Note: This article talks about sexual violence against women.
The future might truly wonder how a man who said “Grab them by the p*ssy” got elected, TWICE. Or by then, people will understand that the worst serves as a tool for the weak and stupid.
The weakness of strongmen has been constant throughout history. Napoleon, while strategically gifted, was often seen as deeply concerned with his persona. His successes fueled him into his failures. Many men’s lives were lost for Napoleon’s ill-planned push into Russia. His hubris was certainly partly to blame for the catastrophic losses. Hitler was not a genius, by any measure. He was hateful and power-hungry and happened to seize power when public sentiment was ideal. In Hitler’s last days, after his army was getting decimated for months, after all the boasts seemed pretty empty, instead of leading, he holed up in his bunker with his dog, his girl, and a boatload of drugs. Rather than face his failures, he died by suicide.
Trump is not much dumber than Hitler. He has similar failings to the German—boisterous, hateful, and unearned assuredness. He is also building a ginormous bunker in the new East Wing fortress. Cowardice in the final days also seems plausible.
This is where Trump’s asinine comments should be obvious to anyone who pays attention to the news. While Trump might be even more off his rocker than he was a decade ago, the man was never an orator. His speeches were couched in careful language by a press that profited off the views. Fox News has long been gutter entertainment, but now, legally, it’s been found culpable for lying. Many once-venerable sources have long jettisoned integrity for profit. Has the culture of reality television, where the truth is a fiction made from real footage, been used to create the news? Either way, journalism has hit some real lows over the last few years.
Recent reporting on Trump’s admiration for both Jon Husted’s and Nicki Minaj’s physique offers a good litmus test for whether the news is turning the corner on its civic responsibility. Our real life is Trump’s workplace. Discussing other people's physical attributes is generally not appropriate at work. But how will the news frame his remarks? The Rolling Stone wrote, “Trump Delivers Surefire Closing Message for Midterms: Check Out Nicki Minaj’s ‘Beautiful Ass.’ The president of the United States’ posterior fixation continues with the election just over a week away.” CNN was, like most outlets, soft-pedaling the comments, saying, “Trump comments on Nicki Minaj’s appearance at Michigan rally…During a rally in Michigan, President Trump made a joke about the physique of Ohio Sen. Jon Husted before turning his attention to rapper...” That we still have most journalists couching Trump is any time of sane discourse is harmful to the public.
The president, someone who was found by the court to be a rapist, is repeatedly discussing people’s bodies on the public stage. The Fourth Estate exists to help the public understand the world—not solely to profit or flatter power.
The new report from the Democrats’ House Judiciary Committee is fifty pages of Trump’s direct involvement in trafficking and abusing women. The reports of violence are harrowing. He coerced women through lies and bullying. The report mentions 11 women and draws on FBI records and documents released through the Epstein Files Transparency Act. Of those women, at least five were assaulted. Trump is described as being involved with the trafficking of women. One woman says Epstein said he’s organized “many parties with Don.” Overall, Trump’s actions in the Epstein files align with how he still talks about people.
Rape is a tool that men can use to exert power over women. Its violence is rooted in the patriarchal attitude that men’s needs supersede women’s wishes. However, it’s not a solitary action on the part of one man, but instead part of the cultural norms that make rape normalized. As Buchwald wrote in their 1993 book Transforming a Rape Culture, “rape culture condones physical and emotional terrorism against women as the norm.” In a society where women’s bodies are products to possess in marketing, and where men make jokes about harassing women, rape is tacitly seen as acceptable.
For Trump, people are objects to be used. Women certainly have nothing but the appeal of their looks. Even his descriptions of sex are about violence, grabbing women by a body part or taking them. Women’s roles are to be used up by strong men. In patriarchy, women are diminished to eye candy or to their reproductive element, destabilizing their humanity. As objects rather than people, they lived to serve men sexually. As Loughnan, Pina, Vasquez & Puvia point out, “the objectified were perceived to be more responsible for being raped.” Because women are treated as things, they can be used. A woman is not a person, but a tool to enforce the masculinity of others. In employing violence against women, their humanity is further diminished.
People like Nicki, who seemed thrilled to showcase her derrière, work within the problematic system. Women start to internalize this objectification. As Fredrickson & Roberts point out, “Girls and women are typically acculturated to internalize an observer’s perspective as a primary view of their physical selves.” Women often play into the norms that men like to get validation, and also police women who do not conform.
Dehumanizing people humorously ensures they understand that value isn’t given. To be alive is not enough to deserve rights, as the so-called pro-life shows us with their votes. Rights are on a sliding scale, with white wealthy men earning the most for being born. The rest need to kowtow to their order to beg for their prorated options. Nicki hopes by playing into the system she’ll get more rights than the average brown woman. (My guess is she hasn’t read my recent posts on Vivek Ramaswamy, a man who deserves to lose in November and for the rest of his life.)
This is the same administration that originally planned to publicly show an execution. While the violence is a different form, materially both are about supporting the masculinity of the men in power. Strongmen who aren’t actually capable at strategy or thought know they’re weak. By creating a culture where violence is the norm, they maintain a scared populace. Just as dogs who’ve been beaten cower, a populace where violence is normalized will arguably act with care. As I’ve discussed, though, the rhetoric of violence makes more people violent, rather than keeping people in line.
Violence is generative. It’s terror that fractures people’s hearts and creates an intellectual cancer that explodes in horrible ways. Putting violence into the world largely creates more, worse, and different forms of horror for other beings on the planet to deal with, only to continue this disgusting cycle. That is why violence cannot go unremarked.
All the time that Trump screamed fake news, in a sense, he was right. We allowed a man who said he grabbed women to be president. We allowed his jokes to be repeated or softened. We let this culture of violence masquerade as laughable or not serious. Even now, we let his vile remarks go without serious discussion.
Within 48 hours, he celebrated a woman’s backside despite arguably trying to get the Republicans out from behind in the midterms, and then a 50-page report about his violence against women was released. Will the news and the politicians see that this predator who sits in the highest office is not only a problem but also a symbol of the type of violence that pervades our society?
We need more voices to articulate how Trump represents the worst of our nation. He is not an aberration. The violence of racism, misogyny, and class warfare are all tools to retain white supremacy until men. But the costs to society are exorbitant. Beyond the ridiculous costs, both monetary and emotional, of our police state and carceral systems, we’ve chosen to sacrifice the future of our nation. By placing the majority of people (women and people of color are the majority) at a disadvantage to maintain the culture that exists.
We sacrifice affordable health care, better schools, and an affordable way of life when we choose to allow men like Trump to hold power. Why? He rules by fear. His jokes are thinly veiled reminders that most people are objects he can control. People like Nicki and MAGA respond to fear by refusing to see past their own survival. They vote for the worst, hoping their tacit approval of his choices will keep them safe. It won’t.
To be clear, it was always a problem that Trump was an ass. If you see the press now seem concerned about him, or even attempt to claim his actions are due to dementia, this was a man who has always been like this. Before the press found it profitable for them to sanewash him. As you see Republicans break ranks, remember they knew he was like this. The problem is that they’ll try to claim Trump is an aberration when he actually represents the faulty system.
The only way to move forward is for all of us to stand up to this culture. We need to demand justice for the harmed. We need to call out the tools the powerful like Trump use. We need to keep journalists accountable for their part in this. We need to demand that our politicians prosecute the culprit. Until we, as a culture, make powerful white men face consequences for their violence against women, we will remain the ass-backwards culture that doesn’t value 1/2 of our populace.
