Trump doubles down on the sexism
by digby
He appeared on the Today show today:
Matt Lauer: Some American voters might be a little bit nervous that this call for unpredictability is actually a way of masking a lack of understanding of the issues or grasp of the details
Trump: I have a total grasp of the details, far greater than just about anybody else, that I can tell you
I don't know about that but he does have a grasp of the details of being a total asshole:
"Seventy percent of women in this country say they have a negative view of you," Lauer said, referring to a Gallup poll. "Do you even care?"
"Of course I care. Nobody respects women more than I do. And I wasn't playing the woman's card, it's true," Trump said.
He continued:
I mean, she is playing the woman's card. Everything she says is about the woman's card. And, frankly, all I'm doing is bringing out the obvious. And without the woman's card, Hillary would not even be a viable person to even run for a city-council position.
Lauer asked Trump if he thought women in the US vote based simply on gender.
"Well, I don't think they vote on gender, no. I think they vote for security, I think they vote for jobs, and that's why I'm doing so well," Trump said.
He cited exit polls showing him leading with female voters, though those only surveyed Republicans who went to the polls.
Co-host Savannah Guthrie cut in and told Trump that him saying Clinton would only get 5% of the vote if she were a man suggests that the only thing she has going for her is that she's a woman.
"Not that she was a former senator, a former secretary of state, and a lawyer," Guthrie said. "Do you understand why some people find that to be kind of a demeaning comment?"
Trump responded:
No, I find it to be a true comment. I think that the only thing she's got going is the fact that she's a woman. She has done a terrible job in so many different ways. You look at Libya, you look at some of the things that she's done are just absolutely disasters. Now I would say the primary thing that she has going is that she's a woman and she is playing that card like I have never seen anybody play it before.
Those comments are even worse when you hear the casual confident way he says them. But then that's how he sounds when he calls for torture and killing the innocent children of terrorist suspects to force them to talk too. He's nothing if not sure of himself. And judging by his success so far, he's got good reason to be that way.
Unfortunately, I've heard a lot of things in recent months, much of it directed at me, that leads me to believe that Trump knows exactly what he's doing with this demeaning, disgusting sexist description of Clinton and that it could be successful. I just don't think most people find this to be out of bounds. And if they do now, by the time he's finished normalizing it like he's normalized all the rest of his insane political rhetoric, I'm going to guess everyone will see it as perfectly legitimate political criticism, unfreighted with anything more culturally poisonous. And anyone who objects will be just another politically correct sell-out.
I wish I had more faith in my fellow Americans than that but when it comes to this sort of thing, I'm a complete cynic. He knows how to push those buttons and I'm really not sure that a majority of Americans don't want him to push them.
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