New Delhi:
While the results of the US election will soon decide the fates of Presidential nominees Donald Trump and Kamala Harris, what remained unmissable during the high-octane campaign was the former’s repeated distasteful comments on women.
From Ms Harris to Representative Nancy Pelosi to Hilary Clinton, Mr Trump and his supporters have not shied away from crude or even sexist remarks against women in speeches, also often supporting such remarks from spectators at their rallies.
At his final Wisconsin rally hours before the counting of votes began, Mr Trump said on Wednesday that “whether the women like it or not,” he will “protect” them. “My people told me about four weeks ago, I would say ‘no, I want to protect the people. I want to protect the women of our country. I want to protect the women,'” he said, describing how his advisers said it would be “very inappropriate for you to say”. “I said, ‘Well, I’m going to do it, whether the women like it or not, I’m going to protect them,'” he went on to say.
The statement, according to Ms Harris, undermines women’s agency, authority, their right and ability to make decisions about their lives and bodies. Moreover, they also come from a man who has been accused of sexual misconduct by over 20 women.
Another crude sexist remark attacked former House speaker and long-standing rival Representative Nancy Pelosi. “She’s a bad person. Evil. She’s an evil, sick, crazy. Bi-,” he said in Michigan, mouthing the word into the microphone.
At Pennsylvania rally, when an audience member suggested the idea to Ms Harris in the ring with the boxer Mike Tyson, Mr Trump said to cheers, “That will be interesting.”
His rival in Republican primary and former ambassador to the UN Nikki Haley urged the Trump campaign not to “get overly masculine”. However, he has not shied from saying that if elected to the White House, Ms Harris will be “overwhelmed” and “melt down” facing male authoritarian leaders. At a Georgia rally, he also laughed along as a speaker at his Madison Square Garden rally last week suggested the vice president was like a prostitute controlled by “pimp handlers.” Another ally called Hillary Clinton, Mr Trump’s 2016 opponent, a “sick son of a bitch.
Elon Musk’s PAC ran an advertisement that opened with “Kamala Harris is a C Word”, later revealing the word to be communist. Meanwhile, Mr Trump’s running mate JD Vance told an Atlanta rally, “We’re going to take out the trash, and the trash’s name is Kamala Harris.” He has earlier called liberal women leaders “a bunch of childless cat ladies who are miserable at their own lives and the choices that they’ve made”.
Former Fox News host Tucker Carlson likened the former President to an angry father providing tough love to a “bad little girl”. Charlie Kirk, founder of the conservative youth organization Turning Point, said wives who covertly vote for Harris “undermine their husbands”.
A pollster for JL Partners Scarlett Maguire said Ms Harris showed a clear lead with women and that amongst undecided voters, the biggest hesitation about voting for Mr Trump would relate to concerns about what a conservative influence on his agenda would mean for women’s rights.
NBC News has also quoted surveys showing that Trump has built a solid lead with men through various strategies like appearing on the popular “All-in Podcast” and others hosted by Joe Rogan.
