The president made his supporters laugh at her
Adam Serwer on Trump’s theater of cruelty:
The Trump era is such a whirlwind of cruelty that it can be hard to keep track. This week alone, the news broke that the Trump administration was seeking to ethnically cleanse more than 193,000 American children of immigrants whose temporary protected status had been revoked by the administration, that the Department of Homeland Security had lied about creating a database of children that would make it possible to unite them with the families the Trump administration had arbitrarily destroyed, that the White House was considering a blanket ban on visas for Chinese students, and that it would deny visas to the same-sex partners of foreign officials. At a rally in Mississippi, a crowd of Trump supporters cheered as the president mocked Christine Blasey Ford, the psychology professor who has said that Brett Kavanaugh, whom Trump has nominated to a lifetime appointment on the Supreme Court, attempted to rape her when she was a teenager. “Lock her up!” they shouted.
Ford testified to the Senate, utilizing her professional expertise to describe the encounter, that one of the parts of the incident she remembered most was Kavanaugh and his friend Mark Judge laughing at her as Kavanaugh fumbled at her clothing. “Indelible in the hippocampus is the laughter,” Ford said, referring to the part of the brain that processes emotion and memory, “the uproarious laughter between the two, and their having fun at my expense.” And then at Tuesday’s rally, the president made his supporters laugh at her.
Well that’s Trump, isn’t it. That grab them by the pussy remark caused an explosive laugh in Billy Bush, as Trump meant it to. It’s funny to humiliate and shame women, because women are so weak and pathetic compared to men. It’s funny that Ford thinks Kavanaugh’s attack on her matters. It’s funny that women think they get a say.
The cruelty of the Trump administration’s policies, and the ritual rhetorical flaying of his targets before his supporters, are intimately connected. As Lili Loofbourow wrote of the Kavanaugh incident in Slate, adolescent male cruelty towards women is a bonding mechanism, a vehicle for intimacy through contempt.
They bond over having it in common that they’re not women.
We can hear the spectacle of cruel laughter throughout the Trump era. There were the border patrol agents cracking up at the crying immigrant children separated from their families, and the Trump adviser who delighted white supremacists when he mocked a child with down syndrome who was separated from her mother. There were the police who laughed uproariously when the president encouraged them to abusesuspects, and the Fox News hosts mocking a survivor of the Pulse Nightclub massacre (and in the process inundating him with threats), the survivors of sexual assault protesting Senator Jeff Flake, the women who said the president sexually assaulted them, and the teen survivors of the Parkland school shooting. There was the president mocking Puerto Rican accents shortly after thousands were killed and tens of thousands displaced by Hurricane Maria, the black athletes protesting unjustified killings by police, the women of the #MeToo movement who have come forward with stories of sexual abuse, and the disabled reporter whose crime was reporting on Trump truthfully. It is not just that they enjoy this cruelty, it is that they enjoy it with each other. Their shared laughter at the suffering of others is an adhesive that binds them to each other, and to Trump.
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Trump’s only true skill is the con, his only fundamental belief is that the United States is the birthright of straight, white, Christian men, and his only real, authentic pleasure is in cruelty. It is that cruelty, and the delight it brings them, that binds his most ardent supporters to him, in shared scorn for those they hate and fear: immigrants, black voters, feminists, and treasonous white men who empathize with any of those who would steal their birthright. The president’s ability to execute that cruelty through word and deed makes them euphoric. It makes them feel good, it makes them feel proud, it makes them feel happy, it makes them feel united. And as long as he makes them feel that way, they will let him get away with anything, no matter what it costs them.
You know Orwell’s “a boot stamping on a human face – forever”? Our version now is a mob of Trump fans in MAGA caps laughing – forever.
I have seen evidence of similar cruelty in some of the rituals of female exclusion in Christian tradition.
Unfortunately, I am also seeing it in the smug men of the atheosphere who think that they are superior to women because they can think, they don’t have an estrogen vibe, etc, and feeling like women are theirs to get drunk and rape.
The defense of the men who do that, or who rape without getting the women drunk, is pervasive in our society, across all sorts of culture and class divisions. The “man cave” image is strong, the “no girls allowed” clubhouse is sacrosanct, and merely the suggestion that women should be treated like people is seen as evil and unnatural. Whether they use science, religion, or just plain bluster to defend their privilege, they will defend it.
Don’t worry, Ophelia. I’m sure they’ll get their boots a-stamping before all is said and done.
Quite a list, OB. Well done.
It brings to mind the arena scenes which must have taken place during the decline phase of the Roman Empire, though why, I can’t quite say.
Margaret Atwood’s quote about ‘men being afraid women would laugh at them/women were afraid men would kill them’ is flawed. Ford’s assailants were laughing. Women who’ve broken silence have been mocked. Girls who reported high-school rapes were hounded in social media.
Laughter is a weapon in these instances.
Omar @ 3 – it’s not my list, it’s Adam Serwer’s. All credit to the author!
John, maybe that needs to be “Women are afraid men will laugh at them and kill them”.
The FBI has concluded it’s investigations without interviewing either the accused or the accuser. Nor most of the people with evidence. Some people hoped the FBI would rise to the occasion, but the investigation was, as I expected, merely a political cover for people who want to vote for Kavanaugh but don’t want to be seen as voting for a rapist. Dems are angry – this will be mocked by many, because only Republicans are justified in anger.
iknklast, the question is, are the Democrats angry enough to get their shit together and finally work as a single entity to actually provide some real opposition to Trump’s mis-governing of the country?
If so, it will be a first.
All we can hope is that the debacle activates the apathetic dems who sit home at midterm thinking none of it really matters. Or those that are always on the fence, thinking “oh, they’re all the same”. But that seems unlikely, doesn’t it? Because FBI investigations can be used to maintain studied apathy and not have to actually take action.
I think if Kavanaugh is confirmed, every woman in America needs to be standing on the steps of the Supreme Court building on the day of his swearing in waving signs, shouting, chanting, and making ourselves heard. I think we need to remain there until he announces that he will recuse himself from all cases involving women, since he obviously has so much contempt for us (which is probably what Trump likes best about him, aside from his opinion on Presidential misconduct). The problem is, most of us have to work, sleep, eat, and otherwise make a life, which could become a lot harder with him on the court. His pro-business, pro-Catholic, “pro-life”, anti-woman views will make life harder for a lot of people (not just women). Of course, some of those we already had in Justice Kennedy; what we lose in Justice Kennedy is that wishy-washy nature that wouldn’t quite go all the way on Roe v. Wade.