Foul Mood Rising
If there is a single, overarching lesson to be drawn from the foul mood rising around the world, it may be this: we should never, ever underestimate the power of hate. Never underestimate the appeal of wielding power over “the other,” be they migrants, Muslims, Blacks, Mexicans, women, the other in any form. Especially during times of economic hardship, when a great many people have good reason to fear that the jobs that can support a decent life are disappearing for good.
Trump speaks directly to that economic panic, and, simultaneously, to the resentment felt by a large segment of white America about the changing face of their country, about positions of power and privilege increasingly being held by people who do not look like them. The intensity and irrationality of the rage Trump and his strongest supporters reserved for Barack Obama, the years of feverish desire to strip him of his Americanness by “proving” he was Kenyan, thereby rendering him “other,” cannot be explained by anything but race hatred. This is the “whitelash” that CNN commentator Van Jones named on election night, and there is no doubt that for a considerable segment of Trump’s voters it is a ferocious force.
Much of the rage directed at Hillary Clinton during the campaign came from a similarly primal place. Here was not just a female candidate, but a woman who identifies with and is a product of the movement for women’s liberation, and who did not package her quest for power in either cuteness or coyness. As the maniacal chants of “Lock her up!” made clear, for many in America, it was, quite simply, unbearable.
I am no fan of many of Clinton’s policies. But her policies are not what provoked the seething hatred she encountered—that came from a deeper place. It is not insignificant, I think, that one of the first big controversies of the campaign was Trump’s comment that then Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly, who had dared to ask him a tough question about previous sexist comments, had “blood coming out of her wherever.” This basest of insults—invoking the ancient idea that women’s menstruation makes them unfit for public life—was an early clue that the blind rage at women overstepping their allotted boundaries would become a driving force of the campaign. It was a hint, too, about the glue that connects a proud playboy like Donald Trump with a sexual scold like Mike Pence (who apparently won’t have a meal alone with a female coworker): a shared belief that women’s bodies exist to serve men, whether as objects of sexual gratification or as baby-making machines. And it was a preview of the rooms packed with white men who would soon be making fateful decisions about women’s health and reproductive freedoms.
The Ranking of Human Life
In the 2016 US presidential elections, we heard the roar of men who believe they and they alone have the right to rule—in public, and in private behind closed doors. One of the most chilling details about the men who surround Trump, and who support him most publicly in the media, is the number of them who have been accused of beating, harassing, or sexually abusing women. The list includes Steve Bannon (whose ex-wife told police that he physically and verbally abused her—the case was dismissed when his ex-wife couldn’t be found by prosecutors to act as a witness); Trump’s original pick for labor secretary, Andrew Puzder (whose ex-wife claimed in court documents that he caused permanent injuries after “striking her violently about the face, chest, back, shoulders, and neck, without provocation or cause”—though she later recanted); Bill O’Reilly, of course, one of Trump’s most powerful champions in the media; and Roger Ailes (who worked as an adviser to the Trump campaign after being forced to leave Fox News following allegations of sexual harassment by more than two dozen women, many at his own network, and who, like O’Reilly, denied the allegations). And the list would be incomplete without Trump himself, who has been accused by multiple women, including in lawsuits, of sexual assault and harassment (he denies all allegations), and whose first wife, Ivana, reportedly swore in a deposition that her husband raped her in 1989 (like Andrew Puzder’s ex-wife, she recanted).
There is no shortage of sexual predators on the liberal side of the political spectrum, but the litany of allegations, accusations, and hush money that swirls around Trump’s inner circle is unlike anything we have seen before. No matter the allegation, it is met with a wall of denial, of powerful men vouching for other powerful men, sending a message to the world that women are not to be believed. Perhaps this shouldn’t come as a surprise, given Trump’s brand: he’s the boss who does what he wants—grabs what and whomever he wants; mocks, shames, and humiliates whomever he wants whenever he wants. That is what the Grabber-in-Chief is selling. And there is clearly a rather large market for it.
The Problem with “Jobs Voters”
Many of Trump’s voters were not primarily driven by “whitelash” or “malelash” sentiments. Plenty of them said they voted for Trump because they liked what he said about trade and jobs, or because they wanted to stick it to the “swamp” of DC elites.
But there’s a problem with these stories. You cannot cast a ballot for a person who is openly riling up hatred based on race, gender, or physical ability unless, on some level, you think those issues aren’t important. That the lives of the people being put in tangible danger by this rhetoric (and the policies that flow from it) matter less than your life and the lives of people who look more like you. You just can’t do it unless you are willing to sacrifice those other categories of people for your (hoped-for) gain. To put it bluntly, a vote for Trump might not reflect active hatred, but there is still, at best, a troubling indifference behind the act.
The racial and gender resentments that did so much to bring Trump to power are not new. They have been omnipresent through history, rising and falling with additional stresses and provocations. There are, however, deep structural reasons why Trump’s version of a very old tactic is resonating so powerfully now, at this particular moment. Some of them have to do with those changes in white male status, but that tells only part of the story. What really won it for Trump was how those losses in social status were layered on top of losses in basic economic security.