Trump’s Promise to Young Men: I Am Your Retribution Against Women

It already feels like ages ago now, but at this time last week we were all talking about how Trump complained that convicted rapist Harvey Weinstein was “schlonged” and riffed weirdly about the size of a late, great golfer’s genitalia. “Arnold Palmer was all man, and I say that in all due respect to women, I love women,” Trump had said at a rally in Pennsylvania, leeringly drawing out the word “looooooove” as MAGA-hatted men standing behind him guffawed. “This man was strong and tough, and I refused to say it, but when he took showers with the other pros, they came out of there, they said, ‘Oh, my God. That’s unbelievable.’” He then welcomed two former NFL players to the stage: Le’Veon Bell, who recently posted a photo of himself on social media in a T-shirt that said “Trump or the Tramp,” and Antonio Brown, who in 2021 settled a sexual assault lawsuit brought by his former trainer.

At that rally, Trump also call Harris a “shit” vice president, and he continued the denigration last weekend on The Joe Rogan Experience—a podcast with a heavily male listenership—where Trump called Harris “a very low-IQ person” and dismissed his female critics. “Some of these women, they’re so stupid,” he said. (It wasn’t clear if he was talking about hosts of The View or a broader group.) And on Sunday, Elon Musk’s political action committee released a new ad that says America can’t afford a “C word” in the White House—then says (guffaw, guffaw) that the C stands for “communist.”

Trump’s former adviser in the White House, Stephen Miller, has also gotten in on the alpha-male act. On Jesse Watters’s Fox News show earlier this month, Miller had some dating advice for young men, saying that embracing misogyny is irresistible to women who really, down deep, want the man to run the show: “Show that you are a real man. Show that you are not a beta. Be a proud and loud Trump supporter, and your dating life will be fantastic.”