Kamala Harris bets the election on women’s joy. Donald Trump stakes his hopes on men’s anger
I’m old enough to remember when the sexist stereotype of feminists was that they’re “humorless” and “shrill.” So it never fails to make me smile to hear Donald Trump, in ever-shriller tones, rant and rave about how much he hates Vice President Kamala Harris’ laugh. Her guffaws haunt him. We cannot doubt he’s kept up late at night, dwelling on his fear that a woman might be enjoying herself. At a rally in Asheville, North Carolina last week, Trump could not stop babbling furiously about Harris’s laugh.
“That’s a laugh of a person with some big problems”, Trump said, projecting his deep psychological issues onto his opponents, as usual. He insisted it’s “the laugh of a crazy person.”
It’s a far more effective strategy than earnest t-shirts proclaiming “the future is female.”
The Harris campaign was unfazed, following the speech with an email that read, “Donald Trump delivered what was supposed to be a speech focused on his economic plan but ended up resembling more of one unhinged man’s public airing of grievances.”
While every presidential election is a complex machine involving millions of people with their own idiosyncratic opinions, there is a simple, visually arresting contrast defining this one: Harris’ boisterous laugh versus Trump’s relentless scowling.
This isn’t just a personality difference between the two candidates, either. It speaks to a deeper cultural conflict that has been spooling out for years, with flashpoints like the #MeToo movement and the fight for abortion rights. It’s about women asserting they have a right to joy and freedom, and the backlash from outraged men. It’s about men who believe they’re entitled to women’s attention and even submission, and the women who laugh in their faces and say “no.”
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From the beginning, Trump’s campaign was sculpted to appeal to bitter male voters with a message of rage over losing their traditional dominance over women. As the Associated Press reported last week, “his campaign is counting on younger male voters” who reject mainstream news sources in favor of podcasts and online influencers. At the New York Times, journalist Zack Beauchamp described it more frankly as “a bunch of men who have become extremely resentful about the current state of gender affairs.” That’s why the campaign went with Sen.
