In 2016 the campaign slogan of the disastrous Hilary Clinton ticket was “I’m with Her.” While it would have been nice to finally have a woman in the White House I was not even a little bit surprised when Trump won the presidency, but to this day Hilary Clinton refuses to accept any responsibility for her loss to Trump, which is especially notable since she actively funded his campaign from a ridiculous position that he was the most beatable Republican (clearly not, right?), framing him as too extreme for America while essentially giving him free advertising and publicity by featuring him most prominently, rather than herself, in all of her campaign ads, taking for granted the American electorate and the powers of the establishment. Her loss aside, making such a monumental miscalculation about the electability of Trump in the first place demonstrated a fundamental lack of leadership skills and obstinate refusal to do what was best for the American people in preference of her personal ego, including collusion with the DNC to suppress the candidacy of Bernie Sanders who, unlike Clinton, was handily polled to beat Trump, and even as Trump has proven time and again a candidate to be taken seriously.

Just like Clinton in 2016, Harris ran ad after ad highlighting Trump’s policies, serving simply to advertise his position to an electorate hungry for change and destruction of the systems which oppress us, and similarly misunderstood the political climate and, just like Clinton, failed to present much policy, because she essentially had none, and instead anchored her campaign on identity, which is something that does not affect the electorate the way government policy and action do, unsurprisingly also now losing to Trump.

Over the many years of helping people overcome trauma I have seen a commonly repeated, self-defeating pattern in women which undermines their effectiveness in their own lives, including political campaigns not only like that of Clinton and Harris but republican women too, which is the insecurity of not being a man and wrongly thinking themselves weaker and thus less powerful, even as they are elevated to the very top of their respective parties, whom then respond to their personal trauma and insecurity through overcompensating by trying to act with a woman’s conception of machismo such as increased aggression, assertiveness, and callousness while also hiding the parts of them of which they are insecure which, being a woman, is most of it. The problem is that men are not like that—it is a stereotype and sexism, where in fact most men are fun, ambitious, strong, kind, and care about the people in their lives and the wellbeing of others. During Harris’s acceptance speech for the Democratic ticket she psychotically proclaimed pride in having ‘the most lethal military in the world’ at a time when all Americans, no matter party affiliation, have been demanding cessation to the violence and financial cost of endless wars, when the entire reason for her late entry into the race was Genocide Joe’s double campaigns in Ukraine and Israel, sending huge amounts of American treasure overseas and promoting global violence and instability. It was an absurd and unforced error but also a full demonstration of this insecurity which keeps women from the highest office.

The truth of the matter is that gender doesn’t matter, but your policy, or lack thereof matters a great deal. All over the United States during this election many Democrats who ran on platforms of anti-corruption, social programs, and addressing the real needs of citizens rather than the empty politics of identity (i.e. “I’m with Her” or “We’re not going back”) won their races in spite of the Harris ticket dragging them down, many far outperforming Harris, such as Gretchen Whitmer continuing on as Governor of Michigan. Another example of this type of insecurity was Governor of South Dakota, Kristi Noem, who did the same thing as Clinton and Harris when revealing she had murdered her own dog, mistaking this behavior as a strength common to men (violence, aggression, etc.) but was in reality just sociopathic which then appeared to cost her the vice presidential position in the Trump campaign. The primary issue with most female politicians in the current political environment is that, like Nancy Pelosi, they are those whom have risen to prominence through these systems of liberal politics prioritizing identity over policy in order to favor corporate exploitation of the population and the corruption of insider dealmaking, and so are women whom, by their insecurities and identity politics, are the only ones who comply within that system. Like Clinton, Harris thought that standing firm on America’s violent military suppression of the world was what a man would do, mistaking violence for strength, at a time when people were seeking relief from those very kinds of policies, and so the nation chose instead the person who positioned themselves as anti-war and has, so far, made good on that position.

Contrary to stereotypes of the American public and proclamations of misogyny as the reason for Harris’s loss, women are installed at all other levels of power as governors, senators, cabinet members, and the Supreme Court. Nancy Pelosi was one of the longest serving speakers of the house in our history, and the American electorate does not generally look for gender but instead clear policy positions, with designs to benefit and support the American people in opportunity, finances, and freedoms. The office of President aches for a woman, and the first female candidate who runs for that office with a proven record of civic service, sound policy, who discards identity politics and is confident in her gender and person will become the first female President of the United States.