Thursday open thread: Meghan McCain is right

The world's most famous legacy hire has thoughts, as you can see.

Now, last week, I wrote a piece extolling the women of Iran, as they struggle for their liberation from patriarchal oppression. I also closed the piece with this: "All glory to the women of the world." Obviously, I need to enter a caveat.

The Iranian mullahs also have female support, women who favor the restrictions on women and the role of the morality police. They are what one can call "conservative". And they can go get bent.

Liz Truss, the new prime minister of the United Kingdom, has in two short weeks in power crashed the British pound, trading now at just over one dollar. How did she do this? By proposing a raft of tax cuts and massive borrowing. These cuts will benefit mostly the 1%. She can go get bent.

Giorgia Meloni, leader of the neo-fascist Fratelli d'Italia, is slated to be Italy's new prime minister. She had spent the election campaign imploring Italians to not fear her. When her coalition won on Sunday, she said she would govern for all Italians. Then? She wants to prevent gay couples from adopting children, and maybe also delegalizing existing gay families. Again, she can go get bent.

Meghan "Do You Know Who My Father Is?" McCain has a point, though. Everyone does want a woman in power until it's a conservative woman in power. For one very salient reason: Conservative women are as awful as their male conservative counterparts. They're not kinder and gentler. They will execute the mentally disabled with abandon. They will watch migrants drown in the Mediterranean with cold insouciance. They will see the suffering of pensioners forced to choose between heat in a cold winter and food and bow before the God of Market Forces, not lifting a finger save for their well-heeled friends and donors.

Liberal and moderate women should be in power. Just like liberal and moderate men. Because they may not be perfect; they may get things wrong; but they don't operate from the default of animus and uncaring. They don't bolt out of the gate by trying to undo all the progress which came before them.

What's galling about conservative women is that they benefit mightily from the work liberal women and their male allies have done to advance women's rights, up to the opportunity to lead nations, but then want to snuff out those rights and others for everyone, but especially other women.

So, yes, Meghan, John McCain's daughter, we really don't want conservative women in power. Because they're just as shit as their male brethren, if not worse. I hope that clears up things.