PC Police Declare War on Conservative Beauty Queens

As I mentioned in a previous blog, the left has a special disdain for conservative African-Americans. The same applies to conservative women, especially conservative beauty queens. Remember what Madeleine Albright said: “there’s a special place in hell for women who don’t help each other.” By “help each other,” Albright meant “vote Democratic.”

Ten years ago, Miss California USA Carrie Prejean drew the ire of the PC police when she dared to suggest that “marriage should be between a man and a woman” when pressed by openly gay judge Perez Hilton for her views on the hot-button issue of same-sex marriage during the 2009 Miss USA competition. Her courage earned her a spot in my “Book of Gutsy Women.” In an article on Prejean, Ann Coulter suggested that jealousy may have served as the motivating factor behind the left’s contempt for Prejean. According to Coulter, liberals experience a “blinding rage” at “the sight of a sexy evangelical Christian” because they believe that “Christians are supposed to be fat, balding sweaty little men with bad complexions.” Prejean and other conservative beauty queens, or beautiful conservative women in general, defy that stereotype in addition to challenging the liberal orthodoxy suggesting that the Republican Party consists of nothing more than old, angry white men while all women and minorities belong to the Democratic Party. Coulter suggested that liberals resent the fact that “another beautiful Christian has thrown off the liberal burqa” that they expect all women to wear.

Many other conservative beauty queens have emerged since Prejean; most of them flew under the radar. As an article in The New Republic points out, Miss Michigan USA 2010 Rima Fakih belonged to the “Free Enterprise Group” at the University of Michigan Dearborn while Miss Oklahoma Morgan Elizabeth Woolard endorsed the Arizona immigration law SB 1070 during the 2010 Miss USA pageant, telling judge Oscar Nunez “I’m a huge believer in states’s rights. I think that’s what’s so wonderful about America. So I think it’s perfectly fine for Arizona to create that law.” SB 1070, also known as the “Support Our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act,” served as one of the most proactive anti-illegal immigration measures in the country at the time.  National Review published an article suggesting that answer cost Woolard the crown in a repeat of what happened to Prejean the year before. Both Prejean and Woolard missed out on the coveted title of Miss USA while securing the position of 1^st Runner Up. However, the aforementioned Fakih became Miss USA instead; indicating that conservatism may not have always served as the kiss of death for beauty pageant contestants, at least in 2010.

The backlash to Prejean’s response as well as the many people that came to her defense indicated what a divided country we lived in at the time. Since then, the divisions between left and right have arguably gotten worse. The ascent of social media has ensured that politics has crept into every aspect of American life and the rise of President Trump has caused many on the American left, which dominates the entertainment industry that beauty pageants fall under, to become more unhinged than ever before.

While Prejean’s answer on the question of same-sex marriage arguably cost her the title of Miss USA, she did not lose her crown retroactively because of her support for the uncool notion of traditional marriage. Because Prejean and Woolard offered their political commentary during the pageant as opposed to before the pageant, the people who ran the pageants had no way of knowing in advance how they would answer the political questions that the judges would confront them with. Prejean received more backlash than Woolard but imagine the pushback Woolard would receive today if she gave the same answer on SB 1070.  After all, President Trump’s decision to embrace combating illegal immigration as his central political issue has caused the left to recoil at the thought of immigration enforcement even more than they did in 2010.

Only recently has the left proactively declared war on conservative beauty queens before they even had a chance to compete in their respective pageants. This summer, two conservative beauty queens have had their crowns removed because of the support they have shown for President Trump and/or conservative politics in general on social media. Miss Michigan Kathy Zhu lost her title because of tweets described by the Miss World America Michigan State Director Laurie DeJack as “offensive, insensitive, and inappropriate.” Zhu, an outspoken supporter of President Trump, posted text messages and e-mail exchanges between her and DeJack on her Twitter page. DeJack contended that the content on Zhu’s social media accounts violated “MWA’s rules and conditions, specifically the contestant of ‘being in good character.’” MWA also ordered Zhu to “remove any mention of yourself as a participant of any sort in MWA from all social media platforms (including photographs of you wearing the MWA Michigan sash and/or crown, and any text claiming to be a participant of MWA events.”

Just a month after Zhu lost her title of Miss Michigan, Miss Nevada Katie Williams lost her title because of her pro-Trump tweets just days before the Miss America pageant.  A statement on the Miss America website said that Williams lost her title because she did not respect a rule requiring the “Ms. Nevada Facebook page” to “be devoid of all political content.” At the same time, the statement stressed that “She could be a President Trump supporter all she wants on her personal Facebook page all she wants for everyone to read.” Williams said that she “created a separate page for her Ms. Nevada content and kept her political content to her personal page.” After all, the statement from Miss America suggests that she can do whatever she wants on her personal Facebook page. However, Miss America CEO Susan Jeske disagreed with that assertion, claiming that “if you’re putting pageant stuff on your personal page, then that’s a pageant page. You’re combining it.” Talk about moving the goal posts. In addition to her passion for beauty pageants, Williams also has a passion for service; she currently serves as a Sergeant First Class (E7) in the Nevada Army National Guard.

When the higher-ups at Miss Nevada told Williams to give up her crown, they told her to “agree that you will not make any appearances, and nor indicate to anyone that you are or were Ms. Nevada State 2019” and “agree that you will not say or write or post electronically in perpetuity anything concerning the Ms. America Pageant Inc.” Who knew that beauty pageants had so much in common with Fight Club? In spite of the gag order placed on her, Williams appeared on “Fox & Friends” to tell her story. Her decision to double down on her support for President Trump makes her a worthy candidate for a spot in my “book of gutsy women.”

While liberals have already taken control of Hollywood, media, and the Academia, they appear to have developed a stranglehold on the beauty pageant industry as well. Last year, the Miss America pageant did away with its swimsuit competition. For the record, the swimsuit competition only serves as one portion of Miss America so beauty alone will not guarantee a young woman a spot in a beauty pageant. Evening gowns, talent, and a question and answer segment contribute to participants’ scores in Miss America; which determine the winner and runners-up. These changes first went into effect after former Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson, a former Miss America herself, became Chairwoman of the Board of Directors of the Miss America organization. Carlson served as one of the most outspoken conservative voices on the network until she decided not to renew her contract with the network and went public with her allegations of sexual harassment against the company’s Chairman and founder, Roger Ailes.

Carlson released a statement saying “We are no longer a pageant. Miss America will represent a new generation of female leaders focused on scholarship, social impact, talent, and empowerment.” Carlson’s statement implies that previous Miss America pageants obsessed solely on the beauty part of the beauty pageant without focusing on “scholarship, social impact, talent, and empowerment.”

Former Miss Ohio USA Madison Gesiotto had a perfect response to Carlson’s implication, perhaps unintentional, that beauty cannot coexist with intelligence and achievement: “Of course outward beauty is not as important as inner beauty. But at the same time, it doesn’t mean that outer beauty can’t exist and that women should be shamed or banned from being able to express themselves and feel confident, have a positive body image, and show off their physical fitness.” While Gesiotto interned for the Mitt Romney presidential campaign in 2012, most of her notoriety in the conservative movement came after she competed in the Miss USA pageant in 2014. Gesiotto recently graduated from law school, frequently appears on cable news and serves on the Trump Campaign Advisory Board in addition to serving as the co-chair of Women for Trump. She formerly wrote a column for The Washington Times called “Millennial Mindset” and currently serves as a columnist for The Hill.

In addition to declaring war on swimsuits, “Miss America 2.0” also replaced the evening gown with “evening attire.” It seems like the same PC virus that has caused San Francisco to rename felons “formerly incarcerated persons” has also swept through Miss America and beauty pageants in general; that would definitely explain the hostility to Zhu and Williams. In response to Miss America’s decision to abolish the swimsuit competition, Fox News Contributor Britt McHenry noted that “the swimsuit competition is actually tied to fitness. Girls train hard for it, that’s not something to discourage.”

The PC police can declare war on conservative beauty queens all they want to but if they think that developing a pattern of hostility against conservative beauty queens will cause Zhu and Williams to regret or rethink their support for President Trump, they have another thing coming. Not long after Xhu got the cold shoulder from Miss World America, Team Trump announced on its Twitter account that Xhu had just become the newest member of the Women for Trump Coalition Advisory Board; praising Xhu as a “patriot who has continued to stand for American values despite being stripped of her crown.” All conservative beauty queens or prospective beauty queens should rest assured that if the leadership at the beauty pageants decide to strip them of their titles because of their support for President Trump, the conservative movement will welcome them with open arms.

Liberals have a monopoly in Hollywood, they have a monopoly in Academia, they have a monopoly in the mainstream media but that still does not satisfy them. They want to have a monopoly on beauty as well. With the exclusion of conservative contestants from a handful of beauty pageants this year, they may feel as if they have finally achieved that monopoly on beauty that they crave. But the facts tell a different story. No matter how hard they try, liberals will always come up short in their efforts to erase the influence of beautiful, conservative, gutsy women in American politics and culture.