Tina Fey Has A Message For College-Educated White Women Who Voted Trump

by Samantha Mercado

At a discussion with the American Civil Liberties Union, Tina Fey brought up a point that is worth discussing post-election: College-educated white women, who by and large were the driving force behind Trump’s win, are eager to tune out the messy reality they’ve caused, but they shouldn’t.

In her brief interview, Fey said, ‘The thing that I kinda keep focusing on is the idea that we sort of need to hold the edges, that it’s sort of like a lot of this election was turned by kinda white college-educated women who would now maybe like to forget about this election and go back to watching HGTV and I would want to urge them to like ‘You can’t look away.'”

And Fey is right — the tides of the election were held by white college educated women. A Washington Post exit poll showed that although Clinton had the support of the 52% majority of white women with college education, 59% of all white women, college-educated or otherwise, had an unfavorable view of Clinton. Furthermore, 65% said she’s dishonest. White women in general have historically leaned Republican, only letting up in 1992 and 1996 for the election of Bill Clinton.

The fact that college-educated white women turned the election is not new — headlines have been buzzing since the final polls came in. What we’re seeing now is how many of those same women who so proudly waved Trump’s banners at his rallies are realizing the damage they’ve caused and are all too eager to tune it out. It would be easy to “look away” as Fey said and ignore what is happening since, for now, it doesn’t affect them all too immediately. They don’t have to worry about citizenship or discrimination, but as Tina Fey said in her interview, “You can’t look away because it doesn’t affect you this minute, but it’s going to affect you eventually.”

Reproductive rights are at the forefront of Trump’s intended cuts and no matter what your socioeconomic status, at some point you’re gonna feel it too. Beyond pure policy change, the social climate has turned dramatically hostile since the election of Trump. Having voted for Trump won’t shield you from the derogatory hate speech that is only growing more aggressive. Fey closes her remarks with a simple pledge that many other college educated white women and women in general, should keep in mind: ‘I personally will make my own pledge as a college-educated white woman to not look away, to not pretend that things that are happening now won’t eventually affect me if we don’t put a stop to it.’

Top photo via BUST August/September 2016 issue

Photos: Ramona Rosales
Stylist: Cristina Erlich
Makeup: Gita Bass
Hair: Ted Gibson
Nails: Miss Pop

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