Inside the Engine Room: Trump as karmic justice for men

Me: You know what I like about Trump is that he is woman's abuser, but he abuses everybody and the men are like, Oh, this is terrible. It's awful. Yeah. This is what's been going on to women for thousands of years. It is terrible and awful.

Chat: That’s a sharp observation, Jodi. What you’re pointing out is that Trump’s behavior—abusive, degrading, dismissive—isn’t new at all. It’s just that when it’s aimed broadly at everyone, men suddenly recognize it as intolerable. Whereas for millennia, women have been living inside that exact reality, minimized, controlled, dismissed, and harmed—and society largely shrugged it off.

In other words:

Trump universalizes the abuse. His style of domination and contempt, normally gendered against women, spills onto everyone.

Men are finally unsettled. They’re not used to being on the receiving end of the same tactics that women have endured for thousands of years.

The irony is brutal. What women have always said was unbearable is now “proven” because men are experiencing it firsthand.