Ladies, it’s time to demonstrate our undeniable power at the polls

One of the men who runs this state — Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick — said after campaigning with Donald Trump in North Texas last week that the story about the GOP presidential nominee bragging about sexually assaulting women was “in the rearview mirror now.”

That’s all you can say, I guess, when you’re a deer in headlights.

But this glare isn’t past. Far from it. Women continue to come forward, sharing allegations of Trump’s groping through the years.

And although Patrick, Gov. Greg Abbott, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz and other top Texas officials — all Men, all members of the Party of Family Values — have condemned Trump’s lewd remarks, none has rescinded his endorsement. The only Texas congressional Republican to call on Trump to step down also happens to be the only woman: U.S. Rep. Kay Granger of Fort Worth.

“No one in the Republican Party or anyone in society accepts what he said,” Patrick said Wednesday during an appear- ance on Time Warner Cable News’ “Capital Tonight.” “He apologized; you move on. The future of the country is at stake.” Ladies, where’s the outrage? Patrick and others want to change the subject. They’ve got more important things to worry about, such as border security and Syrian refugees.

But consider this: The chance of an American dying on U.S. soil in a terror attack at the hands of a foreigner is 1 in 3.6 million, the conservative Cato Institute reported recently. The chance of an American being murdered by an illegal immigrant, according to Cato, is an astronomical 1 in 10.9 billion.

How many woman report a rape or attempted rape in America? Nearly 1 in 5, according to a respected Centers for Disease Control and Prevention survey.

Sexual assault matters. It matters on college campuses. It matters in the military. It matters at home and in the work-

place.

It matters that a candidate for the most powerful position in the world was caught on a hot mic bragging about doing it.

It matters even in Texas, where women are not yet so beaten down by patriarchal, politically motivated “health” policy that we can’t recognize another threat to our bodies and our dignity. Nothing about being feminine, especially in this state, involves weakness, submission or resignation. Don’t suffer fools

Sarah Bird’s description in her book “Love Letter to Texas Women” comes to mind: “She is Southern but with a Western grit handed down by her foremothers, who could give birth during a Comanche attack, help out when it came time to turn the bulls into steers, and still end up producing more Miss USAs than any other state in the union.”

We don’t suffer fools like the so-called leaders of this state who can’t stand up for their mothers, wives and daughters with something other than lip service. Where are those deeply held conservative principles when we need them?

I missed the ’60s. But this feels like a bra-burning moment to me. OK, ladies. It’s up to us now to save the world.

One of the most eyeopening images of this campaign was statistician Nate Silver’s electoral maps on his website FiveThirtyEight depicting the 2016 outcome if only men voted versus the outcome if only women voted.

The men’s map blazed red, with 188 electoral votes for Hillary Clinton and 350 for Trump. The women’s map was mostly a sea of blue, with 458 electoral votes for Clinton and 80 for Trump. Silver noted Mitt Romney held his own among women in 2012, losing them by 8 points, while they’re currently going against Trump by 15 points.

Sure, there are women who support Trump, and their hashtag has been trending on Twitter in the past few days. Many have bought Trump’s “lockerroom banter” excuse. They seem to nod their heads in bless-your-heart acknowledgment. As one woman told CNN: “It was just a man being a man in a man’s world, talking to men.” Just not acceptable

Some Trump supporters have even taken to criticizing his accusers, wondering why the women who now speak of Trump’s tongue down their throats, his hand up their skirts, his octopus arms going everywhere on a first-class flight, didn’t come forward sooner.

We know the answer, don’t we? We see how the accused belittles and ridicules and dismisses them, these days aided by the sound and fury of social media.

But another hashtag rose up last week: #WhyWomenDontReport. Women used it to boldly share the reasons they didn’t initially come forward about abuse.

One of the most chilling is from New York Times national correspondent Jackie Calmes about an earlier job: “Because I was a new 24-y-o reporter w/$30k in college debt and he was the publisher.”

I’ll add my own admission as to why I routinely put up with unwanted groping and kissing from classmates that started in middle school: I thought I didn’t have the power to stop it.

Ladies, we can’t ignore this anymore. It’s not acceptable — in our daily lives, or in the “lockerroom” conversations of a presidential candidate.

We have the power to speak out. We have the power to vote. And we should use it.