Maeve Reston writes:

If President Donald Trump loses his reelection bid in November, it will be in part because of his fundamental misunderstanding of the beliefs of “suburban women,” whom he has tried to win back with a series of bizarre and racist appeals that seem more targeted to a stereotype from the 1950s and 1960s than the American women who actually live in those areas today.

Many of the female voters who have abandoned Trump recoil from his divisive language and disapprove of both his handling of race relations and the pandemic. But he has tried to convince them to support him through a campaign of fear and xenophobia, with claims about the Democratic agenda that plunge deep into the realm of the ridiculous and would be believed only by the most naïve, low-information voters.

His speech Saturday night in Michigan exemplified those political miscalculations when it comes to women he has referred to as the “suburban housewives of America” as he tried to create fear about crime from immigrants and argued that Joe Biden will upend life in the suburbs by putting public housing projects in the middle of leafy neighborhoods — a reference to an Obama-era housing regulation aimed at ending segregation.

“Would you like a nice low-income housing project next to your suburban beautiful ranch style house? Generally speaking, no,” Trump said in Muskegon. “I saved your suburbs — women — suburban women, you’re supposed to love Trump,” he said. [Continue reading…]