2024 Harris 'Julia Roberts Reminds Us - Your Vote, Your Choice' Ad
The Jim Heath Channel
Nov 1, 2024
A new Harris-Walz campaign ad voiced by actor Julia Roberts encourages women to vote for Vice President Harris in the presidential election, even if their husbands are backing former President Trump.
The Roberts ad, put out by Vote Common Good, also alludes to abortion rights, which is seen as a pivotal issue in a race that has seen Trump with big polling leads among male voters and Harris with a large lead among female voters.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P3aC84YZLlU
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Why are so many women hiding their voting plans from their husbands?
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‘People doing door-to-door outreach to voters are encountering men who prevent their wives from even conversing at the door.’ Photograph: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images
Lots of memes and tweets and posts and videos are popping up, assuring women that they can keep their votes secret from their husbands and boyfriends. The unspoken assumption is that lots of women are bullied, intimidated or controlled by their partners, specifically in straight couples when she wants to vote for Harris and he supports Trump. The messages assure these intimidated voters that they can vote in peace and privacy at a polling place. But a lot of Americans now vote by mail, which generally means they fill out their ballots at home, where that privacy may not be available.
On the one hand, I’m glad there’s outreach to those voters. On the other, the way these messages are framed seem to regard the grim reality that a lot of women live in fear of their spouses as a given hardly worth stating outright, let alone decrying. I get that right now we’re fighting for the future of democracy in America, the public version in which rights and norms and the rule of law are preserved – as the Washington Post humor columnist Alexandra Petri put it: “I am endorsing Kamala Harris for president, because I like elections and want to keep having them.”
But a lot of households are not democracies; they’re dictatorships. This may impact public life, in that it seems to generate a meaningful amount of voter intimidation and suppression. As in previous election cycles, people doing door-to-door outreach to voters are encountering men who prevent their wives from even conversing at the door or who believe their registered-Democrat wives are Republicans and women fearful of speaking or of disclosing their party and chosen candidates.
One Pennsylvania man who has been canvassing for several weeks told me: “So many times we ... have knocked on doors and when both husband and wife or boyfriend and girlfriend have come to the door together, after hearing what we were there for so often the man stayed and the woman walked away ‘to do other things’, or the man came out to talk to us. Often the woman would come out by herself and say or whisper: ‘I’m with her and he doesn’t know it.’” Another friend reached a voter by phone, who told her that because her husband wasn’t in the car, she could admit she was voting Democratic. Coercive control is an issue in households of all races and political orientations, but only this configuration – Maga man, Democratic-leaning woman – seems to impact the right to vote in such a visible and potentially impactful way. Fox News host Jesse Watters asserted that his wife “secretly voting for Harris” was like having an affair and it would be “D day,” the d presumably standing for divorce.
A Lincoln Project video shows a clutch of spectacularly mainstream white couples (they look like they fell out of a real estate brochure or are going to the golf course) entering a polling place. One of the men asks a second man who his wife is voting for. “She doesn’t like him but she’s voting for him,” he replies, and the first says: “Same with mine.” It’s followed by footage showing three women casting furtive glances at their husbands and each other as they choose Harris. It’s a hostage video. Another version of the video is narrated by Julia Roberts, who declares: “You can vote any way you want. And no one will ever know.” It’s not just that the party eager to deny women bodily autonomy is full of husbands eager to deny their wives political autonomy. It’s also a reminder that democracy and its opposites exist at all scales.
(https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/31/why-are-so-many-women-hiding-their-voting-plans-from-their-husbands)
.....
Why are so many women hiding their voting plans from their husbands?
.jpg)
‘People doing door-to-door outreach to voters are encountering men who prevent their wives from even conversing at the door.’ Photograph: Yasuyoshi Chiba/AFP/Getty Images
Lots of memes and tweets and posts and videos are popping up, assuring women that they can keep their votes secret from their husbands and boyfriends. The unspoken assumption is that lots of women are bullied, intimidated or controlled by their partners, specifically in straight couples when she wants to vote for Harris and he supports Trump. The messages assure these intimidated voters that they can vote in peace and privacy at a polling place. But a lot of Americans now vote by mail, which generally means they fill out their ballots at home, where that privacy may not be available.
On the one hand, I’m glad there’s outreach to those voters. On the other, the way these messages are framed seem to regard the grim reality that a lot of women live in fear of their spouses as a given hardly worth stating outright, let alone decrying. I get that right now we’re fighting for the future of democracy in America, the public version in which rights and norms and the rule of law are preserved – as the Washington Post humor columnist Alexandra Petri put it: “I am endorsing Kamala Harris for president, because I like elections and want to keep having them.”
But a lot of households are not democracies; they’re dictatorships. This may impact public life, in that it seems to generate a meaningful amount of voter intimidation and suppression. As in previous election cycles, people doing door-to-door outreach to voters are encountering men who prevent their wives from even conversing at the door or who believe their registered-Democrat wives are Republicans and women fearful of speaking or of disclosing their party and chosen candidates.
One Pennsylvania man who has been canvassing for several weeks told me: “So many times we ... have knocked on doors and when both husband and wife or boyfriend and girlfriend have come to the door together, after hearing what we were there for so often the man stayed and the woman walked away ‘to do other things’, or the man came out to talk to us. Often the woman would come out by herself and say or whisper: ‘I’m with her and he doesn’t know it.’” Another friend reached a voter by phone, who told her that because her husband wasn’t in the car, she could admit she was voting Democratic. Coercive control is an issue in households of all races and political orientations, but only this configuration – Maga man, Democratic-leaning woman – seems to impact the right to vote in such a visible and potentially impactful way. Fox News host Jesse Watters asserted that his wife “secretly voting for Harris” was like having an affair and it would be “D day,” the d presumably standing for divorce.
A Lincoln Project video shows a clutch of spectacularly mainstream white couples (they look like they fell out of a real estate brochure or are going to the golf course) entering a polling place. One of the men asks a second man who his wife is voting for. “She doesn’t like him but she’s voting for him,” he replies, and the first says: “Same with mine.” It’s followed by footage showing three women casting furtive glances at their husbands and each other as they choose Harris. It’s a hostage video. Another version of the video is narrated by Julia Roberts, who declares: “You can vote any way you want. And no one will ever know.” It’s not just that the party eager to deny women bodily autonomy is full of husbands eager to deny their wives political autonomy. It’s also a reminder that democracy and its opposites exist at all scales.
(https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/oct/31/why-are-so-many-women-hiding-their-voting-plans-from-their-husbands)
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Trump and Eric were caught peeking at their wives ballots. Don't they trust their wives?
— Ron (Fan)🇺🇸 (@Ronxyz00) November 2, 2024
Women, don't let anyone intimidate you about who to vote for. pic.twitter.com/Yvar4jNHig
Omg they did a male version of the ‘secret vote’ ad and it’s even better than the female version. pic.twitter.com/qwXAtVWq4W
— TrumpsTaxes (@TrumpsTaxes) November 3, 2024
Truth bomb 💣 pic.twitter.com/Drbf9KsD4N
— ᗰᗩƳᖇᗩ ℙ𝕙𝕠𝕥𝕠𝕘𝕣𝕒𝕡𝕙𝕪 (@LePapillonBlu2) November 2, 2024
Southern Sister Resister - Wordsmith #IAmTheStorm @ResisterSis20
·20h
Absolutely!