President Trump’s campaign success can be summed up by a single statement from his inaugural address: “The forgotten men and women of our country will be forgotten no longer. Everyone is listening to you now.” Liberals claim to speak for entire groups of people all the time. They claim to speak for minorities, the poor, and for women. Yet, behind these thinly veiled appeals for votes, anyone can clearly see that their support extends only to those who agree with the liberal agenda. Black conservatives, female conservatives, and others 
who’ve been cast aside by the shameless identity politics of the Left are among the “forgotten men and women” that President Trump stands for and that Phyllis Schlafly wrote to in her December 1996 Phyllis Schlafly Report.
Phyllis pointed out that the 1990s wave of feminists in the public sphere came as a result of a new generation of women coming of age who had chosen career over family. This new generation dedicated themselves to the “new and improved” feminist doctrines that were really no better than what Phyllis fought in the early days of the Equal Rights Amendment. Rather than making logical points, feminists touted a fictional “vast conspiracy against women.” They contended that the only way to counteract this conspiracy was to essentially impose thought police on American men by punishing perceived intent rather than actions.
Phyllis wrote, “The feminist goal is not fair treatment for women, but the redistribution of power.” She later reiterated that the beneficiaries of the feminists’ actions were “nominally women, but actually only the feminists who know how to play by rules they have invented.” Feminists had no interest in caring for conservative women. In fact, they often responded to conservative women even more venomously than they did to men.
The “forgotten men and women” betrayed by the liberals want to have a champion. Throughout her life, Phyllis Schlafly was that champion. Today, the forgotten still need an alternative to the Left’s rhetoric. With a message of liberty and opportunity, conservatives like Donald Trump can make sure that the forgotten voices are heard once more.
