Harris represents the ‘thorn’ in Trump’s flesh: Strong, intelligent women

Kamala Harris presents a serious challenge to Donald Trump precisely because she is a strong, intelligent woman.

Strong women always have been the “thorns” in the flesh of Trump. He can’t help himself when faced with a woman with nerves of steel.

When Trump thinks he’s losing control of the narrative, his instincts are to engage in racism or sexism. Speaking of Harris among world leaders, he said: “She’ll be like a play toy. They look at her, and they say, ‘We can’t believe we got so lucky.’ They’re going to walk all over her.”

The story I am telling has a strong theme: “Democracy” has become a feminine word. Strong women are going to save democracy. As Nancy Pelosi has said: “American democracy is majestic, but it is fragile. Many of us here have witnessed its fragility firsthand, tragically. … And so, democracy must forever be defended from forces that wish it harm.”

Trump’s disgusting comments about women didn’t cost him significant evangelical votes and may be a tell in understanding why evangelicals are so inept at dealing with sexual abuse and assault in their churches.

“Trump’s disgusting comments about women may be a tell in understanding why evangelicals are so inept at dealing with sexual abuse and assault in their churches.”

Trump has a deep emotional need to be “one up” on women and for women to be in a “one-down” position. Author Ta-Nehisi Coates says, “White supremacy has always had a perverse sexual tint.”

Racism and sexism always have been twin abusers in American culture. They have left a trail of abuse, physical violence, disrespect and pain across our land for centuries. The pain has gone deep into women.

When women finally were making actual gains, along came Trump wearing white maleness like an ancestral talisman. He “cracked the glowing amulet,” Coates says, “releasing its eldritch energies,” and setting back women’s rights by more than 50 years.

Trump is a male-centered primate who feels superior to women.

Trump has a long record as a misogynist

The late Maya Angelou said, “When people show you who they are, believe them the first time.” Trump has a rap sheet longer than a drug dealer when it comes to verbal attacks on women.

Trump has called women “horseface,” dog” and big fat pig.” In particular, he leaps at every opportunity to call Black women “racist,” “nasty,” stupid, low-IQ,” a “monster” or “unqualified.”

Among illustrations of his misogyny:

• He declared: “Rosie O’Donnell is disgusting — both inside and out. If you take a look at her, she’s a slob. How does she even get on television? If I were running The View, I’d fire Rosie. I’d look her right in that fat, ugly face of hers and say, ‘Rosie, you’re fired.’ We’re all a little chubby, but Rosie’s just worse than most of us.”
• He told Celebrity Apprentice contestant and former Playboy Playmate Brande Roderick, “It must be a pretty picture. You dropping to your knees.”
• He told Esquire, “You know, it doesn’t really matter what (the media) write as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass.”
• In appearances on The Howard Stern Show, he speculated he could’ve had sex with Princess Diana if he’d wanted to before her death, called avoiding STDs from casual sex his “personal Vietnam” and assigned each actor on Desperate Housewives an attractiveness score from 1 to 10 (on Nicollette Sheridan: “A person who is very flat-chested is very hard to be a 10.”)
• He called women who get breast reductions “insane,” said women who see him “will walk up, and they’ll flip their top, and they’ll flip their panties,” and declared that it would be hard for him to get aroused by Madonna.
• He told biographer Timothy L. O’Brien  his favorite part of Pulp Fiction is the scene “when Sam has his gun out in the diner and he tells the guy to tell his girlfriend to shut up. Tell that bitch to be cool. Say: ‘Bitch, be cool.’ I love those lines.”

Strong women are a thorn in Trump’s flesh 

Jessica Bennett of The New York Times did a roll call of Trump’s “thorns in the flesh”: “Letitia James. Fani Willis. E. Jean Carroll and her lawyer, Roberta Kaplan. And, of course, Stormy Daniels. The five women who are living rent-free in Mr. Trump’s mind these days.”

Willis is the prosecutor in Trump’s election subversion case in Fulton County, Ga. James is the New York attorney general. In that case, Donald Trump, his adult sons and former executives were ordered to pay more than $450 million they fraudulently and illegally obtained.

Carroll and her attorney Kaplan defeated Trump twice in civil lawsuits. Trump has been ordered to pay almost $90 million to Carroll.

Politically, the biggest thorn in Trump’s flesh has been Nancy Pelosi. Trump enjoys comparing himself to Jesus, especially his persecution. Well, Pelosi, more than any other person, has pushed down on Trump’s head “a crown of thorns.” She is the thorniest, toughest opponent Trump ever has faced.

On three separate occasions, Pelosi offered penetrating insights into Trump’s persona. “He wouldn’t have the courage to come to the Hill. He is all talk,” she said.

After a contentious White House meeting with Trump, Pelosi said she was “trying to be the mom in the room.” She continued: “It’s like a manhood thing for him. As if manhood could ever be associated with him.”

While the male members of the Republican Party are deathly afraid of Trump and MAGA, Pelosi remains unimpressed and not afraid at all. Rep. Scott Peters put it best: “She was Donald Trump’s biggest problem.”

Pelosi majors in “butt-kicking” not “ring-kissing.”

How does Trump get away with it? 

Trump gets away with his treatment of women because his base consists of white males riddled with resentment.

Trump’s largest MAGA group, the Southern Baptist Convention, has its own “woman problem.” The SBC prohibits women from serving as pastors in its churches. It insists women are to be “submissive” to their husbands. It struggles to create a consistent polity for dealing with sexual abuse among pastors.

SBC men hide their authority with biblical appeals and the word “complementarian.” Yet even in the culture of honeysuckle, New International Bibles, pompous authoritarian pastors and the ubiquitous demands for submission, one can only smile when strong, independent, intelligent women are seen “bossing” their husbands, making sure churches remain viable and providing half or more of a family’s income.

Trump and his Southern Baptist macho men can run, hide and deny, but where can they go from the presence of strong, intelligent women?

Biblical accounts of strong women

In the same Bible where male Southern Baptists oligarchs find defense for “lording it over women,” there are an array of strong women, sometimes with questionable moral character, influencing events.

• There’s Rahab, the Jericho prostitute, who saved the spies of Israel and was the first person within the bounds of the Promised Land to express faith in Israel’s God.
• There’s Delilah, who tricked Samson into revealing the secret of his great strength. The Philistines cut his hair and imprisoned him.
• There’s Jael, who took a tent peg and a hammer in her hands and went softly to Sisera, the Canaanite general, and drove the peg into his temple, until it went down into the ground — he was lying fast asleep from weariness — and he died.
• There’s Naomi and Ruth, who ganged up to find a husband for Ruth.
• There’s Bathsheba, wife of Uriah, who was sexually assaulted by King David. When the king was old, Bathsheba deceived the king, with the help of the court preacher, Nathan, and convinced him to declare her son, Solomon, king of Israel.
• There’s Esther, outsmarting Haman to save the Jews from genocide.

There’s no shortage of strong, intelligent women in the Bible changing the course of history.

Even Jesus created a distraction when he seemingly referred to a foreign woman as a dog. She responded with one of the greatest comebacks of all time: “Yes, Lord, yet even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from their masters’ table.” As Ellen Davis points out, “Jesus submits to be instructed on no small point of holiness by a woman whom Matthew pointedly designates a ‘Canaanite.’”

“It is hard to be more patriarchal than the Bible, but even there, the strong women stand out.”

It is hard to be more patriarchal than the Bible, but even there, the strong women stand out.

A story of strong, smart women from history 

Close to the Medieval town of Weinsberg in Southern Germany stand the ruins of a Medieval castle. This once-imposing fortress was the site of a lengthy siege in the 12th century, which sparked a popular local legend. Conrad of Hohenstaufen permitted the women of the castle to leave unhindered, together with whatever they could carry on their backs.

The clever women of Weinsberg defied him by leaving behind their provisions and walking from the castle with the men on their backs.

Harris, a strong, independent, smart woman, now carries the hopes and dreams of democracy on her back. She shares the load with like-minded women everywhere. Breathing fresh air into the almost morgue-like campaign between two “old geezers,” Harris has injected euphoria.

There is evidence Trump struggles to decide how best to attack Harris. He told a recent rally crowd he wouldn’t be nice. “She’s one of the worst prosecutors in history,” he lamented.

Trump lives in his own self-constructed world where he “lords” it over everyone, and women are at his disposal. He believes he is a ladies’ man. He has said, “I will be phenomenal to the women.”

During his first run for president, Trump insisted, “I would be the best for women, the best for women’s health issues.” Of course, that was before he appointed two conservative Supreme Court justices who moved quickly to spearhead the overthrow of Roe v. Wade.

No grace sufficient for Trump’s misogyny 

After the Apostle Paul prayed three times for the removal of his thorn, God gave him the answer of “grace sufficient.” Trump, not a man of prayer, has no way of avoiding the thorns in his flesh.

Betul Eksil and Elizabeth A. Wood, in “Right-wing populism as gendered performance: Janus-faced masculinity in the leadership of Vladimir Putin and Recep T. Erdogan,” outline three keys to understanding authoritarian male leaders: Populist masculine performances, nativism that rejects the masculinity of others and direct paternal rule, as in “I am the only one who can save you.”

Eksil’s and Wood’s “Janus” metaphor reveals the Trump face. The bad boy wins approval from the cult and then the good father protects the nation.

The ostentatious masculine posturing that has served Trump so well will come crumbling down around him. The male monster has clay feet.

Trump’s masculine image is his entire game. He has bet everything on the voters falling for his bad boy but good father image. He deliberately chose this image because it is his most natural persona.

As Trump keeps “being Trump,” keeps running on the same tired cliches, slogans, threats and insults from his first term, more voters will see him for what he is — a scared, insecure, old man unable to deal with the thorn in his flesh, Kamala Harris.

 

Rodney W. Kennedy is a pastor and writer in New York state. He is the author of 10 books, including his latest, Good and Evil in the Garden of Democracy.

 

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