The five most terrifying performances by women at the RNC – ranked!

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Binders full of fascist women

What’s the collective noun for a group of racist white women? I’m not sure, but I think it might be a Republican national convention (RNC). Nobody can accuse the four-day horror show, which wound up on Thursday, of skimping on female speakers. Everywhere you looked there were women – and most of them looked exactly the same. Same long bottle-blond hair; same makeup; same cold, dead look in the eyes.

The strategy behind all the women on stage was about as subtle as Kimberly Guilfoyle’s speaking style. (Or should I say: SHOUTING STYLE.) Donald Trump is doing badly with women in the polls; the RNC was his chance to remind us all that he is the greatest male feminist of our time. One by one Trump’s female advisers sang his praises and reflected on the Pussy Grabber in Chief’s gender-blind leadership.

Lara Trump, a campaign adviser, gushed over her father-in-law’s mentorship of women in the workplace. The White House press secretary, Kayleigh McEnany, announced that she wanted her baby daughter to grow up in “Trump’s America”. Kellyanne Conway, who will be leaving the White House at the end of the month, claimed the president routinely elevates women. “[Trump] respects our opinions, and insists that we are on equal footing with the men,” she said.

Conway actually has a valuable point there. When it comes to hypocrisy, bigotry and the lack of a functioning moral compass, the women in Trump’s inner circle are on an undeniably equal footing with the men: the RNC made that crystal clear. Just to drum it home, however, here are five of the most terrifying performances by women from the convention.

5. Abby ‘abortion has a smell’ Johnson

“I know what abortion smells like,” the anti-choice activist bellowed on Tuesday night; Johnson proceeded to use her primetime speaking spot to demonize the right to an abortion in a very graphic speech. Johnson’s extreme rhetoric was in keeping with her extremely bigoted views. “Statistically, my [adopted] brown son is more likely to commit a violent offense over my white sons,” Johnson once said; she added that the police would thus be “smart” to racially profile him. Johnson also believes that husbands should have the “final say” over their wife’s vote. Her RNC speech was a chilling reminder of the war Trump will wage on women’s reproductive rights if he gets another four years.

4. Cissie Graham Lynch

Lynch, the granddaughter of the late Rev Billy Graham, a highly influential evangelical Christian, also used her speech to crusade against the right to an abortion. However, she also found time for some disgusting transphobia. Lynch referred to transgender girls as “boys” and stoked baseless fears that trans people are sexual predators who want access to bathrooms for nefarious purposes. There has been a horrific spike in violence against trans people in 2020; the likes of Lynch seem intent on putting trans lives in even more danger.

3. Melania Trump

What makes Melania so dangerous is the way so many (largely male) members of the press can’t help themselves from fawning over her. “The first lady has one trait that her husband lacks: empathy,” CNN’s Chris Cillizza wrote after Melania’s speech on Tuesday. Are you kidding me? This is the woman who excused and echoed Trump’s racist birther theories about Barack Obama. This is the woman who went to visit children in cages while wearing a jacket emblazoned with “I really don’t care, do you?” There is nothing empathetic about Melania but she does help humanize Trump; she functions like Febreze for fascism.

2. The Honorable Ivanka Trump

Ivanka collects titles the same way other people collect tchotchkes. One day she’s an entrepreneur and writer, the next day she’s adviser to the president. On Thursday she was, bizarrely, introduced as “the Honorable”. “The Hypocritical” would be rather more fitting. Like Melania, Ivanka is insidious because she softens and sanitizes the Trump administration; her faux feminism helps Trump mask his misogynistic agenda. Unlike Melania, Ivanka seems to have her heart set on being president one day. It wasn’t so much the contents of Ivanka’s RNC speech that were scary, but the fact that we can expect to see her pontificating from powerful podiums for a very long time.

1. Nikki Haley

“America is not a racist country,” Haley declared on the opening night of the convention. She knows this, you see, because her parents were Sikh immigrants and her family faced “discrimination and hardship”. Haley’s speech was very on-brand: throughout her career she has weaponized her identity to deny the existence of systemic oppression. She’s a valuable tool for white supremacists and misogynists – she helps launder their bigotry. Unlike many of the morons in Trump’s orbit, Haley has more than two brain cells to rub together. She’s smart; she knows exactly what she’s doing and, as long as it helps her personally, she doesn’t care. It’s highly likely that she’ll run for president in 2024 or 2028. If that happens, God help us all. Her RNC speech was filled with lies but, because she uttered them in an articulate way, pundits fell over themselves to praise her. The only thing more terrifying than four more years of Trump is a successor who is equally cruel but actually competent.

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