Trump, Misogyny and a Tell-All Bestseller

By DON ROLLINS

When the pundits, historians and lawyers begin autopsying the Trump era next January, they’ll have a veritable trove of sensitive material to consider: this administration has leaked like a sieve since assuming power, imagine the onslaught of insider tell-all books and interviews once those appointees and staffers are no longer beholden to their mercurial boss.

Whatever dysfunctional details are surfaced by ex-Trumpsters, we can expect Trump’s unabashed objectification of women to be a recurring theme — a punitive, retrograde pattern established long before he stood on a presidential debate stage in 2016 and called Hillary Clinton “such a nasty woman.”

Trump’s very public misogynist quotes and actions abound; none more telling than the interview with Access Hollywood’s Billy Bush from earlier that same year: ​“I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it, you can do anything ... grab them by the pussy.”

Ongoing callous remarks like these indicate a bipolar categorization of women, according to Time magazine’s Jill Filipovic. From an article that appeared a year into Trump’s presidency: “​For Mr. Trump, this sexism moves in two directions: Women who are young, slim, white and conventionally attractive are sex objects, while women who don’t fit his narrow ideal of femininity are dismissed as pigs and dogs. Either way, there’s one status no woman seems to achieve: Human being.”

Two-plus years later, more American women agree with Filipovic’s take on Trump’s sexist ways. Washington Post/ABC polls from winter through summer of this year indicate nearly 62% of white women are leaning Democratic — a 27% increase over Clinton at the same point four years ago. (To be fair, we should note the recurring sexism Clinton faced throughout the 2016 campaign. That bitter defeat wasn’t just about high disapproval numbers and a poor Midwestern strategy.)

This 2020 downward spiral among women voters has become a pivotal focus for the Republican National Committee and Trump’s campaign advisors. Over 100 “Women for Trump” events have been held nationwide, most online since the onset of the coronavirus.

But especially troubling for the RNC is the leftward shift among working class white women. Citing the results of focus groups conducted earlier this summer, Democratic pollster Stanley Greenberg found Trump’s disrespect for women to be a motivating factor for staying with or switching to the Democratic Party.

All of this points to the very real possibility Trump’s longstanding mistreatment of women will cost him more than strange promises to keep suburban women safe from government funding housing, and token nods to Susan B. Anthony, will buy.

With a strong Democratic turnout and even-keeled Biden-Harris campaign, the next time we have to deal with Trump’s misogynistic ways will be in the pages of a tell-all New York Times bestseller.

Don Rollins is a Unitarian Universalist minister living in Hendersonville, N.C. Email donaldlrollins@gmail.com.

From The Progressive Populist, September 15, 2020

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