To Protect and Servile
When I saw Trump say to women “I am your protector” – repeatedly – in a weird, unwieldy, desperate-sounding speech, my first thought was that he was having another attack of paraphasia and meant instead to say “predator.”
The only thing that would have even possibly made sense is if this was part of another of Trump’s weird misquoted movie allusions, this time going for Star Wars and “Luke, I am your father.” The big problem with that, though, is that it was said by Darth Vader. Though in fairness, that’s better than him quoting “the late, great Hannibal Lecter” – though not by much.
I completely understand Trump looking at his poll numbers with women voters and panicking and realizing he had to say something to win them over. I just didn’t think it would be “I am your protector.”
After all, this is the same guy who not only bragged about being responsible for getting rid of Roe v. Wade as a Constitutional right for women, but also who was found liable (twice) for what the judge wrote was the equivalence of rape – and who is quoted on tape that you can grab a woman by the p*ssy whenever you want when you’re a celebrity. And who infamously stalked behind Hillary Clinton in the 2016 Presidential debate. And who regularly slams women reporters who ask tough questions as being "nasty."
(And okay, yes, picking a running mate who keeps attacking single women who like cats and keeps saying women should stay at home rather than have jobs, stick with an abusive husband, and help raise their grandchildren rather than work doesn't help Trump's street cred for for "protecting women" either. Nor does endorsing a candidate for governor who has said he wants to go back to a time before women had the vote. Though in fairness, that got a bit lost when the candidate was later discovered calling himself a "Black NAZI.")
So, you really have to figure that “I will be your protector” isn’t going to fly very far. And that’s beside how creepy it sounds. And that’s beside how even creepier it sounded not only repeated numerous times, but in full context of an especially creepy speech.
“I will fix all of that, and fast,” Trump said about the “nightmare” he explained to women they were living in, a nightmare he largely created by his demeaning them publicly for the past eight years (privately is another matter…), “and at long last this nation, and national nightmare, will end. It will end. Because I am your protector. I want to be your protector. As president, I have to be your protector. I hope you don’t make too much of it. I hope the fake news doesn’t go, ‘Oh he wants to be their protector.’ Well, I am. As president, I have to be your protector.”
It went on, somewhat incomprehensibly, but his desperation of having to be women’s protector bordered on comical, if Darth Vader had a standup act. But he did eventually return to the punchline. “You will no longer have anxiety from all of the problems our country has today. You will be protected, and I will be your protector. Women will be happy, healthy, confident, and free.”
Still, though, the funniest line came next. “You will no longer be thinking about abortion,” Trump went on. “It’s all they talk about—abortion—because we’ve done something that nobody else could have done.”
Man, talk about a textbook case of a pure lack of self-awareness. Yes, “I am your protector” is bad enough. But not grasping the brain-dead obvious reality that abortion is not only a major part of the “nightmare” women are facing today, but is “all they talk about” specifically because Trump did something that nobody else could have done.” Which, of course, is getting rid of abortion!! That he yet again takes credit for.
How totally tone-deaf was Trump’s creepy speech? The Google search result pointing to an Esquire magazine summed it up perfectly --
To be fair, when clicking through to the article itself, the headline is slightly toned down. Whether it was changed, I don't know. However, the sub-headline of the article is almost as pointedly blunt: “The Protector is the only presidential candidate of a major party to be an adjudicated sexual predator.”
Which bring us back to my original “immediate thought”…
Of course, we shouldn’t be surprised by Trump’s delusional, total lack of self-awareness. Nor are we. It’s almost his trademark.
“I always thought women liked me. I never thought I had a problem. But the fake news keeps saying women don’t like me. I don’t believe it.”
He is very possibly the only one who doesn’t.
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