'Middle-aged wine moms' are crucial to anti-Trump 'resistance' — here's why

03 February

In 2020, a broad range of voters — from liberals and progressives to independents to Never Trump conservatives — decided against giving Donald Trump a second term. But four years later, in 2024, the coalition wasn't enough to get Democratic nominee Kamala Harris past the finish line. Trump won the popular vote by roughly 1.5 percent in 2024 (according to the Cook Political Report), and he returned to the White House on January 20, 2025.

Journalist Jill Filipovic, in a listicle published by Slate on February 3, lays out some possible elements of an anti-Trump resistance for his second term. And she stresses that "middle-aged wine moms" may play a key role in putting Democrats back in power.

"As activists, politicians, journalists, and average citizens who care about the future of American democracy watch the early days of this administration in stunned horror," Filipovic argues, "the lessons of the first resistance and the years that followed need to be learned — before it's too late."

Filipovic lays out seven "lessons" for 2025's anti-Trump "resistance."

They are: (1) "Outrage is powerful, but it's not an unlimited resource," (2) "Turn anger out, not in," (3) "Boring normie middle-aged women are the Democratic Party's most potent force — and are far closer to the median voter than the staffers of progressive advocacy organizations or Democratic politicians," (4) "Don't react to bad policy by pinging way into opposite-but-unpopular policy," (5) "Seeing progressive politics as a diverse ecosystem works far better than demanding ideological uniformity," (6) " Everything does not have to be about everything," and (7) " work your advantage."

Filipovic argues that "leftist podcast bros" in "Brooklyn" did Democrats a disservice when, in the past, they ridiculed the role that "wine moms" played in the anti-Trump "resistance."

"The most effective resisters were also those who were most mocked by social media leftists, most overlooked by the mainstream media, and most lectured by the professional activist class: boring, normie middle-aged wine moms," Filipovic explains. "These women have been the backbones of the Democratic Party and various left-of-center causes for decades. They are the women who organize 'Souls to the Polls' buses to get voters out on Election Day. They are the women who hold PTA offices and organize phone-banking efforts. And they are the women who pushed their friends to run for office, canvassed like mad for Democrats in the 2018 midterms, and sometimes ran for office themselves."

Jill Filipovic's full article for Slate is available at this link (subscription required).

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