Thread by @VABVOX

The relentlessness of passing over superb women with strong credentials & election histories in favor of whatever man is a headline at a moment is exhausting.

Two months ago it was Avenatti. Now it's O'Rourke.

Bypassing the majority of Americans--women--is a national disgrace.

https://twitter.com/KwikWarren/status/1046939558867361793

O'Rourke is fine. He is not, Harris, Gillibrand or Klobuchar.

▪Gillibrand is Congress' leader on women's rights & sexual assault victims.
▪Harris set NN2018 on fire with her speeches reclaiming identity politics.
▪ Klobuchar highlighted #Kavanaugh's unfitness for SCOTUS.

Americans MUST stop looking past women to find some man, any man to supplant them.

It took THIRTY YEARS of incredibly hard work for @HillaryClinton to get to run for POTUS. The rules for women are so different. No one sees a woman give a single speech and says "president!"

I keep seeing people say only a man can beat Trump--as if Hillary Clinton didn't get the most votes.

We do not have one person=one vote in America. We have the EC.
My vote in my state counts for half a vote. Whereas Bernie Sanders' vote in tiny VT counts as a whole vote.

I'm not sure why folks are okay with their votes being subverted to other people's choices, but 538 electors choose the president.

In 2016 they did not choose who Americans voted for.

If it had been reversed, the #GOP would have moved heaven and earth to overturn the results.

So the repeated claims by men--who overwhelmingly chose Trump--that #HillaryClinton lost are false.

@ProfCAnderson has a stunning new book out that in part explains how our votes were stolen/subverted/gerrymandered/racialized in One Person, No Vote.

Read it. She's brilliant.

#HillaryClinton's loss has been used as a stick to beat women with, rather than a platform to examine what the rest of the world can't fathom: that someone could win 3M more votes and still not be POTUS.

Again: reverse it & GOP would have installed Trump by any means necessary.

No one said after 1984 and 1988--the worst losses in Democratic presidential history--that no white guy should ever run again on the Dem ticket.

Yet the claim now is that no woman can beat Trump.

A woman beat Trump in 2016. Our system failed her and us.

Start talking up stellar women candidates the way you do any random white man.

The FACT is #HillaryClinton remains the most accomplished candidate we could have in 2020 AND the best positioned to beat Trump.

In lieu of her, we have top tier candidates in Harris & Gillibrand.

I 1st wrote about Gillibrand & Harris as our best options for 2020 in January 2017.

I haven't wavered in that assessment. These two are among the hardest working senators. Gillibrand ranks by votes as the most progressive. Harris & Gillibrand have put up innovative legislation.

Harris & Gillibrand have won more votes as senators than Bernie or Biden have running for president.

So stop clamoring for any man you can find when powerful women are right in front of you. Stop ignoring the majority of Americans.

We lost in 2016--not #HillaryClinton.

#BetoORourke will make a far better senator for Texas than Ted Cruz.

But stoking crowds against a despised opponent is not votes. It's also not policy & it's definitely not years of hard work.

Women have to work so much harder to rise politically than men do. Misogyny is real.

All I am asking is that you work on your own #misogyny or internalized misogyny. That is what holds women back politically: YOU can't see that 50something women are fresher and better for the country than 80yr old men.

242yrs without a female leader yet 51.5% of us are women.

#Misogyny is millenias-old. We can--and must-change that.

#HillaryClinton pledged a 50/50 Cabinet as well as 40% POC--like her staff. She'd have had a black woman COS.

We lost all that to misogyny and cheating by white men gaming a system already rigged in their favor.

What better way to celebrate the centenary of suffrage in 2020 than by electing a female POTUS?

The best options for Democrats (and, actually, GOP) are female candidates.

You just have to acknowledge their power and strength.

Thank you for listening to my TED talk. 🌿

Addendum: Stop claiming you can't vote based on gender when that's what you've been doing your entire voting life: voting based on the gendered perception that only men can lead.

Every female 2020 candidate has as good/ better resume than every man running. Stop making excuses.