I have to get the boy ready for a birthday party so I can’t give this the treatment it deserves right now. But what everyone is talking about today is Donald Trump’s suggestion that Megyn Kelly was menstruating during the recent debate and that is why she asked him tough questions, particularly about his treatment of women. At least some people think this was a bridge too far and will actually hurt him with the people who matter, by which I mean the people who watch Fox News:
“Unlike undocumented immigrants, John McCain or Rosie O’Donnell, the Fox News anchor enjoys a huge following among the network’s viewers, who happen to make up the core of the Republican primary electorate. So picking a fight with Kelly — as Trump did when he chided her during a tough debate question about insults he’s lobbed at women, dissed her in the spin room, and tweeted his complaints about her — carries risks that Trump’s other feuds do not.”
The right didn’t care when Trump attacked Rosie O’Donnell or others savaged Candy Crowley, but Megyn Kelly is the sexual fantasy of every male conservative in the country and they all secretly believe that they can have sex with her if they can just impress her enough with their chivalric defenses of her honor.
The most extreme case of this is Erick Erickson, who has lost more than one job for saying intemperate things and is known for brutal criticisms of men and women alike. He disinvited Donald Trump to his Red State shindig (leading reporters to head back to the airport for home) and invited Megyn Kelly to come to his place in Trump’s stead. I am sure that he believes his chances with Kelly have now risen above zero, but that is not the case.
It’s always high school with these people.
If Megyn Kelly were old, fat, or ugly these same folks would laugh their heads off about Trump’s joke. But they all want to impress her, so they’re falling over each other to show the most outrage.
This is actually insulting. Megyn Kelly is a smart, ambitious and accomplished woman, and she doesn’t need these penny ante knights in shining armor to pretend that they respect professional woman or female journalists. She knows that they don’t.
When I saw the story pop up yesterday, I thought perhaps this Trump Bomb my have landed a little too close to their own Foxhole for some. Ms Kelly is apparently Sarah Palin with enough smarts to pull it off, so maybe Mr. Trump just trumped himself…..or not.
Megyn can stand on her own two feet, and Trump loves outrage, so nothing has changed. Everything you said is true: if she were a frumpy-looking woman, his comments would have been cheered.
Whatever happens, Trump is the byproduct of Republican dreams of racism, misogyny, and money. The Republicans learned no lessons when they allowed the Tea Party to grow like cancer, now they’ve got Trump, the biggest tumor of all. He’s their own Frankenstein’s monster and now that they’ve turned him loose, they can’t get the shackles back on.
They never learn. If you lie down with dogs, you wake up with fleas.
Boot him out I say, boot him out!!! It will be even more fun.
I hope Megyn Kelly has more empathy now for those unfairly attacked by bullies.
http://mediamatters.org/video/2015/06/08/foxs-megyn-kelly-on-teen-violently-manhandled-b/203923
Her paycheck depends on not having empathy for girls/women not like white, rightwing handmaidens.
He already went head to toe with Fox (including Kelly) and he won. So, those “Fox viewers” aren’t nearly as protective of their unfair and unbalanced news source as Ailes thought they were.
What everyone seems to be missing is that they love Trummp’s ability to get away with being politically incorrect. Can say in public what they feel they can only whisper in locker rooms. Although I doubt that menstrual blood figures much in such talk; euphemisms get the job done without forming icky graphic images.
Every one of those in the two debates felt free to invade the private space and autonomy of women. Women that just happen to be of an age when they have menstrual cycles. That’s far more offensive to rational women than an allusion to the menstrual cycle of one woman. One woman that has personally profited from beating the anti-women crap that spews endlessly from the right.
“…Donald Trump’s suggestion that Megyn Kelly was menstruating during the recent debate and that is why she asked him tough questions…”
Thereby proving his misogyny.
It was in doubt? Although that would be brand Trump that may or may not be the man Trump.
Brand Trump isn’t any different from the GOP id; he just boldly goes where the others are too milquetoast to speak in other than sexist dog whistles.
Still not getting when men decided that birth control emasculated them.
“Still not getting when men decided that birth control emasculated them. “
Some guys have weird ideas.
All of us have some weird ideas, but what I’m questioning is why, after men and women embraced the more effective and easier forms of birth control that emerged in the 1950/60s that limited their family size to 2.2 children (unless, as was said back then, “they were Catholic, Mormon, or damn fools”) and brought an end to the baby boom (that men didn’t actually like) by 1964, men flipped to wanting/demanding women to birth more babies?
That preference for smaller families — thanks to modern medicine — remains a culturally unconscious preference. Is it just serendipitous that since FDR, the presidential nominee with the smaller family is preferred? (GHWB is the exception, but on many other criteria, he’s also an exception which is why his ’88 win is probably best viewed as an anomaly.) In the seventy odd years since FDR’s death, there’s only been ten years when the occupant of the white house had more than two children.
I can’t answer that, because I don’t know anyone who wants more than three children. I did know a family of five, but they both had kids from previous marriages.
Maybe some are just better at child rearing. I had three grandsons living with me and it was hard to give them all the attention they deserved and make a living too. It was hard even when I was unemployed.
Among those a few years older and younger than me that I’ve known personally and professionally, two or fewer children was the norm. Would be surprised if more than 20% had more than two. Wasn’t until late in the 1990s that I began seeing a new norm of three and four common instead of rare.
While the economic numbers tell one story, there was a different one operating among my cohort group on the west coast. We couldn’t have afforded three+ children even if we’d wanted them. Couldn’t have afforded to be “stay-at-home mothers” even if we’d wanted to. Professionally, those that were fifteen to twenty years older than me, were far more likely to have wives that didn’t work, but their family size wasn’t much larger. By the mid-1990s there was a lot more money sloshing around mid-level white collar jobs and younger colleagues were living as if it were the 1950s, only with much larger and nicer houses and a lot more stuff. Now their children can’t afford to go to college. (better stop before I lapse into sounding politically incorrect)
In all seriousness this is easy.
This type of men don’t like birth control because it might result in “their” women getting some on the side. With the biggest risk that they might find that the other guy did it better or bigger.
Traditional men want and need control over virginity and fertility because they are deathly afraid of being compared and found wanting. And if your wife is a virgin when you marry her and you can control her access to other men by physical control/purdah/modest clothing/not driving AND by increasing the risk that any transgression might result in a revealing pregnancy then your inadequacies, if such they are (and most men fear that is true) will remain unknown to your wife, who after all wouldn’t know any better.
Maybe in evolutionary terms all this was about maintaining your blood line but for modern men it is all tied up with boner pills and enlargement devices.
Control is just the flip side of fear.
Could buy that except that “fear” was absent for a couple of decades; say 1960-80. At least on the west coast. Men rejected keeping their wives “barefoot and pregnant.”
At least on the West Coast, and East Coast, perhaps, though I’d argue that not all men even there were as comfortable with women’s sexual liberation as your comment seems to suggest. It’s been my observation that fear/control is very important to a significant proportion of men in their relationships with women. I also recall rumblings among early feminists of the 1960s that the supposedly enlightened men they joined in anti-war, anti-injustice protests became furious at the thought of women rather than men controlling whether they got pregnant.
You’d really need to quantify it first. How many men are into controlling women? Has the number grown? I’ve mostly lived in blue communities in a blue state, so I’m aware that my experience isn’t really representative, but there are plenty of men who don’t have these attitudes. Certainly not to the extent of having a problem with birth control.
They were exceedingly comfortable with women’s sexual liberation when it led to them getting laid more often.
“Fear/control” seems to me to be exceedingly significant for almost all people in exclusive relationships. Be that dating, cohabiting, or married. Fear/control is more about being insecure in the relationship than gender. It’s also highly destructive to relationships.
Is it acceptable for a woman to unilaterally choose to get pregnant and have a baby with the full expectation that the man financially supports at least the child if not the child and mother? Men probably thought a bit longer and harder about the potential consequences of sexual activity before the Pill and when they thought they could rely upon woman not to make them unintentional daddies. So, was it control these men feared losing or being an active participant in a life-changing decision?
So many people in bad relationships.
I wasn’t talking about every man in the country and certainly not every guy in SF, LA or Berkeley between 1960 and 1980. Not least because I was one of those Berkeley guys.
I try to be careful when parsing my posts and it certainly is aggravating when people ignore adjectives and careful qualification and just start burning strawmen.
Nature v. Nuture. Wasn’t so much discounting your comment or experience, but adding mine that differed.
It’s difficult to split generations with defined socio-economic lines. Cultural shifts don’t pop into a society but are more like a slow moving wave. The generic national conditions vary greatly by location and the age of experience. Thus, a child in the 1930s experienced something different than a teen and young adult did.
Very roughly and speaking mostly of white Americans, there was what I’ll call the Archie Bunker generation. (Not that those born in 1915 grew up under similar conditions to those born in 1925.) But most experienced first hand the great depression and WWII. They more easily accommodated to the WWII austerity because it wasn’t unfamiliar but at least had a collective purpose. Plus, jobs were available and for many what portion of the income that couldn’t be spent was saved. The end of the war was an emotionally glorious time regardless of one served in the war machine or not. Then everybody went home and made babies (both facilitated and promoted by the USG).
Then there was what I’ll call the McCain generation. Probably a bit broad because the great depression was very real for the oldest ones, but they all missed out on WWII. Some did time in the military post WWII, some served during the Korean War, and many in between that war and the next one, but the Cold War was made very real for them. Socio-economically they enjoyed the same benefits as were available in the post WWII period. And got started on marriage and the baby carriage at a younger age. Playboy and Elvis/rock and roll were cultural pops for them. “The Pill” didn’t arrive until 1960; thus overall, family size in between that of the “Greatest Generation” and the one that came after.
The “baby bust” was a combination of more effective and available contraception and the birth co-hort that hadn’t experienced large families as a blessing but difficult. While chronologically by birth date, there aren’t that many years between McCain (’36) Boxer (’40), Biden (’42) and Kerry (’44). Of those four, Boxer was ahead of the curve most of her life and remains very contemporary today. Biden and Kerry good on racial and sexual equality, but never quite grasped the principles at the base of the anti-Vietnam War movement. McCain is close to being an Archie Bunker throwback.
And so it goes.
A taste of their own medicine as Trump doesn’t and won’t back down as he plays his, “I don’t have time for political correctness” card louder and louder. Erickson may have disinvited him, the RNC may be calling for an apology, but isn’t that the point of a Trump run…he doesn’t answer to them!
You are 100% right all the way to:
Megyn Kelly is a smart, ambitious and accomplished woman, and she doesn’t need these penny ante knights in shining armor to pretend that they respect professional woman or female journalists. She knows that they don’t.
Smart? I guess but given it’s Faux Noise questions will always remain.
Yea, that was an odd line.
Is this blog now all trump all the time?
Merely an acknowledgment of the phenomenal ratings of a primary debate and how stumped Trump has left all the opinion makers both left and right.
To the left Trump fits every preconceived notion about the right that they have. Racist. Sexist. Only care about the rich.
Much of political writing is the modern equivalent “two minutes of hate” from 1984. Trump fits the stereotype perfectly. So on the left he is offered up for hate sessions like Emmanuel Goldstein was.
We love to hate our enemies. Everyone.
Who are you talking about? I’m not saying you’re wrong, but I don’t see a lot of that on this site. Certainly none of BooMan’s recent Trump posts are about hating on him, and I’d say the comments are generally more bemused than outraged. The discussion is really more about trying to understand the phenomenon than condemning Trump. His loathsomeness is kind of taken for granted.
Megyn isn’t dumb. She’s an attorney who has found a way to make a fortune acting dumb. She’s a soulless huckster, just like the men at Fox, but she knows what she’s doing. She knew damn well how Trump would respond to her questions, and I imagine she’s thrilled with the attention.
Distraction from policy issues. Mission accomplished all around.
And the “defenders” get to fem-wash some of their misogyny and argue that the Republican Party is not engaged in a war on women because criticizing Trump.
Maybe they will kick him out and disinvite him from all their shindigs and debates. What then for The Donald and Bill? Maybe slide a little money his way and encourage him to run? Sign up in Ohio and Florida? Oh such fun. Smart guy this Erikson fella and his Fox friends.
Trump’s “blood” comment. His equivalent to Dean’s “AAAARRRGH!!!” moment? I think so.
The media…definitely including Megyn Kelly…were on his case. That’s their main job in a presidential election, to isolate outliers who appear to be dangerous to the PermaGov’s carefully orchestrated fix plan. She attempted to put him on the ropes with her first punch…the first punch of the night…when she asked all the candidates who would not pledge to endorse the eventual Republican nominee to please raise their hands. Of course, they…she and her Fox bosses…knew the answer out front or they wouldn’t have asked it.
They stayed on him…just doing their job, folks, just doing their real job…for the entire presentation.
Then immediately after the show was over…when the most possible listeners were still on the channel,…they ginned up an undoubtedly hand-picked group of about 20 audience members and asked them to raise their hands if they had been Trump supporters or at least undecided about him before the debate. A large percentage did so. Next question? Who remained a supporter. A few faltering hands went up. Job done. Sheeple sleepled. Bet on it.
Now…I am not “supporting” Trump here, but neither am I supporting Fox News or the other Government Media Complex-controlled media. Their job is to winnow out the outliers and eventually bring the crowd down to a manageable duo, both of whom are acceptable to the PermaGov. They did it to Ross Perot; they did it to Howard Dean; they did it to Ron Paul and they are doing it to Rand Paul and Donald Trump now. I supported some of those people in many of their positions. I do not support Donald Trump on any level whatsoever. If he did happen to say some things with which I agreed I still would not support him. (“A liar is not to be believed even when he speaks the truth.”-Cicero. Yup.). But I support even less the current PermaGov Fix-by-Media system.
Over and out, and WTFU.
And now the news…
The PermaGov does not care in the least about Donald Trump’s supposed sexism. In the all-male rooms of the controllers, “sexist” is the least of the epithets that could be thrown at them. All they want is to do is get him the fuck out of the way by any means necessary but as cleanly as possible,.
WTFU.
Oppose Trump because he has no real positions.
Oppose Trump because he would be act as a bull in the precariously balanced china shop of nuclear-armed international relations.
Oppose him because…as do I…you think that he evinces sociopathological tendencies with his every word, gesture and facial expression.
He’s got sexism problems, too? And Tourette’s of the mouth as well?
Great.
Put them on the list.
Get him outta here!!!
But not because he said anything about Megyn Kelly. She’s just doing her job, and she does it well. In my opinion, Fox uses sexist tactics when they trot out bleached blonde after bleached blonde (Check out Fox Sports Whew!!!) to read the news. Kelly is good at her job. She is smart, tough and speaks well. But if she was fifty years old and looked like your maiden aunt she wouldn’t be there.
Bet on it.
She can take the heat.
In fact, she basks in it.
More heat, more money.
Bet on that as well.
Later…
AG
Now a standalone post.
Trump’s Blood Comment. Equivalent to Dean’s AAAARRRGH!!! Thing? I Think So.
Comment there if you wish to do so.
Thank you…
AG
But suffice it to say both Trump and Fox are putting their respective brands on the line. This is not our parents’ Republican party, that’s for sure.
I’m guessing that Ms Kelly has lowered her prospective career ratings ceiling over at Fox and the whole network is placing a high-stakes bet ‘winnowing’ the field through selective questioning and sleight-of-hand. Maybe we are seeing the limit of Ailes’ autonomy when confronting Murdoch’s king-making. We’ll see.
Whatever the outcome Erickson’s and Kelly’s careers are trivial and expendable by comparison.
Yes, I see what you mean. I found an amusing item at Media Matters. Erick Erickson would love nothing more than to kiss Megyn Kelly’s ass, if only she would let him.
There were at least a couple high-profile instances of Kelly lambasting Erickson for saying sexist stuff and it didn’t damage him with his redstate demographic. The idea of PMS (and slutiness) disqualifying women from being taken seriously has long been taken as a given by that demographic. I’d be highly surprised if this has any effect on Trump’s mid-20% GOP polling. Also, I realized I’ve been calculating the percentages wrong. Probably 27-30% of the entire nation is this kind of crazy – not 27-30% of GOP primary voters. 27% is way more than 50% of Romney’s totals – so Trump isn’t anywhere near as close to his ceiling as I’d been thinking.
I don’t see this hurting Trump because this is who they are now, even if it’s one of their own.
I think it’s even more telling that few of the actual candidates have denounced this particular comment.
that’s all I’ve got