Donald Trump is many things—a white supremacist, a crony capitalist, a fluent liar. We likely will be living with the consequences of all those traits for a long time. But the blunt force of Trump’s destructive impulse is drawn most powerfully from his gender identity: He is also a man’s man.
Progressives wrestled with representational politics in 2016. We fought mightily over what, if anything, the fact of Hillary Clinton’s gender should have meant for voters. Trump’s voters were clear what his gender meant for them. It meant a reassertion of patriarchy. It was morning in America for the white man: Grab ’em by the pussy and give a rebel yell.