Donald Trump Is Being Outplayed by Women—and He’s Losing His Mind Over It

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Donald Trump Is Being Outplayed by Women—and He’s Losing His Mind Over It
The Nation, 9/30/16 -- By Joan Walsh

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Four days after his pathetic debate performance, Donald Trump is still digging himself deeper down the hole that Hillary Clinton dispatched him to on Monday night when she disclosed his racist and sexist treatment of former Miss Universe Alicia Machado. He didn’t deny Clinton’s claims that he’d fat-shamed his employee, calling her “Miss Piggy” and “Miss Housekeeping;” he essentially confirmed it, telling Fox and Friends the next morning that she’d gained weight, and it was a problem for him. Then his allies began attacking Machado for rumors that she’d been involved in a murder plot—she was never charged, with anything—and in the porn trade. The story’s latest twist is Trump’s meltdown in the wee small hours of Friday morning, attacking both Clinton and Machado on Twitter, and urging his 11 million followers to look at a “sextape” of Machado (one that Snopes.com says doesn’t actually exist.)

We already know the Trump phenomenon channels the tremendous and tragic backlash to the advancements of women and people of color in the last few decades. The folks in those “Make America Great Again” hats are almost always white and usually male. They are in thrall to a reassuring story that restores men to the head of society and whites to their central, superior place. Sure, there’s a strain of economic anxiety that reflects troubling economic trends for the white working class over the last 40 years. But Trump is also relying on male anger at female advancement. His serial adultery and his swaggering misogyny are key to his appeal to some older white men.

But they’re appalling to women of every race and age group, who are coming to see Trump as the belittling boss and callow playboy who shames employees, wives and daughters alike with cruel or crude comments about their appearance. The notion of a man who is clinically obese fat-shaming a beautiful but curvy young woman exemplifies the double standard that reduces women to their youth and beauty, but allows men (especially wealthy ones) a lifetime of presumed virility and social prestige.

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