CT Blue

There is a bright side to everything, or, if we must sink even deeper into cliche, a silver lining on every cloud. Donald Trump may or may not be an existential threat (who really knows what he would do if elected?), but he has proven useful in some ways.

When asked if he would punish women for getting abortions, the Donald allowed that he would. The other Republican candidates have been distancing themselves from his statement (without, of course, actually disagreeing with him in any meaningful way ), even though, at least in the case of Cruz, their stance on abortion is worse (no rape or incest exclusion for Cruz) than Donald’s. And, of course, their opposition to abortion is probably more intense, because it’s even odds the Donald wouldn’t lift a finger to stop abortion if he were elected.

This is yet another example of a salutary service the Donald is doing for the nation. He is saying out loud what Republicans have been telegraphing to their supporters for years. In the case of the abortion punishment question, Donald was just following the logic of his new found opposition to abortion. Of course if it is against the law to have an abortion, those that participate in an abortion must be punished. It logically follows. It especially follows if abortion is classified as murder, which is precisely the way they categorize it. How can you, at one and the same time assert that a woman who has an abortion is murdering an innocent life and, as Cruz is asking us to believe, that rather than punish we should instead “affirm their dignity and the incredible gift they have to bring life into the world”, whatever that phrase may mean in this context. It is to be hoped, though it is by no means certain, given the current state of our media, that it will, in future, be far more difficult for Republicans to use dogwhistles, now that Trump has made their meaning clear.

A very perceptive woman, with whom I happen to reside, pointed out to me that the Republican primary battles was like nothing more than the battles that take place on middle school playgrounds, a theme I used in a recent post. Donald Trump is the schoolyard bully, the guy who can zero in on the weaknesses of each of his playmates. The process is particularly painful for the bullied, i.e, the Jeb Bushes and Marco Rubios of the world. Trump has his training in the prep school world, a far more brutal world than the public schools in which we riff-raff grew. Jeb was a prep school boy, but he was one of the bullied, tailor made for Trump, who dispatched him first, and then applied his skills to his other opponents. One by one he’s taken their measure, and taken them down.

I didn’t go to prep school, but I went to a college that was chock full of prep school grads. Generally speaking, they came in two flavors (generally speaking, there are always exceptions), so far as their approach to women was concerned. Bear in mind, prep schools then were sexually segregated. These guys had precious little opportunity to engage with women as people. So, there were the painfully shy guys who had a hard time interacting with women in any way (I even knew a guy who talked expansively about a girlfriend who turned out to be a figment of his imagination) or there were Lothario types who saw women as merely and only sexual objects. We public high school guys may have come from economically deprived backgrounds, but at least many of us were reasonably capable of more healthy interactions with the women who integrated our fair college during my junior and senior year. Not to say we didn’t have normal urges, but we could also interact with women as friends and equals.

I needn’t tell you in which of the two types of prep schoolers I would classify the Donald. One byproduct of his attitude toward women is that, while he is extremely capable of zeroing in on the weaknesses of his male competitors, he is flying blind when it comes to women. His first and almost only instinct is to go after their looks, because in his mind that’s all that matters about a woman. See his recent contretemps with Cruz about their respective wives. If that approach doesn’t work, he’s at a loss.

Before I go on, a bit of a diversion. There is ample evidence out there that Donald has his weak points as well. His competitors simply didn’t have his ability to discern them. About 25 years ago Spy Magazine called him a “short fingered vulgarian”, and he continues, to this very day, to send pictures of his hand (to disprove the charge) to the guy who coined the phrase. Despite the fact that Rubio crashed and burned trying to use the phrase against him (some folks just don’t have the personality to be a successful bully), the issue continues to haunt him, to the point where he goes to needless length to rebut it. So, my point, is that if you needle him in the right place, it gets to him. But I’m not suggesting that anyone needle him about his hands.

Recently, Elizabeth Warren let loose with a bunch of tweets branding him a loser and calling his business savvy into question. They were quite brilliant. His comeback has been, shall we say, rather ineffective. You see, he’s never been in a schoolyard with a girl, so he doesn’t have the slightest idea how to perceive whatever vulnerabilities they might have. My guess is that he’d be totally ineffectual if subjected to concentrated female scorn, particularly from a very smart female (or a bunch of them). I’m fairly sure all the preppies I knew would have been fairly helpless in the face of that onslaught, particularly if the females in question hit them in a sore spot. In other words, what Donald did so well with Jeb, they could do to Donald. I’m not suggesting that Hillary take up the gauntlet. What I am suggesting is that women such as Elizabeth Warren, Barbara Boxer, etc., engage in a coordinated and concentrated assault on the Donald. Before doing so, they might want to spend some time observing kids on a middle school playground or a prep school lunchroom. A little research by a qualified psychologist could no doubt ferret out more of Donald’s insecurities. This has to be done right, of course. No frontal attacks on his manhood, for instance, though indirect attacks might work find. As the wicked witch said, “these things must be done delicately”. My guess is he’d be helpless in the face of the onslaught. He’d quickly find that insulting their appearance wouldn’t work, and after that he’d be helpless.

The only problem with this theory is that Democrats never coordinate. Republicans always sing from the same page, even if their individual political futures are at risk. Democrats never do, even when it would enhance their chances of winning.