She's REALLY Not Going to be Into Trump At All, Late Election Cycle Version

So I wake up this morning, actually in the mood to rage about a moronic Congress - just blogged about it a second ago - and I immediately find myself conflicted about what to write, because Trump - being the narcissistic monster that he is - went and Tweeted a series of delightful anecdotal meanderings about the nature of the cosmos ahem a series of angry twitterbombs about the women ruining his brand name:

I didn't actually see his Tweets, as I have him blocked, but I saw the responses from those I follow so I tracked back and saw these missives. And, yes, I headdesked.

My immediate response, via Twitter as well:

You might ask, "well what is the difference between a Dick and an Asshole?" I'll share a link that kinda explains it quickly, and concur by pointing out that a Dick is someone who intentionally - sometimes violently, but always maliciously - acts in a demeaning way towards others while an Asshole is a self-centered self-serving jerk.

It's rare to find a person who can be both at the same time, so in this regard this is a moment that should be long remembered. Just not fondly, because Trump is doing this in the worst way possible.

Today was the culmination of the fallout from last Monday's debate, when Hillary pummeled Trump on a lot of points and ended up hitting him with a broadside about his flagrant misogyny when it comes to women who work for him. She brought up one of the models who worked for him Miss Universe 1996 - the year he took over that pageant - Alicia Machado and how he went out of his way to insult her physique: Trump deemed her too fat and shamed her into making public displays of exercise. Trump objected to Hillary's attack and tried to deflect it by stammering over his other public fights with women, but didn't really have a coherent argument.

What happened next was avoidable to anyone who understands politics. Hillary bringing up Trump's horrid mistreatment of Machado - this is fat? She's gorgeous - was a clear trap to make Trump angry enough to retaliate. It's a common tactic in campaigning - Trump needled his Primary opponents much the same way - well back to even before the days of LBJ's mudslinging: "Make the other sonofabitch deny it." The smart move is to ignore it, offer a correction, and move on.

Trump did worse than deny it: He doubled down. His follow-up interviews on Fox Not-News and elsewhere had him praising himself for being rude and insulting to his Miss Universe, that he did a good thing fat-shaming her like that, and besides she was still ugly and worthless to boot. And now he's gone full misogynist, attacking her for perceived sexual dalliances - the so-called Sex Tape is her rolling under bedsheets with a guy on a reality show and there's nothing explicit, I swear certain Disney movies are more kinky oh whoops I really shouldn't say THAT - as though slut-shaming her will drive from the public stage.

As David A. Graham puts it:

Then there’s the Machado tweets. Four days after Trump debate Clinton, he is still consumed by his anger at a woman who was Miss Universe in the 1990s. Or, to put that in demographic terms, Trump is still  insulting a Latina woman and calling attention to the fact that he called her fat with just a month left until an election, when he trails Clinton badly among Latinas and women. And he’s doing so at the cost of attacking his opponent, at a time when she is seeing a rebound in the polls.

Trump doesn't really get it when it comes to women. Considering how many men among his Inner Circle - Newt, Ailes, Giuliani, all of them thrice-married twice-divorced hypocrites of sexual stupidity - also don't get it, this is going to make this the nasty part of the final leg of the campaign.

Trump's outrage is fueled by a spoiled, narcissistic view of women as Objects, as pretty things that need to dangle from him to make himself more attractive as an (wannabe) Alpha Male. The second a wife no longer appeals to him, she's out the door (often in a humiliating fashion). He has a need to stand surrounded by beautiful women - his obsession with models and beauty pageants - as a means of showing off his success. His view of Machado as "fat" was his anger at "her" perceived failing to match "his" physical ideal, which drove his desire to punish her with public humiliation and consistent scorn.

His tweets to call on Republicans - many of them self-described Christian moralists - to hunt down "sex tapes" so he can embarrass his ex-model victim is both ironic and clueless.

And if Trump thinks he can set himself up now to attack Hillary - not herself, but husband Bill's sexual history - he's ignoring two things. One: Hillary's already prepared for that, she had to knowing full well - hello, Vast Right Wing Conspiracy media! - this storm would come. Two: Hillary AND Bill already weathered this same storm back in the 1990s... and they came out more popular than their attackers. A majority of Americans saw the Republicans going after Bill over the Lewinsky affair as hypocritical witch-hunters who overplayed their hand: This is key, a majority of women sympathized with Hillary and forgave her stance aside her unfaithful husband because many of them saw themselves in her place.

There may be polls showing women may not fully trust or support Hillary, but the numbers are high enough to hint she's winning that bloc. There's more than enough stories online about how other women - suffering in the slights of Glass Ceilings and mansplaining and Gods help us another hundred cuts of Male Ego - recognize Hillary for what she represents: the first sledgehammer to that Glass Ceiling.

I've said it before and will say it again: The real scandal of the Republicans' fall from power this decade is how they've squandered and demeaned women voters into abandoning them. For all the talk about the ethnic votes - how the GOP lost Blacks entirely to the Democrats, and this election cycle they're about to lose Latinos and Asians for good - it's been the ebb in the gender vote that will kill the Republicans.

This is what I said last time:

Here's a nasty little secret about our electoral system... there are more women voters (76 million) than men (66 million). Pissing off the majority of voters that participate in the general election is not a sound campaign strategy. And if there's any issue that can unite women, it's being treated like dirt by a misogynist bastard.

That's Trump: Being the misogynist bastard. Going out of his way to treat women like dirt, and crowing about it.

If women vote at the same percentage they hate Trump - around 70 percent - that's 53 million votes for Hillary (or maybe Stein or Johnson, but let's face it most of that's going for Hillary) right off the bat. Getting 98 percent of the Black vote or 80 percent of the Latino vote - oh man, the Cuba story has to wait for another blog article - or 60 percent of the College-Educated White vote would be nice and pad out the numbers for Democrats. But we're talking about the kind of votes that will cut away from any Republican ballot.

And it should. The last series of election cycles since 2008 - including midterms - has shown an increasingly hostile Republican agenda towards women (not just abortion, other issues that matter to them like education, wages, and child care). Remember Todd Akin, and the Republican Party's overall inability to treat rape as the serious crime it is? Remember how Rush Limbaugh tried to slut-shame Sandra Fluke, and ended up costing his radio network billions in lost ad revenue? This has all been building up, and Trump is adding on a shit-ton of bricks (enough to build a you-know-what) to make things worse.

I hope to God that She is merciful enough to have only 79 percent of all women voters side with Hillary this November. It will probably win for the Democrats every state except Wyoming... maybe Alabama.

P.S.: Get the vote out, Democrats. This election matters.