Will Donald Trump attack Bill Clinton in the next debate? What does he think about women? These would seem to be questions Trump could answer, but they may be the wrong questions. "The question of what Donald Trump 'really believes' has no answer," David Roberts recently wrote. Trump isn’t interested in the content of what he’s saying, Roberts argued. Instead, he’s seeking to establish dominance, to win the interaction, and will say whatever he thinks gets him that win. That tendency was on full display in an interview with a Denver CBS affiliate, in classic would-be-funny-if-it-wasn’t-terrifying fashion.
Asked if he planned to talk about Bill Clinton’s infidelities, Trump responded:
I hope not, to be honest with you. I’d like to talk policy. I think policy is much more important so I hope I don’t discuss that. And we’ll see what happens. We’ll see how—levels of respect it’s called and we’ll see how we get treated.
“I hope I don’t discuss that.” There’s an obvious threat here, the sense that if Hillary Clinton is winning the debate too handily, she’ll have it coming. But there’s also an implicit recognition that even Trump doesn’t know what he’ll say and possibly can’t control it. And a brazen lie about his desire to talk policy.
And what about allegations (ha) that Trump is sexist? “I have great respect for women. I have such respect for women.” In fact, “there’s nobody respects women—that respects women more than I do.” Case in Roberts’ point: Trump can’t stop at a generic “sure, I respect women, of course.” He has to go on to the obviously laughable claim that “nobody” respects women more than he does. The idea that he respects women at all is easily shot down using about a dozen quotes from just the past week, and hundreds over the years. That “nobody” respects women more than Trump is a clear case of angling for dominance. Even when what’s at stake is a value Trump doesn’t begin to hold—respecting women—he has to do it the most and the best. He has to win the question even if he will lose the aftermath as people look at that quote and roll their eyes and begin dutifully assembling the long list of quotes to show that it’s not true.
Donald Trump’s core belief is that Donald Trump should always win at everything. If he has another belief, though, it’s that women are inferior beings simply there for his sexual attention. But he’s willing to (briefly) disavow the latter if he thinks it will serve the former.
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