Over the course of this presidential campaign, I have wondered why it is that I despise Donald Trump so much. As in, truly hate him as a person.
I was just as surprised as others by his rise in the party and success in winning the nomination. But while others looked at him and either laughed or shook their heads, I could just feel my eyes narrowing and my teeth clenching in pure unadulterated disgust. TV commentators said blacks and women over 45 were the groups that had almost a visceral negative reaction to Trump, and as a woman in her 60s, that was me.
It didn’t take me long to figure it out: Donald Trump is a damaged human being whose brittle ego requires that he dominate everyone around him, from basking in the adulation of his rally audiences, to getting almost a sexual satisfaction from bringing Chris Christie to heel; then once he controlled him, cruelly insulting his weight (“cut back on the doughnuts”) and ordering the governor around.
Those of us who were in the first or, like me, the second wave of women challenging male roles back in the 70’s have just BTDT too much not to recognize this type
Too many in the press are missing the crux of the “p***y-grabbing” comments: It’s not the story of a rich, powerful man taking advantage of his stardom to sexually prey on beautiful women. It’s the story of a powerful man using that power to excercize dominance over the defenseless, and then bragging about his power to another man as a way of marking his territory.
Is rape about sex? Of course it’s not. Rape is about power and rage. Grabbing a woman’s genitals is no different. It’s not sex — it’s power and dominance.
“John Barron” called newspapers to brag about the famous women who wanted to have sex with him. That’s not enjoying sex, that’s just a small man trying to,swing his dick around because he thinks that makes him a bigger man. All it does is reveal that Trump has the emotional age of a 5-year old.
Trump’s favorite insult: “weak”
Trump’s favorite compliment: “strong”
Trump is a man so pathetically focused on being the alpha male that he sees everyone around him not as a person, but as a power play, a possession to stand on in order to appear taller. He argued with his second wife to appear nude in Payboy to show off his power to other men via the appearance of his trophy. (Obviously women don’t count to an alpha male.)
He even went so low as to encourage Howard Stern to refer to Trump's own daughter as a “piece of ass”. This to me was the single worst thing Trump ever did — not just permitting but actually encouraging someone to call his own daughter a “piece of ass”. He objectified his daughter and violated the parent/child trust. What a truly contemptable monster.
His view of management is simple authoritarianism. He lacks the capacity to accommodate any approach that requires knowledge, analysis, cooperation - wow, never cooperation — because those virtues and abilities are anathema to pure and simple dominance.
Sure, he likes having sex. It’s just that sex is way further down on his list than most people think. He’s a libertine, but I think that’s more because he can’t accept limitations on his behavior or restraints on his chest-pounding
Women like me, and men as well, have all met people like him. I was invited to a large business dinner once, about 100-150 people or so. This was a while ago, so I was the only female there. The CEO of the host company was giving his “thanks for coming” speech. He was a dinosaur from a previous era, and was telling jokes he thought were all so hilarious. He told one about testicles and spoons or something equally witty, and for some aunaccountable reason I failed to find this as knee-slapping as he did. He came over to where I was seated, looming over me, and boomed into the mic “You don’t think that’s funny, little lady? Well you’d better start laughing because it’s a man’s world.” Oh, yes, we’ve all met people like Trump.
And having a president Trump would be a disaster. He is truly a man who, as Sec Clinton says, can be baited with a tweet. He can be baited by anything that challenges what he perceives as his manhood. He’s a pathetic, immature man-child who cares more about people’s adulation than about their healthcare, more about them kissing his ring than paying their mortgages, more about them looking up to the giant letters in his name on buildings than in feeding their families. And more about them seeing his dominance over women, including his own wives and children, than seeing their children educated and cared for.
And of course, like all men this weak, he is at heart an immature coward who cannot rise above his weakness to act on or even see a bigger picture or greater goal. Otherwise, he would not be so easy to manipulate.
This is how Donald Trump is not like Rick Lazio. When Lazio debated Hillary Clinton in the NY senate race he famously encroached on her personal space. The difference between Lazio and Trump is that Lazio tried to demean her to her face. Trump didn’t have the guts. He tried to do it from behind.