Folks have blamed Hillary Clinton, Millennials, Debbie Wasserman-Schultz, fake news, Putin, the FBI, and Jimmy Fallon’s hair-tousling, but it’s possible that there’s no single person more responsible for the impending Donald Trump presidency than Kellyanne Conway.
Conway was the architect of Trump’s campaign, and we’re sure many an on-the-fence female voter was able to use her position of prominence to help justify not being “with her” on Election Day.
Many expected Conway to take a job with Trump’s administration after he won the Electoral College, but surprisingly, she wasted no time in announcing that she would be jumping ship after assisting with the President-elect’s transition.
There were many theories as to why someone who was so integral to a successful presidential campaign would choose not to stick around and reap the benefits:
Perhaps Kellyanne believed (correctly) that she could earn bigger bucks as a cable news talking head.
Maybe she simply grew tired of justifying Trump’s most ridiculous remarks, and fears that his tweets will become even more bonkers once they’re backed up by nukes.
Conway responded by recalling conversations in which campaign began by saying, “I know you have four kids but …”
She went on:
“I said there’s nothing that comes after the ‘but’ that makes any sense to me so don’t even try. Like what is the but?” she said. “But they’ll eat Cheerios for the rest of the day? Nobody will brush their teeth again until I get home?
“And I do politely mention to them the question isn’t would you take the job, the male sitting across from me who’s going to take a big job in the White House. The question is would you want your wife to,” she continued.
“Would you want the mother of children to? You really see their entire visage change. It’s like, ‘Oh, no, they wouldn’t want their wife to take that job.’ But it’s, it’s all good.”
It may not be quite as cringe-worthy as Conway’s Nazi comments (if you have to deny you’re a Nazi, you’re already starting from a losing position.), but it’s not hard to see why many took issue with her sad justification for not taking a job in the Trump White House.
It’s not that Kellyanne has such old-school ideas about a woman’s place in the world (though it’s certainly depressing that she’s okay with having her career prospects squashed on the basis of her gender); it’s that such a Don Draper-esque reaction from her male colleagues is considered totally acceptable under the Trump administration.
“Jeez, I wouldn’t want my wife to take a time-consuming job! The kids would be forced to live on Cheerios!” some douche apparently agreed, presumably right before slapping the nearest secretary on the ass.
Look, for all the praise he’s taken for “shooting from the hip” and “telling it like it is,” we all know lying is a second nature to Donald Trump, so you can’t really tell what’s going on in his administration from what he says.
Throughout his campaign, it’s been those around him who have given the best insights into what’s happening inside that big peeled cantaloupe atop his neck, and it’s possible no one understands the Mind of Donnie better than Kellyanne.
It’s not like we needed further evidence that his views on women are straight out of the pages of the first issue of Playboy, but when the revelation comes from one of Trump’s less-unhinged colleagues, it’s somehow even more upsetting.