What’s on my mind?
Watch the women: They include the white suburbanites President Donald Trump so desperately wants to win over. And esteemed television interviewers Leslie Stahl and Kristen Welker. And all the “fat pigs, dogs, slobs, and disgusting animals” - to quote Trump’s words for the exhaustive list of women he dislikes.
Keep your eye on those women. Watch as they and those who went before and those yet to feel his wrath hold their heads high as the misogynist-in-chief attacks them. Keep your eye on first lady Melania Trump and former second lady Jill Biden, too. More about them in a moment.
What’s the deal with Trump’s repeated attacks on women? Mid-September national polling showed nearly half of suburban women don’t like Donald Trump, believing he’s made their communities less safe.
“Women …” Trump begins at an Oct. 19 rally in Arizona. “I like women (growly voice) … Women … You used to call them suburban housewives. I’d better go [stet] politically correct.”
He reels them in with the natural-born skill of a carnival barker: “Is there one woman here that minds being called a ‘suburban housewife’?”
A scattering of voices: “No!”
Physical attraction aside, Trump doesn’t attack women if he wants something - and what he wants from these suburbanite women is the bump he needs in the polls. And so, as he’s done for months, he recites his not-always-coherent law-and-order sales pitch, claiming that under a President Joe Biden, “low-income housing (will) be built right next to your America’s dream.”
The picture he paints is that crime and “these ANTIFA people and the radical left” will move in to “destroy these incredible communities …”
He flirts, he cajoles, he flatters, he threatens, he pleads … Anything to win their votes. A CNN fact-check of Trump’s repeated theme to suburbanites was that “parts of this are extremely misleading, while others are blatantly false.”
In 2015/16, the first time this creep ran for the Presidency, GQ Britain magazine questioned if Trump had retweeted a cover shot of a naked Melania taken in 2000, before the Trumps were married.
The photos were shot on Trump’s private jet. As a woman, I recognize that Melania Trump’s elegance and tact long ago surpassed her modeling career. Surely, the photos are a lingering embarrassment for her. As the world’s most powerful man, Trump could surely have them struck from the Internet. Why he hasn’t, mystifies me.
Trump tweeted at least twice that Melania had posed for GQ, doubtless prompting a run on that particular back issue of the magazine. This strikes me as the coup de grâce in Trump’s Cruelty to Women campaign.
(When Melania vanished with a rumored kidney procedure, Trump seemed to go out of his way to comment that “Some people say it was plastic surgery, but ...”).
On Thursday, after becoming annoyed with seasoned anchor Leslie Stahl’s line of questioning, Trump stalked off the set mid-interview, during the taping of Sunday evening’s 60 Minutes.
Trump then posted his own video of the show to Facebook, urging his followers to “look at the bias, hatred and rudeness on behalf of 60 Minutes and CBS.” In walking out, he gave one of the nation’s most popular news programs heightened status for the show on which he was appearing and - not unimportantly - gave himself a flurry of furious headlines less than two weeks before the US election.
Was the walk-out a strategic publicity ploy? Or was Trump aggrieved with good reason? Even Trump may not know, anger being his go-to response.
Trump wasn’t finished. In trashing 60 Minutes and Stahl on Facebook, Trump took a swing at the moderator of that night’s Presidential debate: “Kristen Welker is far worse!” Slam, bam, no thank you, ma’am.
Having steadily criticized Welker days in advance of the debate, Trump knowingly or unknowingly constructed a plausible “out” should he lose: “She’s always been terrible and unfair, just like most of the Fake News reporters, but I’ll still play the game,” he tweeted.
Trump had already called Welker “extraordinarily unfair … a disaster ... totally partisan ... very biased … a radical left Democrat, or whatever she is.” To seal the deal, Trump said Welker had been “screaming questions at me for a long time. She’s no good.”
Elsewhere, Trump twice commented that Welker’s parents “supported the Democrats” and had contributed to the Democratic National Convention as well as to Biden’s campaign.
Welker wasn’t fazed. Her unflappable, even-handed fairness during the debate was widely praised. Although it’s not in the official debate transcripts, Trump headed straight for moderator Welker’s desk in the pre-debate moments after he walked onstage. Despite the hubbub of debate prep, a single camera caught what happened next.
In a low voice, Trump told Welker he knew about a meeting she’d had at (I believe the time was - NP) 6:15. Staring closely into Welker’s face, he added: “You both want me to lose.” The chilling subtext: I know where you go. I know who you see. I know what you say. I know where your parents go. I know who they see. I know what they say.
Returning to her notes, Welker carried on, seemingly unrattled.
That Trump would approach the woman moderating the debate comes as no surprise. That he would make a covert comment she wouldn’t forget is also not surprising. That such a comment would unnerve many women and intimidate others is just the way he rolls ... It’s not his fault, is it?
Trump is a bully, and bullies are cowards at heart. Decent men do not normally perceive strong women as “enemies.” Donald Trump does.
And Melania? Post-debate, the first lady strode onstage for the mandatory show of support and congratulations. Where Jill Biden flung herself into husband Joe’s arms, Melania was cool, aloof, and dressed entirely in black. One fashion writer described the effect as “somber.”
Melania’s monochrome dress drew attention to her red-soled, Christian Louboutin black patent leather shoes. These are expensive shoes; elitist shoes; shoes with a sharply pointed toe box and 4.7 in. knife-sharp stiletto heels; shoes that squash the toes and squish the foot. These are not “We the people …” shoes.
As the Trumps exited the stage hand-in-hand, Melania yanked her arm forward, releasing Trump’s grip. Walking ahead, she turned her back on the President of the United States. In turn, he gave her a little “back pat” that might have unbalanced a woman less accustomed to impossibly precarious shoes that make a “statement.”
A friend once described such stilettos as “F*ck Me” shoes. In choosing to walk alone, Melania’s statement was a resounding “F*ck You.”
© Nicole Parton, 2020
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