The Dark Misogyny of Donald Trump — And Most Americans

Enough already. Enough with all the racism, misogyny, and hate.

It’s horrifying. There has always been way too much blatant racism and misogyny in the US, the supposed ‘land of the free’ — yet today, both are on the rise again. Rapidly.

More racism. More misogyny. More hate.

This is not the United States I, or any sane, compassionate person, wants to live in. I refuse to accept this overwhelming tsunami of hateful, idiotic BS.

It is deeply undesirable, perverse, and atrocious. It will never be OK with me. Never.

The 2016 Trump-Clinton debacle

Flashback to 2016: most Americans thought racist, misogynistic con-man Donald Trump had almost no chance of winning the presidency. I thought that. My friends all thought that. Liberals and most pundits were sure he couldn’t win.

Yet … he won. Liberals and Democrats were stunned and deeply shocked. How could this happen in the US, a nation that had just elected — twice — a Black president, Barack Obama?

Well, that’s the exact, huge “problem,” right? Sadly, the truth is both readily apparent and horrifying: Trump won because he rode a wave of racist reaction against Obama and the ‘liberal establishment’ that enabled a Black man’s rise to our highest office.

But it wasn’t just that, alone. Trump also rode — and kept intensifying — a wave of dark misogyny focused on his Democratic opponent, Hillary Clinton. For over a decade, Clinton had been demonized by right-wing media, turned into the butt of sneering jokes, and dragged through the (imagined) mud conjured by her many right-wing detractors. Gradually, she lost any popular appeal she may once have had; she’d successfully been transformed into “the woman most Americans love to hate.”

On their debate stage, Trump actually stalked her and glowered over her, in a disgusting display of macho dominance. Yet, the moderators allowed it.

In truth, she never stood a decent chance. Between Trump’s, and many Americans’, casual misogyny and then-FBI-Director Comey’s ill-timed (for her), disastrous ‘investigations’ into her emails, Clinton’s campaign was pilloried and effectively undermined. Which was the likely misogynistic intention all along.

Civil War, revenge, and retribution

At the time, there was one person in my circle — just one — who ‘knew’ that Trump would win. That person was my long-term partner, Darlene. She grew up in South Texas and is quite used to the casual racism and misogyny — both subtle and overt — that many Texans embody.

But she was also quite aware that Texans’ racism and misogyny are not limited to this state, or even especially strong here (yes, we still live in this weird, super-red state). Rather, Texas is symptomatic of a potent, nationwide refusal to ‘grow up,’ learn, empathize, and enter the 21st century.

The truth is, racism and misogyny are everywhere in this country. They are more common or overt in the Southern states, but they are widespread throughout the nation.

Darlene’s wisdom about these matters kept surprising me. One time, she remarked to me, “You know, the Civil War never really ended.” She then explained that the ‘mystique’ of the Confederacy never subsided, and instead has been upheld and glorified by many generations of Southerners. The disingenuous “States’ rights” argument that many Southerners trot out merely masks the real issue — namely, that Southern states wanted full freedom to be racist and keep practicing slavery.

Amazingly (to me), many Southerners still feel wronged by the US and deeply resent the Civil Rights movement and racial integration. On a deep emotional level, they still seek revenge and retribution for the South’s defeat … 160 years later (!).

Revenge and retribution. Sound familiar?

A witches’ brew of misogyny and racism

When we look at the past three presidential elections, an interesting fact stands out: Trump won the two elections in which his opponent was a woman, and lost to his one male opponent, Joe Biden (though Trump continues to lie and contest Biden’s endlessly verified 2020 victory).

Darlene and I often discuss the past three elections, and we keep circling back to the same grim conclusion: Trump lost to an experienced and fairly competent man, but defeated two experienced, highly competent women. The only possible realistic explanation is that Americans’ inbred misogyny and/or racism (in Harris’ case) led directly to these results.

In the decade since Clinton’s 2016 defeat, and again since Kamala Harris’ defeat in 2024, we’ve heard every possible ‘reason’ for both women’s defeat. We’ve heard pundit after pundit, and politicians of every description, explain away their defeats by citing ‘the economy,’ or their ‘unlikableness’ (What, Trump is more ‘likeable’?!), or their ‘haughtiness’, or their loud laugh, or, in the case of Harris, the lateness of her entry into the race. They claim voters just “didn’t know Harris” well enough to vote for her.

Sorry, but Darlene and I call bullshit. Utter BS. Especially in the case of the Harris-Trump match-up, Americans had already seen Trump in action for over eight years — four in office, four out of office. And he was in our faces (loudly!) the entire time, lying, plotting revenge, and making trouble.

They knew what he was like and how he acted. They witnessed him endlessly screaming “Fraud!” and inciting an actual insurrection at our Capitol on January 6, 2021, to try to overturn the 2020 election results. Yes, Trump initiated a violent coup attempt in his bid to remain in power — yet a majority of voting Americans re-elected him anyway!

Then there’s this: Trump is a convicted felon, compulsive liar, grifter, and sexual abuser who openly seeks “retribution” against anyone who opposed him over the past nine years. Yet despite all this heavy and despicable baggage — which should have been enough to disqualify him ten times over — Harris’ personal ‘baggage’ proved to be even worse for her campaign.

What was her unforgivable ‘baggage’? She embodied the horrendous, inexcusable double-whammy of being both female and Black!

It was a social double-whammy that she could never overcome. This grim American reality, demonstrated for all the world to see, reveals our unadulterated, unforgivable misogyny and racism — and now, the US is paying a heavy, heavy price for our collective craziness.

In the end, both racism and misogyny are deeply hateful and destructive states of mind — and there is no other rational way to look at them. There just… isn’t. There’s simply no excuse, anymore, for such backward, hateful beliefs and behaviors. Not in our modern and ‘free’ country, anyway.

NO excuse could possibly be good enough. Ever.

“Me Too,” the Epstein files — and the flight into hate and misogyny

Does anyone remember the “Me Too” movement? Of course, we do — at least, the liberals and progressives do. But in many ways, the rest of the country has ‘moved on,’ meaning that the majority of Americans have relapsed into their familiar, casual misogyny. Sadly, our collective ‘moving on’ has been anything but positive.

Rather, it has turned incredibly negative, hateful, and even vicious. Overt anti-women sentiment is on the rise — moving in lock-step with oppressive anti-abortion attitudes and actions — while right-wing celebrations of ‘trad wives’ and wifely obedience are intensifying. Meanwhile, lonely incels rage against women and lament all the ways women (supposedly) hate and victimize men. And the release of millions of pages of the “Epstein files” has, so far, led to a giant nothing-burger — “nothing to see here, folks!” — that conveniently hides the crimes or transgressions of wealthy, powerful men/sexual predators.

It’s a crazy jungle out here, folks — and Americans’ accelerating misogyny and abhorrent racism are tied for prime example #1.

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So, next time you hear some entitled idiot going on and on about ‘the economy,’ or excusing Americans’ increasing racism and misogyny, please recognize: this is mere (nearly universal) deflection and denial. These dodges ALL support one major, sickening goal: at all costs, deny and avoid dealing with America’s dark addiction to racism and misogyny.

The truth is, racism and misogyny are addictive, horrifyingly potent belief systems. And, as with any destructive, crazy-making addiction, owning up to the truth of our collective situation is a vital first step — the vital first step — toward healing.

Without that step, nothing is ever admitted, nothing gets brought into the light, the savage darkness deepens — and nothing ever changes for the better.

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This post was previously published on The Left is Right.

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