Joe Biden didn’t just pass the torch to another generation. He passed it from white MAGA men to America’s future.
Consider that women now compose a remarkable 60 percent of college undergraduates. And that by 2050, it’s estimated that America will consist mostly of minorities — 30 percent more Black people than today, 60 percent more Latinos, and twice the number of Asian Americans.
The power shift has already started.
Many of the people who have demanded accountability from Trump constitute a Trump nightmare of strong and able women, including several of color — Letitia James and Fani Willis, along with E. Jean Carroll and her lawyer Roberta Kaplan, Liz Cheney, and Nancy Pelosi.
And now, Kamala Harris.
In naming JD Vance as his vice presidential candidate, Trump feigned a torch pass — but backward.
Vance’s white male belongs in the early 20th century.
During Vance’s bid for the Senate in Ohio in 2021, he called Democrats “a bunch of childless cat ladies,” offering Kamala Harris as an example.
“How does it make any sense that we’ve turned our country over to people who don’t really have a direct stake in it?” Vance asked, suggesting the only way to have a “direct stake” is by giving birth.
Even before Vance said this, Harris was stepmother to two teenagers.
Trump himself — groper, fondler, dog-whistling racist, sexual harasser, rapist — is no more respectful of women than is Vance, especially women of color.
Trump claimed about Harris that “they’re saying she isn’t qualified because she wasn’t born in this country.” (Harris was born in California.)
Trump claimed that Fulton County District Attorney Fani Willis “ended up having an affair with the head of the gang or a gang member.” (This claim is also baseless.)
Trump has repeatedly denigrated women of color as “angry” or “nasty.”
He views females as almost alien creatures. “There’s nothing I love more than women,” he has said, “but they’re really a lot different than portrayed. They are far worse than men, far more aggressive ….”
And, of course, his infamous: “When you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab ’em by the pussy. You can do anything.”
Trump misogyny has infected the entire MAGA Party, whose recent convention was a celebration of testosterone — featuring wrestling champ Hulk Hogan shouting, “Let me tell you something, brother … Trump is the toughest of them all, a gladiator!”
Hogan was the protagonist in a sex-tape video scandal, whose lawsuit put Gawker Media out of business. The lawsuit was underwritten by tech billionaire Peter Thiel — the same man who gave JD Vance a lucrative venture-capital job, underwrote Vance’s senatorial campaign, and introduced Vance to Trump.
Other pop cultural “tough guy” icons at the Republican convention similarly attested to Trump’s virility. Conservative rocker/rapper Kid Rock performed “American Badass.” (Kid Rock’s checkered past includes a sex tape and a charge of assault connected to a fight in a Nashville strip club.)
Instead of being introduced by his spouse, as is the norm for candidates accepting their party’s nomination, Trump was introduced by Dana White, CEO of the Ultimate Fighting Championship — known for its machismo culture and sanctioned violence. (White was recorded on a video slapping his wife.)
Trump, Vance, and their MAGA allies are misogynists who want to control women by preventing them from controlling their own bodies — forcing them to have children.
Vance has come out against abortion even in cases of rape or incest. He has called for the federal government to stop women in Republican-dominated states from crossing state lines to obtain abortions. Just last month he voted against a Democratic bill to protect IVF.
Vance wrote the foreword for the upcoming book by Kevin Roberts, the president of The Heritage Foundation, whose Project 2025 recommends that the Department of Health and Human Services “ensure that every state reports exactly how many abortions take place within its borders, at what gestational age of the child, for what reason, the mother’s state of residence, and by what method.”
What’s the underlying goal here? The same as in Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale. It’s authoritarian fascism organized around male dominance.
In this world view, anything that challenges the traditional male roles of protector, provider, and controller of the family threatens the social order. Strong women, LGBTQ+ people, and people of color weaken the heroic male warrior. Brutality, force, and violence strengthen him.
Joe Biden passed the torch to a future America that seems ever more likely to include a President Kamala Harris.
Nothing could pose more of a threat to the Trump-Vance-MAGA throwbacks.
Robert Reich is a professor of public policy at Berkeley and former secretary of labor. His writings can be found at https://robertreich.substack.com/