Trump’s ‘manosphere’ White House takes shape. It’s a searing affront to women

Donald Trump proclaimed that he would be the protector of women. That seems to involve anointing creeps from whom women need protection.

If you want to see women flying high, dominating the landscape and unmasking a fake wizard, see Wicked. In Oz, women are defying gravity. In America, many have been grounded, under the thumb of a wicked wizard.

Trump set his restoration’s macho tone in a return to Madison Square Garden for a UFC event. As The Bulwark’s Marc Caputo said on CNN, “This is sort of the conquering Republican Caesar who’s going into the Colosseum and everyone’s cheering, and he’s got his political gladiators with him.”

President-elect Donald Trump, flanked by Dana White and Elon Musk, attends UFC 309 at Madison Square Garden on November 16.Credit: AP

Trump took his seat by the fighters’ cage to American Bad Ass by Kid Rock, with his bro posse, Elon Musk and Joe Rogan, and the House Speaker, Mike Johnson, tagging along like the nerdy little brother. Dana White, the UFC chief executive, introduced Trump at the Republican convention as “the toughest, most resilient human being that I’ve ever met”.

Women’s optimism over striking achievements – the #MeToo movement, the anti-Trump marches, perhaps the most effective modern House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi, the women elected to Congress in response to Trump and the creditable presidential campaigns of two women, Nikki Haley and Kamala Harris – is melting faster than a water-soaked wicked witch.

The future is a president who dragged women back to the past by overturning Roe. Trump, who was himself found liable for sexual abuse, moved to elevate three men accused of sexual misconduct – one with a minor – to fill three crucial cabinet posts: leading the Justice, Defence and Health and Human Services departments. It is a searing affront to women.

As Julia Baird writes in her new book, Bright Shining: How Grace Changes Everything, “In truth, we rarely care about violence against women, so foundational is it to our culture.”

Former congressman Matt Gaetz withdrew from consideration to be attorney-general last week.Credit: nna\mikala.theocharous

When Matt Gaetz dropped out, Trump learnt that some people are so repellent that not even he can force them down the throat of craven Republicans in Congress. Some Republicans baulk at a Fox News weekend host running our military, much less one who paid a woman who accused him of rape to head off a lawsuit.

“It’s a pretty big problem, given that we have, you know, we have a sexual assault problem in our military,” Republican senator Kevin Cramer said of Pete Hegseth, Trump’s choice for defence secretary.

And it’s not just men with sordid incidents. Linda McMahon, Trump’s selection for education secretary, has been accused in a lawsuit, along with her husband, Vince McMahon, of allowing a man in their company, World Wrestling Entertainment, to groom and sexually abuse children in the 1980s and ’90s. (In a separate lawsuit obtained by The Athletic, Vince McMahon was accused by a woman of sex trafficking, physical and emotional abuse, sexual assault and negligence.)

In the old days, even a small black mark – smoking pot or not paying taxes for your nanny – could sink you instantly. And, for larger offences, the fact that you weren’t criminally charged wouldn’t save you.

Pete Hegseth, Trump’s pick for defence secretary, paid a woman who accused him of rape to head off a lawsuit.Credit: AP

As Carl Hulse wrote in The New York Times: “What once passed as disqualifying for a presidential nominee seems downright benign in comparison to allegations of sexual misconduct and illicit drug use by his attorney general pick detailed in a secret congressional report, a sexual assault accusation followed by a paid settlement for his choice to head the Pentagon and an acknowledged former heroin addiction by the would-be health secretary.”

As Republican senator John Cornyn noted in a massive understatement, “standards are apparently evolving”.

It was risible to see supporters of the three men jockeying over which act was the least illegal and morally reprehensible, making arguments akin to: “Well, at least Pete didn’t sleep with a minor.” “Well, at least the nanny Bobby groped wasn’t a minor.”

During #MeToo, we moved away from the “he said/she said” dynamic to a “she said” one. That probably needed some course correction because it was pushing men into Trump’s manosphere. It never should have been simply: Believe all women. It should have been: Don’t disbelieve women automatically; investigate.

Now we’re back using “he said/she said” to dismiss a woman who filed a police complaint, full of lurid detail, against Hegseth. Bill Hagerty, a Republican senator from Tennessee, said the accusations were a “disgrace,” nothing but “he said/she said.”

In putting forward three men accused of sexual misconduct, Trump is conveying that men like himself are the perpetual victims of lies, so it should not be disqualifying.

He is turning what he told Billy Bush on the Access Hollywood tape into a presidential mantra: “When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything.”

This article originally appeared in The New York Times.

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