Warning. Parental Advisory.
This post discusses Trump and his campaign calling Kamala Harris a slut. I raise the question whether Democrats should respond by using a sexual humiliation weapon of their own. Would that help Harris by showing she can handle herself in a fight? Or would sex-shaming backfire on her, because men can do it to women, but women cannot do it to men?
If the subject offends you, skip today's post.
“Men are afraid that women will laugh at them. Women are afraid that men will kill them.”
Margaret Atwood
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| For sale at Trump rallies and stores |
Trump is relentless in calling Harris "low IQ." I don't consider it a particularly plausible charge -- she is an articulate professional-sounding lawyer -- but Trump gets value from it. The nasty insult shows his contempt and dominance, even if it doesn't land. Anyone you can publicly insult is lower-status than you. The public gets the message that Trump can bully her with impunity.
The low-IQ insult "makes sense" to people with the racial presumption that Blacks are less intelligent. Harris' rise in politics can be explained, Trump says, by the affirmative action boost she got by being female and Black. Trump's insult plays to White resentment that she is taking a spot that some White man better deserved.
Yesterday Trump re-tweeted a post referencing "blowjobs" that Harris surely gave her one-time boyfriend, Willie Brown. Here is what Trump posted:
Sexual subservience by the female in heterosexual acts is part of Trump's effort to position Harris as a Jezebel. She learned her trade "under Willie Brown," one Trump-supporting commenter to this blog wrote me. Ha-ha. Another commenter made reference to her being on her knees in front of politicians who supported her campaigns. Ha-ha. The idea out there among Trump supporters -- or at least male ones -- is that it is okay is to shame and humiliate Harris for being a woman who presumably has sex.
An element of the Trump brand is Trump-the-stud. Women service him. He is the guy on top. He takes what he wants, politically, financially, sexually. The Access Hollywood video and the assault/defamation charges against Trump have not hurt him with his base. They are on-brand for Trump.
So here is the question: Can Harris -- indeed must Harris -- respond in kind? Dukakis failed to respond to charges that he was soft on crime and national defense. He considered the charges ridiculous and unworthy of a response. He blew a 19-point polling lead. John Kerry had a similar view on the Swift Boat attacks. The guy with Purple Hearts and medals for courage is the coward? Ridiculous. He, too, lost. The attacks stuck.
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| Mother Jones |
Stormy Daniels testified that she had reluctant sex with Donald Trump. It was a classic "casting couch" situation. He was the executive producer of a TV show and she wanted a part. She wrote,
It may have been the least impressive sex I'd ever had, but clearly, he didn't share that opinion.
She wrote that his penis was "smaller than average," although "not freakishly small." Her primary observation was its shape:
He knows he has an unusual penis. It has a huge mushroom head. Like a toadstool.
I lay there annoyed that I was getting fucked by a guy with Yeti pubes and a dick like the mushroom character in Mario Kart.
This is the Mario Kart character:
Teasing Trump for being a selfish sex partner does not injure his brand. But being an unimpressive one does. And having a small, weird-looking penis most certainly does. It goes right at the heart of Trump-the-stud, alpha male brand. It makes Trump laughable.
Laughable is poison to the Trump brand. It pops the balloon of self-importance. The opposite of strong is silly. Trump understands that, which is why he gives demeaning, humiliating names to opponents. Pocahontas. Little Marco. Low-energy Jeb. Ha-ha.
Teasing Trump over his small and weirdly-shaped toadstool penis is a low blow. Male voters may resent it and it risks backfiring. No man wants women gossiping about him having an inadequate penis. It would not be Harris doing it; it would be Stormy Daniels doing it for her, but it is dangerous. Sexual humiliation is rough territory, and maybe only men can do it.
I think Harris should keep her distance. Humiliating others is Trump's brand, not hers. But it needs to be done. Harris must not be another foolish Democratic presidential candidate "above the fray." People analogize between how one fights in a campaign to how one would deal with the Russians or Chinese.
She can delegate this task. Let the Lincoln Project do it. Let PACs that don't have her name on it do it. Let the message rattle around social media: Trump has a small, weird, toadstool-shaped penis. Ha-ha.
Trump will hate it and deny it. When Marco Rubio teased about small hands, Trump hastened to assure people that there was "no problem." The more Trump denies this and complains about it, the faster the meme spreads. Is Harris a slut? A more interesting question is just how small and weirdly shaped is Trump's penis?
So far, the weird-penis meme has had almost zero traction. There are hundreds of stores and sites online where one can buy products calling Harris a whore, but only this single, tiny bumper strip available from one seller on Amazon.
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| Amazon |
George W. Bush kept his distance from Swift Boat critics of Kerry. That was smart. It gave them credibility as indignant veterans, not campaign operatives. Harris' brand represents turning the page from Trump-style name-calling and insults, but the brand cannot be that she is a slut who sexually serviced powerful men to get to the top. It especially cannot be that she takes the insult lying down, while she lets Trump, Mr. Superhero, with trading cards to prove it, get away with insulting her.
Sexual humiliation cannot go just one way. Trump is vulnerable to counterattack. Stormy Daniels was a very dangerous person to mess with.
It’s sad but no surprise that Trump and his associates publicly indulge in sexual fantasies about Harris. Maybe her campaign shouldn’t ignore it, but neither should they respond in kind. Better they simply remind voters that Trump is a sexual predator found guilty of sex abuse and this is what we can expect from him.
ReplyDeleteAn adjudged Sexual Molestor, who the Judge qualified as a Rapist, and owes at least one of his Victims nearly $500 Million, which for a serial Bankrupt is serious money.
DeleteThe low IQ thing has no power, she is too accomplished and as far as the slut angle goes, does it really hurt her? It seems too desperate on their part. I think Mike above is right, respond to the sex predator stuff and the slut angle is part of being a predator.
ReplyDeleteI wanted to add to my earlier comment that I worked with criminals for 30 years including lots of sex offenders and Trump really stands out as in the category of worst criminals.
ReplyDeleteStormy Daniels should not "do" anything for Vice President Harris and Governor Walz. She is a pathetic loser, after all is said and done. Didn't she perform at a strip joint in Bend a couple of years ago, and there was a fight in the parking lot? But you are correct that Vice President Harris and Governor Walz must defend themselves, and the best defense is an offense. Their offense shouldn't be nerdy policy statements a la Dukakis; but penis jokes aren't the answer either. I have no idea where the latest brouhaha--the Arlington National Cemetery episode--is going. Was the cemetery official mentally ill, as former President Trump's campaign claims?
ReplyDeletePlausible deniability. But “mushroom head” might actually turn on those crazy psilocybin Grateful Dead voters.
ReplyDeleteThe sleazier Trump gets, the more his supporters like him. As he said, he could shoot someone and not lose any votes. The good news is, he isn’t gaining any either. Since Harris entered the picture, he has flatlined and she is gradually gaining ground, but It’s an indictment of the Republican Party that it would look to such a psycho as their Great White Hope for becoming president.
ReplyDelete...sigh...wasn't there a time in this country when we didn't care all that much about the private behavior or physical attributes of our political leaders? But I get it, times have changed. Let's trot out Vladimir's Trump pee tape!
ReplyDeleteWe are at the bottom of the barrel...
ReplyDeleteThe world is on the verge of a WW III, and the topic of the day is sex and name-calling.
"Sticks and stones will break our bones, but names will never hurt us!"
Or will they?
Harris should absolutely not respond in kind. The Lincoln Project and others already are making fun of Trump in this area. Here’s the thing: Harris may have been promoted by Willie Brown in her first political race for District Attorney, but he promoted lots of people, including Nancy Pelosi. After her first election, Harris won two statewide elections and the Vice Presidency. In all of her elections, the voters chose her, not some guy she dated 30 years ago. People know this. They also know she’s been happily married and faithful to her spouse for ten years, something Trump has never accomplished. The only people who nod along with Trump’s slut shaming are MAGA jerks who are already voting for him. I think his attempt to use her 1990 relationship against her will hurt him with women and lots of men too. If she ever is asked to respond, she should give it short shrift, talk about being chosen by the voters and perhaps mention that she’s never committed adultery. She could also be righteously angry about the double standard at play for those who choose to make her past into something it’s not while ignoring Trump’s long history of adultery, sexual harassment and actual rape. I think this topic ultimately could work in her favor and backfire on Trump, who is beneath contempt for even sharing that “blow job” post.
ReplyDeleteI think the actual amount Trump owes E. Jean Carroll is nearer 85 million dollars, not five hundred million.
ReplyDeleteIs the topic of sexual name-calling trivial, given the problems of the world? Yes. Buyt the reality is that Trump and his allies are saying Harris is a slut you used blow jobs to rise in power. That is a challenge, and the question is whether Harris should ignore it, and let it fester and in so doing, look weak. Or if she should demonstrate that she knows a challenge when she sees one, and responds in kind, only harder and better. What should she do if China parks an aircraft carrier in international waters a few miles off of San Diego's naval base and starts servicing some unknown number of submarines with it. If she won't stand up for herself she won't stand up for America. This is a test. Kerry and Dukakis flunked it.
Peter, my bad ! Trump owes $453 Million for the Guilty Verdicts in his New York Fraud case, and
Delete$83.5 Million to R. Jean Carroll
Aircraft carriers don’t service submarines. There are special-purpose ships for doing that.
ReplyDeleteBesides, nuclear-powered subs don’t need at-sea servicing. They can go for months underwater, independently.
Harris made some progress by saying she wants a ”lethal” American military. I hope she gets asked tonight about how much she wants to increase the military budget to achieve that.
When did submarines and aircraft carriers make their way into this commentary ?
DeletePeter’s comment just before mine.
DeleteGracias, MT, I had missed that. My most recent minor stroke has scrambled my brain a tad.
DeleteThis is just one of countless examples of how unqualified Trump is to be president, but Republicans who imagine themselves to be rational minimize his madness to rationalize voting for him, claiming they support his "policies." His only policies are trying to stay out of jail and getting back at those holding him accountable. If they can't see what a foul-mouthed criminal he is, it's because they're as delusional as he is.
ReplyDeleteMichael Trigoboff was doing what in debate circles is called "minor point rebuttal diversion." Trigoboff isn't stupid. He knew the point I was making was to invent an obvious and outrageous provocation that a president might face, analogous to the obvious provocation of calling the opponent a stupid slut. In either case, one needs to respond, and if and how one does it is a test. Instead of addressing the point, Triboboff objected to the details of the invented hypothetical. This is trolling, not stupidity. I went ahead and published Trigoboff because it is an unusually clear example of his oppositional responses. People who may not "get" Triboboff's unusual syndrome (I am reluctant to call it a disability, although no doubt it would complicate anyone's life) might see it clearly in this case. The easiest -- though irrelevant -- response was to object to the use of aircraft carriers and submarines, not the point of the hypothetical. The point was to object. The knee-jerk response was opposition. People who read comments on this blog will be happier encountering Triboboff's additions if they have a the correct frame for understanding him. Think "oppositional defiance syndrome." Is 2 +2 four? I wold say, yes, sure. When a person with oppositional defiance syndrome hears that the reaction must be a build-up feeling of NO! There simply must be a flaw, a basis for denial. So how does one find a NO!? Think hard. There must be some way. Well,, if the 2s are in fact derived by calculations that rounded to 2 because they were in fact measurements, not abstract Platonic 2s, and are described as 2, but are in fact 2.00012, then the result isn't 4. It is 4.00024, whis IS NOT 4, and never could be!. The premise of 2 was wrong and the sum was even more wrong. See? The person was wrong in positing that 2+2 is 4. There is always a way for a person to object. Trigoboff becomes more useful as a commenter when one has this frame. He is seeking a place of opposition, because "BUT!" is the equilibrium state of serenity. I sometimes publish Curt for a parallel reason. I want readers to know what Trump-supporters think, and I particularly want the local readers to know Curt because he is a candidate for office and they may want to vote for him or against him. Even difficult people are useful. I don't doubt they are hard to manage in a work setting, but in the context of a comment section, they are more positive than negative.
ReplyDeleteI object. I don’t know why, but it makes me feel superior.
DeleteThanks for this, Peter. I personally have struggled for several decades with an obsessive compulsion to correct people who make a Statement I know to be even trivially wrong, ever since a death friend pointed this shortcoming out to me, near 30 years ago. But I think I might now understand MY a little better.
DeleteTrigiboff's comments don't add anything to the discussion.
DeleteI think Harris should lean in to this, and mention about how he paid to screw Stormy and now he wants to get paid to screw over the country.
ReplyDeleteYes, Stormy's not the best role model but she's a powerful woman and one of the few people who have stood up to Don Old. That takes some courage.