Tag: President Pussygrabber

  • Defending the tweet during her daily press briefing

    They’ll defend anything. Sanders will defend anything. Trump could eat a toddler on live tv and she would say “Look, the president is always going to be somebody who has a big appetite.”

    “There’s no way that this is sexist at all,” said White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders, defending the tweet during her daily press briefing Tuesday afternoon. “Look, the president is always going to be somebody who responds,” she also said. “We’ve said that many times before.”

    Look, that’s such a vacuous thing to say. Look, you can’t just brush aside loathsome sexist and racist tweets and remarks by saying he’s always going to be sexist and racist. Look, you can’t just blithely excuse everything by telling us what we already know, which is that Trump is a guy who does shit like this. We know he is; that’s the point – he’s a terrible human being and a disgrace to the country.

    Of the five senators who at the time of Trump’s tweet had called for the president to resign, Gillibrand was the only woman. She was also the only one he went after on Twitter.

    But Sanders insisted that has nothing to do with Gillibrand’s gender. “This is simply talking about a system that we have that is broken in which special interests control our government and I don’t think that there’s probably many people that are more controlled by political contributions than the senator the president referenced,” Sanders said, expanding on the president’s tweet with a more serious charge.

    Ironically, it’s true that we have a broken system and that corporate interests control our government, but the implication that Trump opposes that is laughable.

  • Enough

    BBC World anchor Katty Kay in DC:

  • Would do anything

    President Piggy’s carrying on is even international news. The BBC is reporting it, with “slut shaming” in the headline.

    US President Donald Trump has been accused of trying to “slut shame” a female senator who demanded he quit over sexual misconduct claims.

    Mr Trump claimed Kirsten Gillibrand had come “begging” to him for campaign donations and “would do anything” for cash.

    Senator Elizabeth Warren said the president was “trying to bully, intimidate and slut-shame” her fellow Democrat.

    Yes she did.

    In Tuesday morning’s tweet, the US president accused Ms Gillibrand of being a lackey to Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer.

    “Lightweight Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a total flunky for Chuck Schumer and someone who would come to my office ‘begging’ for campaign contributions not so long ago (and would do anything for them), is now in the ring fighting against Trump,” the US president posted.

    Mr Trump did not explain what he meant by “do anything” for campaign contributions.

    Wink wink nudge nudge.

    Democratic Senator Richard Blumenthal, a frequent critic of the president, tweeted that “America must reject Trump’s sexist slurs”.

    The only way to do that is to reject Trump. Let’s do that.

  • Way to fire us up

    There’s nothing quite like a rich white ignorant talentless man in a position of maximum power telling women to shut up for making women get EVEN LOUDER.

    That’s especially true when he’s a rich white ignorant talentless man with a long history of assaulting and insulting women.

    It’s especially true when he’s a rich white ignorant talentless man with a long history of assaulting and insulting women who are orders of magnitude more intelligent and better informed and more ethically aware than he is.

    President Trump forcefully entered the national debate about sexual harassment on Tuesday, again dismissing his own accusers as fabricating their stories and saying that a prominent Democratic senator, a woman, “would do anything” for campaign contributions and calling her a “lightweight.”

    The president’s attacks came in early morning Twitter posts after several of the accusers had come forward on Monday to renew their charges that Mr. Trump had sexually assaulted them before he was president. His Twitter attack also came after the senator, Kirsten Gillibrand of New York, had called for him to resign.

    By inserting himself directly into the discussion, the president ensured that calls for revived scrutiny over the women’s allegations would gain new energy and prominence.

    Go on, President Pussygrabber, insult us some more. We’ll sink our fangs into your ankles so hard a crowbar can’t get us off you.

    Gillibrand briskly pointed out that Trump’s tweet was a sexist smear.

    The president was pointed in his criticism of Ms. Gillibrand, saying she “would do anything” for campaign contributions, without providing details about what he meant.

    Oh, you know – the usual – blow jobs for drunken sailors, that kind of thing.

    On Tuesday afternoon, Mr. Trump ignored a shouted question from a reporter about what he meant in his Twitter post.

    Coward. Weasel. He can say anything on Twitter, but in person he just scowls and ignores.

    “In his tweets, whether intentionally or not, Donald Trump cues these gendered beliefs that women are less capable (or “lightweight”) and that ambition in women is something to be maligned,” said Kelly Dittmar, a scholar at the Center for Women and Politics at Rutgers University, in an emailed message.

    Of course it’s intentionally. Don’t be giving him wiggle room. He doesn’t trip on a White House carpet and accidentally tweet that Gillibrand is a lightweight. (I know, that’s not what she meant. She meant that he says these things from his foul id and may not be consciously aware of how coded they are. I know. But it’s one of those things where you don’t get to plead ignorance as an excuse. His foul id is reekingly sexist and it knows what it’s doing, even if Definitely Disgusting Donnie doesn’t.)

    Christine Matthews, a Republican pollster, said Mr. Trump was following his playbook by going “full force against accusers.”

    “I think he’s worse with women but he just throws every insult that he can possibly throw,” she said. “That ‘would do anything to get elected’ is fairly ominous — it can be taken in a way that is very suggestive, and I think that is obviously horrible.”

    She said that the political climate had changed and that there was no returning to a time when sexual harassment was tolerated. “Having a president who attacks other women for how they look or suggests that they are sexually promiscuous or liars, it’s going to hurt the party over all,” Ms. Matthews said.

    Is it? When?

  • A good time to remember each one

    Judd Legum:

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

     

    End of list. Those are the women who have gone public.

  • Trump orders us to say “Christmas”

    President Pussygrabber spent his morning at a thing called the “Values Voter Summit.” So I guess the Values in question include sexual assault, bragging about sexual assault, lying about bragging about sexual assault, lying about everything, ensuring that only the rich will be able to afford health insurance, calling people rude names in public, shoving people, bullying, fraud, cheating, theft, corruption, bribery, treason?

    Trump dove into America’s culture wars on Friday, touting his administration for “returning moral clarity to our view of the world” and ending “attacks on Judeo-Christian values.”

    Moral clarity. Moral clarity. That guy. That guy who insults and attacks – in full public view – anyone who challenges him or criticizes him or simply annoys him. That guy who lied all over tv for years about Obama’s birth certificate. That guy who said the white supremacists who marched in Charlottesville included good people. That guy who picked a fight with the mayor of San Juan during a natural disaster. That guy who told Puerto Rico FEMA would be withdrawn. That guy who lies about everything. That guy who talks about himself and his grievances and his awesomeness when he’s supposed to be talking about a hurricane or racist violence or nuclear war or any of a thousand things a president is expected to talk about. Moral clarity.

    And the audience at the Values Voter Summit, an annual socially conservative conference, didn’t fail to deliver.

    Why? Why didn’t they fail to deliver? Even as social conservatives, why would they cheer that man? That moral cesspool?

    Because Christmas.

    “We are stopping cold the attacks on Judeo-Christian values,” Trump said to applause, before slamming people who don’t say “Merry Christmas.”

    “They don’t use the word Christmas because it is not politically correct,” Trump said, complaining that department stores will use red and Christmas decorations but say “Happy New Year.” “We’re saying Merry Christmas again.”

    The comment drew thunderous applause.

    Well. One, that’s idiotic, because it’s so trivial and so irrelevant to morality or Moral Clarity.

    Two, it’s cynical, for the same reason.

    Three – he’s simply lying again. No, they are not “stopping cold the attacks on Judeo-Christian values.” They can’t. They don’t have the authority to do that; the Constitution doesn’t allow them to do that. Pussygrabber Trump can’t force department stores to put up Merry Christmas signs, and he can’t force us to say it. He can’t prevent us from saying we hate Christianity if we feel like it, or from explaining why. He can’t stop our thoughts and words cold.

    Editing to add a helpful screengrab to document his threat to abandon Puerto Rico:

    Image may contain: 3 people

  • Fidelity to the teachings of the Church

    A press release from the State Department March 13:

    The Department of State is pleased to announce the U.S. delegation to the 61st Session of the UN Commission on the Status of Women (CSW), to be held March 13 through 24, 2017 at United Nations Headquarters in New York. The CSW’s annual two-week session is the most important annual meeting on women’s issues at the United Nations. Representatives of the CSW’s 47 member governments convene to discuss ways to improve women’s lives at an event that also features the active participation of civil society representatives from around the world. The theme of this year’s session is “Women in the Changing World of Work.”

    Ambassador Nikki Haley, U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, will serve as the Head of Delegation. Ambassador Michele J. Sison, Deputy U.S. Permanent Representative to the United Nations, will serve as the Deputy Head of Delegation.

    They will be accompanied by two Public Delegates:

    Lisa Correnti, Executive Vice President, Center for Family & Human Rights (C-FAM); and Grace Melton, Associate for Social Issues at the United Nations, The Heritage Foundation.

    A press release from Human Rights First March 15:

    Human Rights First today expressed deep concern over the Department of State’s designation of the Center for Family and Human Rights (C-FAM) as one of two organizations joining the U.S. delegation to the 61st Session of the U.N. Commission on the Status of Women. C-FAM is classified as an anti-lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

    “The United States has worked hard to position itself as a leader on human rights within the United Nations and that progress is now in great jeopardy,” said Human Rights First’s Shawn Gaylord. “C-FAM is not just a conservative organization, but a radical organization that supports criminalizing the behavior of LGBT people, which often ends up criminalizing their very identities.“

    Under the guise of “reestablishing a proper understanding of international law, protecting national sovereignty and the dignity of the human person,” C-FAM promotes an anti-LGBT platform including by supporting countries notorious for the criminalization of LGBT people and systematic human rights violations against members of the LGBT community. The organization has been vocal in its support for Russia’s 2013 propaganda law and other similar laws in the region. The organization partners with country missions at the United Nations that promote initiatives targeting the LGBT community under the guise of protecting the family. C-FAM sponsored a U.N. event in May 2016 titled, “Uniting Nations for a Family Friendly World.” Among the U.N. country missions leading the event were Russia, Kyrgyzstan, Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Somalia, Uganda, and other nations notorious for policies and laws that infringe on the human rights of LGBT people.

    And women. The policies and laws of those nations infringe on the human rights of women, too.

    Let’s visit C-FAM:

    C-Fam was founded in the summer of 1997 in order to monitor and affect the social policy debate at the United Nations and other international institutions.

    C-Fam is a non-partisan, non-profit research institute dedicated to reestablishing a proper understanding of international law, protecting national sovereignty and the dignity of the human person.

    Notice what’s not mentioned – human rights, women’s rights, equality, the freedom or equal rights of the human person.

    C-Fam publishes and promotes scholarship related to the proposition that the UN and other international institutions harm a true understanding of international law and in the process undermine the family and other institutions man requires for a just, free and happy life.

    And never mind what woman requires.

    Their Mission Statement is more blunt.

    C-Fam’s Mission:  To defend life and family at international institutions and to publicize the debate.

    C-Fam’s Vision:  The preservation of international law by discrediting socially radical policies at the United Nations and other international institutions.

    C-Fam’s Core Values:  Fidelity to the teachings of the Church  –  Perseverance –  Professionalism –  Truth telling

    THE teachings of THE church? Church with a capital C? So it’s Catholic then, but slightly covert about it.

    So President Pussygrabber, he of the three marriages and the boasted freelance fucking, has seen fit to put a lobbyist for the Catholic church’s views on women and “the family” on its delegation to the UN Commission on the Status of Women. He’s not that kind of theocratic conservative himself, but he’s happy to do what he can to force it on women, because he’s not a woman so why should he care?

  • Denying women access

    Found a news item other than “LifeSite” and similar – the Huffington Post reports:

    In one of his first acts as president, Donald Trump has reinstated a federal ban on U.S. funding for international health organizations that counsel women on family planning options that include abortion.

    The Mexico City policy, also known as the global gag rule, was first put in place by President Ronald Reagan in 1984. It prohibits giving U.S. funding to nongovernmental organizations that offer or advise on a wide range of family planning and reproductive health options if they include abortion ― even if U.S. dollars are not specifically used for abortion-related services.

    Since then, the gag rule has been something of a political football, rescinded and reinstated as soon as presidents take office. President Bill Clinton did away with the rule, President George W. Bush reinstated it and then President Barack Obama again revoked it in 2009.

    Shame on Reagan, shame on Bush, shame on Trump.

    The United States spends about $600 million a year on international assistance for family planning and reproductive health programs, making it possible for 27 million women and couples to access contraceptive services and supplies.

    None of that money is spent on performing abortions. The Helms Amendment has prevented U.S. tax dollars from funding overseas abortions since 1973. Proponents of the global gag rule believe the policy is nevertheless still necessary, arguing that Helms isn’t strong enough by itself.

    But the Guttmacher Institute and other opponents of the gag rule say that such restrictions have devastating effects on international organizations, often forcing them to close their clinics or reduce their services, denying women access to help from safe providers and even hampering HIV prevention efforts.

    It’s just punitive bullying, that’s all. It’s punishing poor women on the far side of the planet, just for the sake of punishing them. It’s sexist, it’s misogynist, it’s bullying.

    The policy has severe implications and could be deadly for women and girls in developing countries and conflict zones, who often resort to dangerous methods of ending their pregnancies when they lack access to safe abortion. The World Health Organization estimates that more than 21 million women a year have unsafe abortions in developing countries, accounting for about 13 percent of all maternal deaths.

    Sen. Jeanne Shaheen (D-N.H.), the only woman on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, told Foreign Policy that she is planning a legislative response to the reinstatement of global gag rule.

    “I will continue to stand up to President Trump and Republican leadership in Congress who are intent on rolling back women’s access to reproductive healthcare, and will soon be introducing bipartisan legislation aimed to repeal the Global Gag Rule for good,” the senator said. “Women around the world deserve to make important personal health care decisions without politicians in Washington interfering.”

    It’s war.

  • It is never just locker room talk

    Congressional Representative Luis Gutierrez on why he won’t be at the inauguration. Now there is a guy who knows how to talk, unlike President-elect Pussygrabber. The rep has something to say about the Pussygrabber.

    My speech this morning on the Floor of the House about why I will not be at the inauguration ceremonies on Jan. 20 but will be marching with women at the Women’s March on Jan. 21. “We all heard the tape when Donald Trump was bragging – bragging! – about grabbing women by their private parts without their consent. It is something I can never un-hear. Bragging to that guy on TV that he would grab women below the belt as a way of hitting on them. Sorry. That is never OK. It is never just locker room talk. It is offensive and, if he ever actually did it, it is criminal….”

  • Down with personhood

    But never mind WW3, never mind food and medicine, never mind global warming, never mind the minimum wage – how about that political correctness, huh? Like TIME magazine? “Person” of the year? Am I right? For years it was “Man of the Year.” It should obviously just stay that, right? Am I right?

  • Of course it is crystal clear that assault is unacceptable

    Back in October Jeff Sessions – former prosecutor Jeff Sessions – was very cautious about what you could call sexual assault.

    Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), a top Donald Trump surrogate, said on Sunday that even if the GOP nominee actually grabbed a woman “by the pussy,” as he bragged about in a leaked tape from 2005, that behavior would not amount to sexual assault.

    “I don’t characterize that as sexual assault,” Sessions told The Weekly Standard in the spin room after Sunday night’s presidential debate. “I think that’s a stretch. I don’t know what he meant.”

    “So if you grab a woman by the genitals, that’s not sexual assault?” the reporter asked Sessions.

    “I don’t know,” the senator replied. “It’s not clear that he — how that would occur.”

    Oh really? I know how that would occur. I bet it’s pretty hard to find a woman who doesn’t know how that would occur. There are many ways, actually. Public transport is an outstanding convenience for men who like to grab women by the pussy. How that would occur is just that a man would stick out his hand and thrust it between a woman’s legs and then grip. If he had enough time he could do more than grab and grip. It’s not terribly difficult to extrapolate from that description to other settings – walking down the street; in the supermarket; at a party; in an elevator; at a movie…you get the idea.

    Is that sexual assault? Yes, of course it is. It’s not a “stretch” to say that it is. It’s not rape, it’s not penetration (unless it is, and sometimes it is), but it is assault.

    Sexual assault is defined as any kind of unwanted sexual contact, which is exactly what Trump described in the recording. In a conversation with Billy Bush, then host of “Access Hollywood,” Trump boasted about how he could kiss and grope women without their consent because he was a celebrity.

    “I just start kissing them,” Trump said on the tape. “It’s like a magnet. Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. … Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”

    Women reacted strongly to Trump’s comments, sharing thousands of their own stories of sexual assault on Twitter to underscore that what he said epitomizes rape culture in America.

    And he won anyway. Would you believe it? He won anyway.

    But then, a surprise ending – Sessions took it back.

    UPDATE: Oct. 11 ― Sessions said on Tuesday that “assault is unacceptable,” and argued that his remarks had been mischaracterized.

    “The Weekly Standard’s characterization of comments I made following Sunday’s Presidential debate is completely inaccurate,” the senator said in a statement provided to HuffPost. “My hesitation was based solely on confusion of the contents of the 2005 tape and the hypothetical posed by the reporter, which was asked in a chaotic post-debate environment.”

    “I regret that it resulted in an inaccurate article that misrepresented my views,” Sessions’ statement continued. “Of course it is crystal clear that assault is unacceptable. I would never intentionally suggest otherwise‎.”

    So he’s happily joining the administration of a man who brags about committing sexual assault.

    What a shit hole this country has suddenly become.

  • President Pussygrabber tells women to hit the road

    Trump contentedly told 60 Minutes that women will have to “go to another state” if Roe v Wade is thrown out.

    Affirming his campaign pledge to appoint Supreme Court justices who oppose abortion, President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday said that women would “have to go to another state” to get an abortion if the court were to overturn Roe v. Wade.

    “Having to do with abortion, if it ever were overturned, it would go back to the states,” he said in his first post-election interview, on CBS’ “60 Minutes.”

    “Yeah, but then some women won’t be able to get an abortion?” Lesley Stahl asked.

    Trump responded: “Yeah, well, they’ll perhaps have to go, they’ll have to go to another state.”

    When Stahl asked if he thought that was acceptable, Trump said to wait and see.

    We don’t need to wait and see, we know how that is. It’s what there used to be. It’s not some mysterious unfathomable imaginary possibility, it’s our former reality and current reality in places like Ireland and Poland and much of South America. It’s bad. We know that.

    [A]s president, Trump could chip away at abortion access. He ran his campaign pledging to appoint “pro-life judges” to the Supreme Court and to allow states to outlaw abortion, frequently saying that the issue “should go back to the states.” In addition, his running mate, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence (R), has a history of opposing abortion and restricting reproductive rights in his state.

    And punishing women, just to be on the safe side.

  • On the to-do list

    There is of course the schedule of court cases.

    US president-elect Donald Trump heads to court later this month to face charges that he ran a scheme that “preyed upon the elderly and uneducated to separate them from their money”. It’s the first of an unprecedented slew of legal issues to face an incoming president.

    On Thursday, Judge Gonzalo Curiel will hold a hearing on jury instruction and what evidence can be admitted in the class action lawsuit brought by students of the president-elect’s now defunct Trump University.

    Another first. How well it reflects on us, that our new president-elect ran a fraudulent not-university named after himself.

    The first day of the trial, at which he has been called as a witness by both sides, is set for 28 November. Daniel Petrocelli, Trump’s lawyer, has attempted to delay the trial, however Curiel seems intent on starting it before the inauguration.

    The hearing is the first of an unprecedented slew of legal difficulties that the president-elect must overcome.

    Trump is suing celebrity chef José Andrés for pulling out of his just-opened Washington DC hotel. Andrés, a Spanish-born immigrant, found Trump’s explicit racism so offensive that he joined Hillary Clinton’s campaign, declaring himself “a proud immigrant”. Trump sued him for $10m; Andrés countersued for $8m.

    One has to wonder what basis Trump has for suing. People aren’t allowed to stop working for him? In what universe?

    In solidarity with Andrés, a fellow celebrity chef, Geoffrey Zakarian, also pulled out of Trump’s DC hotel, which opened two weeks ago a stone’s throw from the White House. Trump is suing him as well, for damages “in excess of $10m”. Their mediation is scheduled for next year in the same court as the suit against Andrés.

    Let’s have a round of applause for both of them. I hope they win.

    The New York attorney general, Eric Schneiderman, who filed another suit against Trump University in 2013, is continuing his investigations.

    Schneiderman’s office is also investigating the president-elect’s namesake charity, the Donald J Trump Foundation, for alleged violations of the tax code governing nonprofit organizations.

    There is also the case of Kashiya Nwanguma, a woman who is suing Trump for inciting violence at a a rally in Louisville, Kentucky. The violence was caught in a video. One of the men pushing Nwanguma is prominent white nationalist Matthew Heimbach, who is also named in the suit. The suit is waiting for western district of Kentucky judge David Hale to rule on two motions to dismiss, a clerk told the Guardian.

    This is how it goes when you elect a lying cheating violence-inciting bully president.

  • Somewhere between disastrous and cataclysmic

    Paul Waldman at the Washington Post underlines the obvious: if you think Trump is going to do away with “the establishment,” you’re smoking something.

    This was near the heart of Trump’s appeal to the disaffected and disempowered: Send me to Washington, and that “establishment” you’ve been hearing so much about? We’ll blow it up, send it packing, punch it right in the face, and when it’s over the government will finally be working for you again. And the people who voted for Trump bought it. After all, he’s no politician, right? He’s an outsider, a glass-breaker, a guy who can cut out the bull and get things done. Right?

    But the idea that he would do this was based on a profound misunderstanding of what the establishment actually is, and who Donald Trump is.

    …

    An organizational chart of Trump’s transition team shows it to be crawling with corporate lobbyists, representing such clients as Altria, Visa, Coca-Cola, General Electric, Verizon, HSBC, Pfizer, Dow Chemical, and Duke Energy. And K Street is positively salivating over all the new opportunities they’ll have to deliver goodies to their clients in the Trump era. Who could possibly have predicted such a thing?

    Everyone. Absolutely everyone. Mr Rich Guy favors policies that help rich guys; stop the presses!

    What are the priorities Trump and the Republican Congress will be pursuing right out of the gate? There’s the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, of course. “Take that, establishment!”, 20 million people can say when they lose their health coverage. Next on the list is that eternal Republican priority, cutting taxes. If you’re waiting for your fat rebate from the government once the establishment has been sent packing, you’re in for a shock. It won’t actually be Trump’s plan precisely that will pass Congress and he’ll sign, it will be some combination of what he wanted and what congressional Republicans want. But the two share a driving principle in common, and you may want to sit down while I tell you that helping regular folks is most definitely not it.

    No, their commitment is to be of service to that most oppressed and forgotten group of Americans, the wealthy. Trump’s tax plan would give 47 percent of its benefits to the richest one percent of taxpayers. Paul Ryan’s tax plan is even purer — it gives 76 percent of its cuts to the richest one percent in its first year, and by 2025 would feed 99.6 percent of its benefits to the top 1 percent.

    One in the eye for those establishment types, right? Making the obscenely rich even richer; that’s how it’s done.

    Now to be clear, the fact that in some ways — hiring lobbyists, cutting taxes for the wealthy, gutting regulations — Trump is going to be little different from any other Republican president doesn’t mean that he isn’t uniquely dangerous. He’s reckless, impulsive, vindictive, hateful, and authoritarian, and his presidency is going to be somewhere between disastrous and cataclysmic, likely in ways we can’t even imagine yet.

    But one thing it will not be is a threat to the establishment, or the system, or whatever you want to call it. The wealthy and powerful will have more wealth and power when he’s done, not less. There’s a lot that Trump will upend, but if you’re a little guy who thinks Trump was going to upend things on your behalf or in order to serve your interests, guess what: you got suckered.

    I expect what will happen is that an army will come to all our doors, break them down, and take away all our stuff to sell on eBay, proceeds to benefit the rich.

  • The deranged distillation of the angry white male id

    Michelle Goldberg considers the role of misogyny in the recent disaster.

    Forty-six years ago, Germaine Greer wrote in The Female Eunuch, “Women have very little idea of how much men hate them.” Well, now we do.

    On Tuesday, faced with a choice between a highly competent if uncharismatic female candidate and the deranged distillation of the angry white male id, America chose the latter. (Or, at least, the Americans whose votes count most in the Electoral College chose the latter: Hillary Clinton won the popular vote.) We don’t yet have a full picture of the electorate, but according to exit polls published by the New York Times, 54 percent of women voted for Clinton while 53 percent of men chose Donald Trump. Men—joined by white women, a majority of whom voted for Trump—banded together to award the presidency to the most shamelessly misogynist candidate in modern history. They’ve given us a kakistrocracy because they couldn’t bear the sound of Clinton’s voice.

    But we’re told it wasn’t that at all, it was a Rebellion Against The Liberal Elites, it was The Working Class Pushing Back Against Trade Deals, it was The Economy Stupid.

    I don’t begrudge any Bernie Sanders supporters the consolation of thinking that their man could have saved us from this calamity. All of us are grieving, trying to make sense of the worst thing to happen to our country in modern history. All I can say is that I’ve been to Trump rallies in the Midwest, South, and Northeast, and I never saw a single sign or T-shirt about free trade. I never heard chants about NAFTA or TPP. What I heard was “Trump That Bitch” and “Build That Wall.” When Clinton delivered her heart-shredding concession speech, traders on the floor of the New York Stock Exchange reportedly booed and chanted “Lock her up!” They know Trump’s victory was no rebellion against Wall Street.

    It would be very odd if it were, given his bank accounts and his stated views.

    Clinton ran for president on an explicitly feminist platform and promised a half-female Cabinet. Her victory would have been a sign that the gender hierarchy that has always been fundamental to our society—that has always been fundamental to most societies—was starting to crumble. It would have meant that men no longer rule. We have to come to terms with the fact that a majority of men would rather burn this country to the ground than let that happen.

    They’d rather punch women in the face than let it happen, too.

    I thought we were going to get there. I thought my daughter was not going to be consigned to a lesser life than my son. I no longer do. We are going to lose Roe v. Wade. There will be no push for paid leave (whatever Ivanka Trump might promise) or a higher minimum wage. If Trump’s campaign is any indication, our new administration will be a priapic junta. Roger Ailes was too toxic to remain at Fox News but not too toxic to be a close Trump adviser. Campaign CEO Steve Bannon has been charged with domestic violence and accused of sexual harassment. As Indiana governor, Vice President–elect Mike Pence signed a cruel law mandating the burial or cremation of miscarried fetuses. Trump’s first campaign manager, Corey Lewandowski, grabbed a female reporter so hard he left bruises on her arm, then tried to smear her as “delusional.” Trump senior communications adviser Jason Miller took journalists to a strip club the night before the Las Vegas debate. “Women, you have to treat them like shit,” Trump once said. It might be America’s new unofficial motto.

    The era of President Pussygrabber begins.

  • And all the good people will do nothing

    Damon Lewis on Facebook:

    What do you tell your kids?

    You tell them the truth.

    You tell them that the majority of Americans are good people. But, you also tell them they can’t rely on the good people of this country to protect them from evils because here, being a “good person” does not require actually being good. Being a “good person” merely means not being actively evil. Here, you can still be a “good person” if you don’t stop an evil. You can still be a good person if you don’t even try. You can still be a good person if you just maintain an unawareness that you’re being evil.

    You tell them the truth that the majority of Americans are either hateful or find hatred acceptable.

    You tell them the truth that you are very sorry that so much is being placed on them, but that not telling them this will leave them unprepared for the inevitable day they find out on their own. When someone grabs a woman by the pussy. Or rips off a man’s turban. Or chokes out a man for selling loose cigs. Or builds a wall. And all the good people will do nothing. And you’ll be tempted to be yet another good person.

    You tell them being a good person is not enough. You tell them being a good person is a participation trophy. Evil thrives off the existence of good people. You tell them do not accept being a good person.

    You tell them to be a great person.

    Voting for Trump isn’t just voting for a very right-wing person or for very right-wing policies. It’s voting for a profoundly bad person, bad in many ways – ways I’ve been enumerating for months, along with many other people. It’s a vote for badness. It’s a vote for cruelty, insults, assault, contempt, ridicule, shaming, mockery, bullying – for nearly every kind of moral badness you can think of. That’s what Trump stands for. Not the rage of the underclass, not a rebellion against the elites, but badness.

     

  • Backsies

    President Pussygrabber tweets again.

    Nine hours between the two. I suppose somewhere in those nine hours one of his handlers reminded him he needed to start acting presidential now.

    Good save.

  • The wages of cruelty

    Another reason Trump’s win is so distressing – the fact that being relentlessly horrible didn’t cause him to lose. I’ve realize that the reason I was feeling so cheerful in the last few weeks was because I thought his hatefulness was causing him to lose. It looked that way.

    But no. His hatefulness was exhaustively documented, and he won anyway. He won because of it.

    That makes me feel sick, and profoundly alienated.

    Cruelty and bullying should cause people to turn away in disgust. They did many, of course, but to many others they were like catnip to a cat.

    He’s demonstrated that cruelty and bullying are rewarded. That’s very bad news.

  • How he won on fear and bile

    Garrison Keillor says Trump voters aren’t going to like what Trump does.

    Raw ego and proud illiteracy have won out, and a severely learning-disabled man with a real character problem will be president. We are so exhausted from thinking about this election, millions of people will take up leaf-raking and garage cleaning with intense pleasure. We liberal elitists are wrecks. The Trumpers had a whale of a good time, waving their signs, jeering at the media, beating up protesters, chanting “Lock her up” — we elitists just stood and clapped. Nobody chanted “Stronger Together.” It just doesn’t chant.

    The Trumpers never expected their guy to actually win the thing, and that’s their problem now. They wanted only to whoop and yell, boo at the H-word, wear profane T-shirts, maybe grab a crotch or two, jump in the RV with a couple of six-packs and go out and shoot some spotted owls. It was pleasure enough for them just to know that they were driving us wild with dismay — by “us,” I mean librarians, children’s authors, yoga practitioners, Unitarians, bird-watchers, people who make their own pasta, opera-goers, the grammar police, people who keep books on their shelves, that bunch. The Trumpers exulted in knowing we were tearing our hair out. They had our number, like a bratty kid who knows exactly how to make you grit your teeth and froth at the mouth.

    Or like Twitter trolls, 4chan, Reddit, Breitbart.

    But the mayhem Trump will cause is going to hit the Trumpers harder than anyone else, he says. He also points out that cruelty is bad.

    We all experienced cruelty back in our playground days — boys who beat up on the timid, girls who made fun of the homely and naive — and most of us, to our shame, went along with it, afraid to defend the victims lest we become one of them. But by your 20s, you should be done with cruelty. Mr. Trump was the cruelest candidate since George Wallace. How he won on fear and bile is for political pathologists to study. The country is already tired of his noise, even his own voters. He is likely to become the most intensely disliked president since Herbert Hoover. His children will carry the burden of his name. He will never be happy in his own skin.

    I hope that’s true, but I doubt it.

  • Chief of Breitbart

    Oh dear god – the Breitbart guy might be chief of staff. Breitbart. Twitter trolls running the country.

    Steve Bannon, the conservative provocateur and Mr. Trump’s campaign chief, is now a leading candidate to become White House chief of staff, but he’d have to beat out another campaign veteran in the running, Reince Priebus, the chairman of the Republican National Committee, according to two people with knowledge of the discussions.

    Mr. Bannon, the executive chairman of the conservative website Breitbart News, who took a leave to help manage the final weeks of Mr. Trump’s campaign, is well liked among Mr. Trump’s circle of overlapping advisers, who see him as a favorable influence on the president-elect.

    What’s a “favorable influence”? I have no idea what that means.

    After the White House, it was on to Capitol Hill to meet with Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the majority leader, and the speaker of the House, Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin. Mr. Ryan only reluctantly endorsed Mr. Trump, called his attack on a judge of Mexican heritage the “textbook definition” of racism, and then stopped campaigning for him after a video emerged of the candidate bragging about sexual assault.

    On Thursday, it was all smiles.

    “Donald Trump had one of the most impressive victories we have ever seen, and we’re going to turn that victory into progress for the American people,” Mr. Ryan said, “and we are now talking about how we are going to hit the ground running to get this country turned around and make America great again.”

    One of the most impressive victories? What’s he talking about? It was a squeaker, and he didn’t even get the popular vote.

    Mr. Trump added: “We had a very detailed meeting, and we’re going to lower taxes, as you know, health care, we’re going to make it affordable. We are going to do a real job on health care.”

    How?

    How are they going to make health care “affordable”? And what does that mean anyway, when different people have different incomes? What’s affordable to President Pussygrabber isn’t affordable to me.

    Kris Kobach, the Kansas secretary of state and an ardent opponent of immigration, has been added to Mr. Trump’s transition team, according to local news reports.

    Mr. Kobach, who provided guidance on immigration policy to Mr. Trump during the campaign, will help the president-elect in the weeks before he takes office, according to The Wichita Eagle.

    He told the paper he did not expect to get an offer to serve in the Trump administration, but just having him in a formal role in the new Washington could send shudders through the nation’s immigrants. Mr. Kobach has been one of the loudest anti-immigration voices in the Republican Party for years. He added Mr. Trump’s call for a border wall along the southern tier into the party’s platform over the summer.

    Great. What’s David Duke going to be doing?