Pat Taub
The 1975 Sci-fi cinematic thriller,” The Stepford Wives,” bears an eerie resemblance to the women in Trump’s cabinet.
The film depicts the upscale suburban community of Stepford, Connecticut where the women are carbon copies of one another. On every sighting, even at the grocery store, they are fashionably attired and perfectly made-up. They produce fake smiles, expressing delight in their domestic roles where their husbands are central.
Image from the 1975 film, “The Stepford Wives”
We learn that the Stepford wives are robots, having replaced once independent wives through the sinister actions of the Men’s Association.
When I listen to Secretary of Homeland Security, Kristi Noem, Attorney General Pam Bondi or Press Secretary, Karoline Leavitt, I get an uncomfortable Stepford Wives vibe. They’ve been programmed to respond robotically and misleadingly to challenging questions.
Whether it’s a press conference chaired by Leavitt, or a Congressional Hearing questioning Noem or Bondi, instead of answering an unwelcome question they evade the question and, with a sneer, back off disrespectfully, employing catch phrases, ‘You represent fake news! You’re a liberal who doesn’t know what you’re talking about!’
Leavitt at a recent press conference, accusing a reporter of being “a left wing hack” when he suggested evidence showed Renee Good was murdered
Worse, they create fabrications and deflections: Bondi and Noem, before the blood on the streets was dried, claimed that Renee Good and Alex Pretti were “domestic terrorists.” In this they anticipated what the president and their superiors would soon and repeatedly say. It all sounds scripted.
Noem at a January 29, 2026 press conference, accusing Pretti of being a “would be assassin”
Speaking of the women who are part of the face of Trump’s government, the feature documentary ‘Melania” opened last week.
While not fully parallel to the 1975 movie, suffice to say it brings to mind the controversy around Melina’s jacket a few years ago, “Really, I don’t care do u?” After dodging the furor, she explained, “It’s for the people and left-wing media who criticize me.”
Melania in her infamous coat, 2018
Her words and attitude presaged the brutal arrogance, contempt for the people, and disregard for truth on full display in Washington today.
The government’s Stepford Wives story asks important questions of all women:
How many times have you cast aside your principles to advance your career? How often have you bit your tongue, afraid if you spoke up you’d be ridiculed?
I wonder if in private moments Leavitt, Bondi or Noem recognize she is not being true to herself, that she’s reiterating falsehoods to curry favor and to secure her job. Worse, that she is defending actions that are often immoral.
Bondi, Leavitt and Noem are not the only women in government to forsake their principles. Director of National Intelligence, Tulsi Gabbard, once a peace advocate and truth teller, has been sidelined in the new administration.
This past weekend Trump ordered Gabbard to fly to Georgia to oversee the FBI raid of an election office where they seized truckloads of 2020 ballots in a move to foster Trump’s allegation that the election was stolen. Was Gabbard currying favor with Trump when she went beyond the law, not just in stretching the FBI’s boundaries, but in phoning Trump so he could speak directly with Georgia’s agents?
Tulsi Gabbard outside of the Fulton county election hub and operation center in Union City, Georgia
When women in government and outside challenge Trump, he goes on the war path, becoming ugly.
Georgia representative Marjorie Taylor Greene, and an early Trump supporter, became a leading spokesperson for releasing the Epstein files while defending Epstein’s victims. Trump made Greene’s life so miserable that she resigned from Congress. Still, she’s unwilling to back down, carrying her messages onto talk shows.
Marjorie Taylor Greene with Epstein survivors at a press conference, demanding release of the Epstein files
Women of color or of non-white ethnicity have received some of the cruelest Trump attacks. Since her first day in Congress, Representative Ilhan Omar of Minnesota, a Somali, has been Trump’s target. Giving a new and repulsive meaning to ‘the bully pulpit:’ he’s said Somalia “stinks,” has called Somalians and Omar “garbage, and has mocked her hijab, calling it a “little turban.” Still, honorably and bravely, she civilly and eloquently stands up to him and to his base thuggery.
Ilhan Omar, in a recent NYT interview, ‘I survived a war and I can survive intimidation.”
Here’s to strong, outspoken, principled women in politics. May the days in public life for Noem, Bondi, Leavitt, and the other ‘Stepford Wives’ be numbered, and may women with strong voices be on the ascendancy.
In these darker days we are called to resist, to support one another, and to uphold basic human truths and decency.
