The sexual politics of Donald Trump's world...

MONDAY, NOVEMBER 18. 2024

...comes to us from prehistory: The sexual politics of Donald Trump's world comes to us straight from prehistory.

It starts with Trump himself, then moves on from there. Based on reporting, we're talking about Gaetz and Hegseth and Musk oh my! After that, you can throw in the apparent history of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. 

Trump and Hegseth and Gaetz oh my, but also Musk and Kennedy! Based on reporting, the sexual politics of Donald Trump's cadre comes to us straight outta Kubrick's Eyes Wide Shut. 

Then too, there's the endless, undisguised apparent misogyny of the Fox News Channel's Gutfeld! program. It's astounding that this garbage can gets opened in primetime every night and nobody says a word.

We'll speak about this in coming days, throwing in what the friends were saying on Sunday morning's Fox & Friends Weekend about the modern-day UFC gladiator named Jon Jones. But this is the sexual culture of human prehistory demanding a reinstatement. These impulses seem to be bred in the bone, in a way which doesn't want to relent.

The sexual politics come from the day when the Achaeans laid siege to Troy ten years, demanding to get Helen back. And then, just like that, along came Bill Maher and William Shatner, saying on a Club Random podcast that Candidate Trump "won big."

We agree with one major thing Bill said, but we can't say we agree with that. You can see the videotape of this excerpt at Mediaite, mistranscribed to a fairly substantial extent:

MAHER: You know, I feel like, for some people, it’s very reminiscent of 2016. I certainly was much more apoplectic then. Perhaps I should be again.

SHATNER: Did you see it coming?

MAHER: No, I picked her. I stuck with my prediction right to the end. I thought she was going to win. I thought America generally moves forward and that they had enough of Trump. You know, just, just drama. And I mean, I won’t go into—

First of all, Bill, it’s depressing to me mostly because I don’t want to do it again because I’m bored. The worst thing you can do to me is bore me. I’ve done all the jokes. I’ve—I did all of them first. 

I did "Trump the con man" editorial. I did "Trump the Mafia boss." I did it all, before anybody. I’m the one who said he wasn’t going to concede when nobody was on that page.

I’ve been there, done that. I don’t want this series. I’ve seen this series. I want a new show with new characters.

So that bugs me the most, is that there’s nothing left to say, you know? I’ve said it all. You can’t get me to think more than I already do that Trump shouldn’t be president. But he is!

SHATNER: Well, what we now have to think about is how to mitigate some of the—what some of us think are the worst things. Like.

MAHER: Well, I think first off—first is, "Congratulations! You not only won—you won big."

SHATNER: He won big.

MAHER: That’s—everybody should get props just for success despite the, you know, the vulgarities and the, you know—

SHATNER: Maybe because of the vulgarities.

MAHER: Maybe because. But also my mantra: "Losers, look in the mirror."

SHATNER: Well, I think—I think that’s what everybody has to do.

We strongly agree with Bill's suggestion that we Blues should "look in the mirror." Like any other aggregation, we in Blue America can directly change the way we ourselves do business. We can't automatically change anyone else! Not even by calling them names!

On the other hand, there they go again! Did Candidate Trump really "win big" this year? For ourselves, we'd be reluctant to offer that as our lone, unexplained assessment of what happened.

It's certainly true that Candidate Trump won—but how "big" was his win? Over at the Cook Report, his share of the nationwide vote has now dropped a smidge below 50 percent, and votes continue to be counted and recorded California.

Nationwide popular vote (to date), 2024
Candidate Trump: 76,520,189 (49.96%)
Candidate Harris: 73,893,571 (48.24%)

It's true! Plainly, Candidate Trump did win—but his victory margin now stands at 1.7 points and dropping. That how "big" his victory was against an accidental candidate who was forced to organize and start her campaign with a bit more than three months to go.

How "big" was the gentleman's win? Here's what figure filbert Harry Enten said on CNN this morning:

ENTEN (11/18/24): Yeah, the case is that Trump’s mandate isn’t all that. Look, if you look historically speaking, Donald Trump is now under 50 percent in the national popular vote—barely under 50 percent, but he is under 50 percent. 

I want to take a look and compare it. Compare his popular vote victory to those, historically speaking, over the last 200 years. His popular vote victory ranks 44th out of 51.

Plainly, the gentleman won. But why do people keep insisting that he "won big," full stop?

We're big fans of Brother Maher—have been for many years. We don't think people understand how hard it is to do what he's done for all these many years.

That said, we'll offer one last thought about Bill's comments to Shatner. The comment in question is this:

I thought [Harris] was going to win. I thought America generally moves forward and that they had enough of Trump.

To fellow denizens of Blue America, we'll offer this one suggestion, and yes it deals with pronouns:

When we speak about America or about Americans, it's probably better politics to say the word "us," not "them."

An ancient revolt is coming from below. In the face of this onrushing revolt, we agree with Bill:

We Blues do need to look in the mirror and figure out where, improbable as it seems, even We Blues may perhaps have gone a tiny bit wrong.