When Joe Biden stepped down in support of Kamala Harris, he didn’t just pass the torch to another generation. He passed it from old white men to America’s future.
Consider that women now compose a remarkable 60% of college undergraduates. And that by 2050, it’s estimated that America will consist mostly of people of color – 30% more Black people than today, 60% 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 feinted a torch pass – but backwards. 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 as examples Kamala Harris, Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg and Representative Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez.
“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. Soon after, Buttigieg and his husband adopted infant twins.
By this logic, no American male – including Vance and Trump – can have a “direct stake” in America.
Trump himself – dog-whistling racist; alleged groper, fondler, and sexual harasser; and adjudicated rapist – is hardly respectful of women, especially women of color.
Of Harris, he claimed: “They’re saying she isn’t qualified because she wasn’t born in this country.” (Harris was born in California.)
Of Willis, the Fulton county district attorney, he charged – also without evidence – that “she ended up having an affair with the head of the gang or a gang member”.
Trump has repeatedly denigrated women of color as “angry” or “nasty”.
And he views female human beings 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 boy, can they be smart!” 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 Republican party, whose recent convention was a celebration of testosterone – featuring the wrestling champ Hulk Hogan shouting: “Let me tell you something, brother … Trump is the toughest of them all, a gladiator!”
To remind you, Hogan was the protagonist in a sex-tape video scandal. Hogan’s lawsuit over the circulation of the video, which put Gawker Media out of business, was underwritten by the tech billionaire Peter Thiel – the same man who gave JD Vance a lucrative venture-capital job, funded 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. The conservative rocker/rapper Kid Rock performed his song American Badass.
Instead of being introduced by his spouse, as have most candidates accepting their party’s nomination, Trump was introduced by Dana White, CEO of Ultimate Fighting Championship – known for its machismo culture and sanctioned violence.
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 is against abortion even in cases of rape or incest.
Trump’s Project 2025 “Mandate for Leadership” chillingly 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 Handmaid’s Tale – authoritarian fascism organized around male dominance.
In this worldview, anything that challenges the traditional male roles of protector, provider and controller of the family threatens the social order. Strong women and LGBTQ+ people also weaken the heroic male warrior. Brutality, force and violence strengthen him.
In their eyes, Kamala Harris could not pose more of a threat.
Robert Reich, a former US secretary of labor, is a professor of public policy at the University of California, Berkeley, and the author of Saving Capitalism: For the Many, Not the Few and The Common Good. His newest book, The System: Who Rigged It, How We Fix It, is out now. He is a Guardian US columnist. His newsletter is at robertreich.substack.com
