda Marcotte describes why GOP women, who she coins "a rare breed" comprising of only 14% of the Republican caucus, make up an overwhelming amount of House Republicans — 75% — who have signed the discharge petition to prompt the U.S. Department of Justice to release the documents.
As Trump has tried to distance himself from Epstein and rants how only Republicans who are “very bad, or stupid” would want to reveal even more about the child sex trafficking case, it appears that Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), Lauren Boebert (R-CO) and Nancy Mace (R-SC) are poised to demand the Epstein files are made public. Each of them has different motives, Marcotte explains, but it presents a bigger question over their political futures and what's at stake.
"But Mace’s relationship to the Epstein files is a microcosm of a larger dilemma facing Republican women — both politicians and voters — as a whole," Marcotte writes. "For years, Trump has pitched himself to GOP women as their 'protector' who is eager to chivalrously shield womankind from a whole host of imaginary threats ranging from predatory immigrants to trans women in bathrooms. That billing has always been hard to square with the objective reality of Trump’s admitted and accused behavior, which includes bragging about grabbing women’s genitals without permission and being found liable for sexual assault by a civil jury in 2023."
Trump has portrayed himself in the past as someone looking out for women.
"Unfortunately, his pitch has worked. For Republican women, it’s easier to ignore the very real threats women face in favor of these fantasies. Trump distracts them from the fact that the assailant is far more likely to look like their friend or neighbor or husband — or the president — than he is some stranger lurking in the bushes," Marcotte explains.
But the Epstein saga might poke holes in that argument — especially for these three specific women — who aren't married.
"For MAGA women, the cognitive dissonance is resolved by agreeing to believe that the real threats are fake and the fake threats are real," she writes. "This also allows them to avoid friction with the men in their lives, who tend to lash out at women who speak out about sexual violence, seeing it — correctly — as an attack on a larger slate of unfair privileges men enjoy because of their sex. It’s not surprising that the three Republican women who signed the discharge petition are divorced. That gives them a level of psychological independence that married Republican women almost never enjoy."
Marcotte describes how Boebert might have a different view as a woman divorced from a man she met and dated at 16 and when he was 22.
"But while not married to literal husbands, all three women’s ambitions are still figuratively wed to Trump, at least for now. They understand that openly rejecting Trump, much less calling out his complicity with Epstein, is career suicide. The goal appears to wait him out. He’s not doing well at 79, so they are probably betting they won’t have to wait too long," Marcotte adds.