Opinion | For Trump, Running With a Woman Would Be Just Another Con Job

Whoever Donald Trump chooses as his running mate, please let it not be a woman.

Perhaps you think it’s beside the point to worry over this.

But before writing off the vice presidency as a distraction, remember, three years ago, his vice president stood between democracy and autocracy, after he noticed at the very last minute there was a Constitution standing in the way of Trump overturning the 2020 election.

There’s also the very real prospect that should a 78-year-old Trump be re-elected, he may not complete his term.

And there’s the reality that the pageant has already begun.

“It’s very clear he’s holding these open auditions like it’s ‘The Apprentice,’” Kurt Bardella, a Democratic strategist, said of Trump to The Guardian. “He will flirt with everyone. He will make them dance. They will all debase themselves and humiliate themselves and jockey for that spot.”

Those already in the lineup include Senator Tim Scott of South Carolina, who quickly forfeited his nonstarter of a campaign and followed Trump to New Hampshire. But most of the other top contenders are women.

If you’re about to say, “Well, at least it might be a woman,” my response is, it better not be.

The most obvious problem is the particular women in question. There’s Representative Elise Stefanik of upstate New York (“She’s a killer,” Trump has remarked), who also accompanied Trump to New Hampshire. She was notably one of the first Republicans to endorse Trump’s second bid for re-election and has said she’d be “honored” to serve. There’s his steadfast former press secretary and the current governor of Arkansas, Sarah Huckabee Sanders, who has carefully not denied that she wants the job. Kristi Noem, the second-term governor of South Dakota, who campaigned for Trump in Iowa, went so far as to say she would consider it.