At a rally in Green Bay, Wis., on Wednesday, Donald Trump said that, as president, he was going to “protect” women, whether they like it or not.
In spite of being advised by his campaign to not do so, Trump insisted. “Well, I’m going to do it, whether the women like it or not. I’m going to protect them.”
For millions of women across the country, this remark brought back memories of Trump’s contemptuous comments to Billy Bush in a 2016 “Access Hollywood” interview, when he said, “I don’t even wait. … You can do anything. … Grab ‘em by the p---y. You can do anything.”
Donald Trump believes he has license to make decisions about women, for women, in spite of women. Whether they like it or not. In this election, Trump’s misogyny has been magnified. It is his degrading objectification of 50 percent of the American population that makes him so dangerous — he has opened the doors to the worst instincts among his most extreme supporters.
Misogyny is more than chauvinism, and deeper than sexism. It is a hatred, contempt and prejudice against women displayed by men. It feeds the damaged egos of men like Trump and serves to keep women in subservient roles both in personal relationships and in society. Worst of all, it dehumanizes women and girls as it seeks to convince them they are undeserving of dignity, independence or equality.
It is misogyny that led Trump to believe that a woman’s right to bodily autonomy is expendable, that his general promises of “protection” should be adequate and unchallenged, and his groping attempts at dominance should be viewed as a privilege.
However, even as perilous an experience it must be for any woman to find herself alone with this man, it is the Republican Party’s enthusiastic embrace of him as nominee that is even more so.
Eighty-seven percent of Republicans have a “very favorable” or “somewhat favorable” view of him. Twenty-five percent of Republicans believe he should declare a loss invalid and “do whatever it takes” to regain office. Long after Trump is gone, Republican candidates will be vying for the status of the most Trumpian among them all.
As a lifelong Republican voter, I believed I was advancing principles that uplifted all Americans, and I scoffed at the idea that the party was anti-woman or chauvinistic. However, as an activist, a congressional nominee, and a state party chairwoman, I slowly realized that these accusations were rooted in some truth.
When I ran for New Hampshire's 2nd Congressional District in 2008, it was the first time the state GOP nominated a woman to a federal office. I was counseled by a longtime, male state representative that I should “go home” and allow my male primary opponents to “have the floor.”
A county chairman repeatedly attacked and undermined me as chairwoman of the New Hampshire Republican State Committee because it was “his turn.” I was physically groped by an out-of-state congressman. And these are just a few of the experiences I endured in exchange for fighting for Republican principles and candidates.
When Donald Trump lost in 2020, it was the shocking continued embrace from Republican party leaders that pushed me across the line to officially leave. I could no longer deny that Trump’s ugly and dehumanizing view of my entire gender was systemic within the GOP.
In his campaign against Vice President Harris, Trump has focused much of his outreach on conservative men and Christian nationalists who advocate that women must vote at their husband’s direction.
Trump’s infantilization of women, declaring he will “protect them” as he sees fit, is simply confirmation that he does not view women as capable, intelligent or equal.
A man whose broken psyche is rooted in such deeply ingrained misogyny is dangerous. His contempt for women makes him unqualified to lead our country or protect democracy. Such a president would be a direct danger to our daughters’ and grand-daughters' emotional development and to their ability to develop the confidence, skills and ambition to achieve their equal place in society.
Republicans will pay the greatest political price in the long run, but it is American women who will immediately bear the cost and the pain of another Trump presidency.
Political strategist Jennifer Horn is co-founder of the Lincoln Project and former chair of the New Hampshire GOP.
