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Last week President Donald Trump issued a sop to mothers with a new website that purports to be a one-stop shop of useful information for mothers. Tressie McMillan Cottom called the website “underwhelming,” but its existence “is a rare concession that Trump is very unpopular.”
And if Trump’s looking for moms to save him and his party in November, it’s looking like they won’t.
“Bucolic imagery of a faceless pregnant woman standing in a golden field dominates the homepage. A lot of real estate is also dedicated to controversial ‘pregnancy centers,’ code for places that distribute conservative anti-abortion counseling masquerading as health care. It is mostly a sloppy rebranding of culture war talking points,” said Cottom, adding that it’s not going to do a thing for an army of indifferent mothers who have turned on the president and his policies.
“The push to remind his base that Trump loves the conservative mothers who voted for him is about three realities closing in on him. The midterms are critical to the president’s agenda. MAGA moms are important to his midterm fortunes. And the moms are not happy,” said Cottom.
Trump managed to capture the White House in 2024 with MAHA moms embracing the removal of fluoride from water, reducing or eliminating vaccine requirements, supporting organic school lunches and removing food dyes from packaged foods. Women are great mobilizers, said Cottom. And plenty of mothers mobilized churches, communities and customers for Trump, while couching Trump’s anti-mother policies in white conservative motherhood. But more than a year into Trump’s second term the political downside is starting to emerge, said Cottom as Trump finds it easier to celebrate mothers than deliver for them.
MAHA moms are terrified of the unemployed zombies artificial intelligence is turning their kids into. Yet this administration has “gone all in on empowering Silicon Valley to unleash attention heroin indiscriminately on the nation’s kids,” said Cottom. MAHA mom’s also trusted Trump to ban the neurotoxin glyphosate, but Trump put his own name on an executive order protecting its continued production.
“Not every MAHA mom is a MAGA ideologue,” warns Cottom. “Many of them are simply anxious about a health care system that is anti-woman when the stakes of health care are at a historical premium. But the MAHA moms were willing to make a deal with the devil when they elected Trump.”
“The president is undoubtedly still the ringleader of MAGA. But his coalition is not content and it is not permanent,” said Cottom. “When it comes to the complex, messy politics of motherhood, the midterms will soon arrive.”