Donald Trump has put the primitive core of Republican philosophy on display. The modern Republican party promotes an alpha male social structure. This is an evolutionary regression to the parts of our potential that are most clearly seen in our primate antecedents. In the typical Baboon troop, male baboons use violence to establish rank within the male hierarchy of their troop. The highest ranking male then gets breeding rights with any female he chooses, all of them basically, and the female members of the troop are subjugated through that social structure. Females establish their own hierarchy partly by currying favor of powerful males.
Donald Trump’s sexually predatory behavior, and the casual way in which he brags about sexual battery, would fit perfectly in most Baboon troops. This regressive behavior is abhorrent to those of us who favor an equitable, consensual culture that honors our human rights, the ability to cooperate with each other, and the ability to resolve conflicts equitably without violence.
In Robert M. Sapolsky’s wonderful article A Natural History of Peace, www.foreignaffairs.com/... he followed a forest troop of Baboons who made a transition from a high aggression/low affiliation culture, to a “low aggression/high affiliation society constitutes nothing less than a multigenerational benign culture.” I believe that, at its base, we are in a struggle for cultural dominance between these two cultural models. Both are within our genetic potential but only the low aggression/high affiliation culture represents a culture I want to be a part of and to support.
We Democrats at heart are the carriers of this low aggression high affiliation culture. As Republicans try to use violence and economic power to promote their regressive model of culture we must fight back with full heart and intelligence. The end state of Republican culture is a world when a few men can do anything they please to the rest of us. It is an appeal to violence as a social control mechanism. The snarling, threatening media personalities Republicans use in their marketing provide social signaling in support of relying on this part of our genetic potential. The Bush/Cheney war in Iraq, torture, deregulation (no bounds on the corporate alpha Baboon), restricting a woman’s right to choose whether to carry a pregnancy to term, and a return to voter suppression as an acceptable political strategy, are all expressions of this culture. And now we have Trump. The raw assertion, I’m alpha, I just grab them by the pussy.
This is the way bullies work. If no one in the group signals that the bully has not succeeded in assuming top rank, the group sends a social signal that the bully is right. We should be afraid and assume the role of subservient rank so that none of us are hurt. When this happens we need to put out social signaling that counters it so that our troop can calm down and effectively deal with the real issues that face us all.
If someone stands up to the bully, not by threats but by refusal to concede rank, they send a social signal that the bully really shouldn’t be feared, but should be challenged. By the simple act of not assuming a subservient social position in response to the aggressor’s signal, a person sends a social signal that threats, and intimidation, will not achieve rank dominance. It is the same thing that Glinda the good witch did in the Wizard of Oz when she told the wicked witch, "be gone, you have no power here", and off the wicked witch went with a threat "I’ll get you my pretty" but Glinda had dispelled her hold on the Munchkin community. Once that is done people in the group feel safer and can begin to speak up if they have a different point of view and the social power of the bully is undermined.
That’s what the brave women who have been assaulted by Trump are doing. They are calling the lie out, taking their power, and counting on the responsive support of the rest of us to show this asshole, and the culture at large, they won’t be bullied. They have signaled that they aren’t afraid that the bully could beat them up. Or, more correctly, that they don’t care whether the bully can beat them up, they care about the principal of truth, and dignity, and will not bow to the bully. We need to send the Republican party back to the political dust bin of U.S. political history this election. Electing Hillary Clinton and every Democratic candidate we can will help push back the Republican culture of alpha male dominance. This could be the turning point all of us have been hoping for.