There’s no pretending the Trump Campaign’s hateful misogyny wasn’t just that, blatant hostility toward women. And not surprisingly, now that he’s been elected, it’s on display with a vengeance. It’s more than coincidence that two of his most important cabinet picks (Matt Gaetz and Pete Hegseth) are plagued by accusations of sexual assault. With the help of none other than champion “bro” Elon Musk and his rockets, the incoming administration screams of the manosphere. It’s hard to avoid the impression that for Donald Trump, having himself been convicted of sexual assault, such a reputation isn’t a negative to be shunned, but a highly desirable credential, nothing less than a badge of honor in the “bro” culture he embraces.
As I’ve said before, Kamala Harris lost the election for a combination of reasons that go well beyond sexism and racism, but just because a lot of people, women included, voted for Trump based on inflation and illegal immigration doesn’t mean the proliferation of a “bro” mentality poses any less of a threat. A few months back I talked about MAGA Republican opposition to reproductive autonomy, how it isn’t based on concern for the unborn, but rather the desire to maintain the patriarchal power structure—the notion that a woman is a child-bearing vessel, not a human being who is a man’s equal. The obnoxious meme “Your body, my choice” just about says it all—talk about a bullhorn rather than a dog whistle!
Isn’t it Obvious that Sexual Assault is MAGA’s Retribution of Choice?
Trump’s selection of Gaetz (now withdrawn) and Hegseth makes it clear how much MAGA opposition to “woke” is nothing but an ugly (re)assertion of (primarily white) male power and domination. I worry that “owning the libs” is the least of it. It’s all too apparent that a good deal of Trump’s desire for retribution goes hand in hand with the manosphere’s desire to punish women for having increased their power and status in society. Never mind limiting women’s role in the military, as Hegseth suggests, is there any question that the bro crowd would repeal the 19th Amendment if they could? Talk about going back!
Why aren’t the six conservative justices Supreme Court justices concerned that a left-leaning President will receive the same immunity from prosecution they gave Donald Trump? Unfortunately, the answer isn’t pretty; they don’t expect we’ll have another left-leaning president because, just like Kevin Roberts of “Project 2025” fame, they assume the right-wing is “in the process of taking this country back”—i.e., Donald Trump will be our last democratically elected president.
Having lived my brief life in the antebellum, slaveholding South, one of the most patriarchal societies that ever was, I think I can address this machismo-obsessed phenomenon with some authority. Remember, slaveholders could have their way with their enslaved property whenever they chose without fear of recourse; there was no such thing as raping a slave because enslaved people had no rights of their own. Neither was there a law against killing them (although it was often discouraged by the inevitable monetary loss). That’s the sort of absolute macho power and control that Gaetz and Hegseth want to resurrect.
The “old South” wasn’t an idyllic world of mint julips and magnolias; unless you were Scarlett O’Hara and daddy owned the plantation, it was a violent and precarious time and place, not just for the enslaved but for most poor whites as well. Dudes like Gaetz and Hegseth thought that unlimited white male privilege should be the permanent way of things, but justice and the arc of history proved them wrong—as hopefully it will again.