Rep. Jasmine Crockett, D-Texas, recently accused President Donald Trump of being "terrified of smart, bold Black women." Crockett fired back at Trump after he insulted her intelligence as one of the would-be leaders of the aimless and angry Democratic Party.
Crockett's rhetoric is similar to what other Democratic women have said about Trump. New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, for example, has claimed that the president is afraid "of strong women, of Latino women." Former Vice President and Democratic presidential nominee Kamala Harris, shortly before Election Day in November, charged that Trump "does not respect the freedom of women or the intelligence of women to be able to make decisions about their own lives."
But are those assertions true? Do Trump and Republicans in general fear smart, bold women? And who authorized progressive leaders to speak for all women in the first place?
As a woman, I think it's actually Democrats and progressives who use fear to manipulate women while conservatives offer women more choices to be who they want to be and to think how they want to think.
Contrary to the accusation that Trump fears strong women, his administration has promoted accomplished, talented women to key positions in the White House, in the courts and in the president's Cabinet. They include Attorney General Pam Bondi, White House Chief of Staff Susie Wiles, Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt, Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem, National Intelligence Director Tulsi Gabbard, Labor Secretary Lori Chavez-DeRemer, Education Secretary Linda McMahon and Agriculture Secretary Brooke Rollins.
Yet, these women don't receive respect or accolades from the left, but instead get loads of scorn from the mainstream media, because they're Republicans.
Trump also has reinstated protections for women under Title IX that the Biden administration abandoned, and he signed the Laken Riley Act, named after a young woman who was murdered by an illegal immigrant while she was jogging.
Democrats claim to be the party that best represents women, but it's progressive politicians who have downplayed the dangers of violent crime in our cities, ignored the lack of border security under President Joe Biden and promoted transgender rights over the rights of biological females.
As a mother of daughters, I feel better knowing that Trump is enforcing policies that protect women.
Even on abortion, it's Republicans who support the lives and health of both mothers and babies. And that's very pro-woman.
The conservative policy message for women is accepting and empowering. As conservative women, we are smart, bold, pro-family and Republican.
Even renowned fitness trainer Jillian Michaels acknowledged that fact on a recent episode of the "Joe Rogan Experience."
Michaels told Rogan that she worried during Trump's first administration that he might "round up all the gays," because of what she read and heard in the mainstream news media. But she said she has been pleasantly surprised by Republicans' acceptance.
"I find that arguably the right is more welcoming and more tolerant now," Michaels told Rogan.
In a strange twist, it's the left that has waged war on women who don't conform to the progressive mold.
Crockett claimed that Trump is afraid of smart women. The congresswoman's implication is that smart women must be Democrats and that women on the right are somehow less intelligent. Progressives hold such a narrow view of what women should be that they attack and insult those of us who have different political and cultural perspectives.
Younger women who reject the progressive mold are the targets of especially nasty venom from the left. An April 24 article in The Guardian − "Now comes the 'womanosphere': the anti-feminist media telling women to be thin, fertile and Republican"− about popular conservative influencers Alex Clark, Brett Cooper and Brittany Hugoboom dripped with disdain.
Clark, Cooper and Hugoboom are conservatives with large social media followings. They encourage more traditional values, but they aren't your grandma's Republicans, either.
Hugoboom runs a magazine called Evie, which she describes as a conservative version of Cosmopolitan. It features cute dresses, sex tips for married women and weight loss information. It also doesn't hide its conservative edge. A headline of an article in this month's edition says it all: "This Year's Most Overlooked Wellness Practice? Homemaking."
As an older millennial mom of four who has walked the tight rope of career and motherhood and was previously married, I applaud these Gen Z women for standing athwart the waves of progressivism and reminding the left that true feminism champions all choices, not just the ones that read as hashtags for the Democratic Party.
Jasmine Crockett is wrong. It's not Trump who fears smart women. It's progressives who fear talented women who won't conform.
Nicole Russell is a columnist at USA TODAY and a mother of four who lives in Texas. Contact her at nrussell@gannett.com and follow her on X, formerly Twitter: @russell_nm. Sign up for her weekly newsletter, The Right Track, here.