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MAGA men unleash torrent of misogynistic hate following Trump’s election win

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MAGA men unleash torrent of misogynistic hate following Trump’s election win

A surge of misogynistic social media posts featuring men laying claim to women’s bodies has coincided with President-elect Donald Trump’s election victory last week, according to a new report.

Trump ran a campaign that included denying women their free will. He vowed to be women’s protector “whether the women like it or not,” and he repeatedly praised the chaos that has ensued after the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn women’s federal right to abortion as “beautiful.” His victory has some in the MAGA movement eager to subjugate women, and their remarks all but affirm some people’s fears that a Trump win would unleash misogyny akin to that in “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

The nonpartisan Institute for Strategic Dialogue, which tracks the spread of disinformation and propaganda online, released a report Friday that found an initial spike in blatantly misogynistic statements — including men telling women “your body, my choice” and calling for women’s voting rights to be repealed — following Trump’s victory.

I’d been keeping track of such misogyny in the lead-up to Election Day. But the ISD report explains how this kind of bigoted bile exploded online after Trump’s win.

According to the report:

In a national election heavily focused on women and reproductive rights, women in the United States have faced an onslaught of online abuse, harassment, and denigration following Vice President Kamala Harris’s loss. This is more than just a continuation of misogynist trends that ISD documented in both the run-up to this election and in the aftermath of previous cycles including 2020 and 2022. As an emboldened group of ‘manosphere’ influencers, extremist ideologues and politicians exploit Donald Trump’s election as a rebuke of both reproductive rights and women’s rights, the impact on women could extend into the next presidential election and beyond.

The “manosphere” is an online, multiplatform community of angst-ridden men who believe feminism — and women’s independence, more broadly — is a key source of society’s problems. The report quotes a widely shared post-election tweet from far-right manosphere podcaster Andrew Tatewho suggested he hit the gas pedal in his car when he saw a woman at a crosswalk because “you no longer have rights.” It also quotes a social media post from Nick Fuentes, Trump’s white nationalist dinner date from 2022who tweeted, “Your body, my choice. Forever,” and garnered tens of millions of impressions.

In just a 24-hour span after the election, researchers reportedly found a “4,600% increase in mentions of the terms ‘your body, my choice’ and ‘get back in the kitchen’ on X.” The report refers to multiple social media users who said they or their children were told “your body, my choice” in class. The researchers found tens of thousands of accounts using the phrase “dumb c–t” to refer to Vice President Kamala Harris and other women on Election Day itself, using an insult Elon Musk’s super PAC referred to in a suggestive anti-Harris ad. And the researchers also found calls for “rape” and “rape squads” garnered thousands of views on social media after last week’s election.

This research aligns with research from other experts who’ve talked about invective targeting women in politics. Disinformation expert Nina Jankowicz, for example, wrote for BLN that the vicious attacks Harris has received are incomparable to those any woman in politics before her has faced.And this fits a troubling global trend. Around the world, many of the repressive, authoritarian-like figures Trump and his movement idolize have all been bolstered by movements of petulant men who harass and threaten women. They include Salvadoran President Nayib BukeleArgentinian President Javier Milei and Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán.

All have learned how to use the misogynistic angst of their country’s men to their political advantage, and Donald Trump is no different.

The topic of “MAGA masculinity” is one I’ve been covering closely over the past several months, and I’m going to stay on this beat. To read some of my previous coverage, check the links herehereherehere and here.

Ya’han Jones

Ja’han Jones is The ReidOut Blog writer. He’s a futurist and multimedia producer focused on culture and politics. His previous projects include “Black Hair Defined” and the “Black Obituary Project.”

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Politics

Democrats zero in on Musk as a way to attack Trump

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Democrats are starting to wake up and sketch out a plan to help them win back the working class: Turn the world’s richest person into their boogeyman.

They’ve set their sights on holding Elon Musk to account. Armed with new polling showing Musk’s popularity in the toilet, key Democratic leaders are going after the top Trump adviser who is dismantling the federal government. They are attempting to subpoena him and introducing legislation to block him from receiving federal contracts while he holds a “special” role leading Trump’s cost-cutting crusade.

In a sign of how toxic Democrats believe Musk is, battleground Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) called Musk an “unelected, weirdo billionaire” and said he has “been getting a lot of calls over the past few days” about him. Golden is a moderate who represents Trump country.

Even Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.), who represents Silicon Valley and has had a relationship with Musk for years, is distancing himself from him. Khanna posted on X on Wednesday that Musk’s “attacks on our institutions are unconstitutional.” Khanna previously likened Musk to Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “dollar-a-year men,” the corporate leaders who helped the government mobilize for WWII, and said he texts with him.

Rep. Ro Khanna (D-Calif.) is seen during the ceremonial roll call on the second night of the Democratic National Convention at the United Center in Chicago on Aug. 20, 2024.

Democrats are also protesting him in Washington, making the calculation that the idea of an unelected billionaire wreaking chaos on the bureaucracy will be unpopular with voters. And they have some data fueling their efforts.

New internal polling, conducted on behalf of House Majority Forward, a nonprofit aligned with House Democratic leadership, found Musk is viewed negatively among 1,000 registered voters in battleground districts. Just 43 percent approve of him and 51 percent view him unfavorably. The poll, conducted by the Democratic firm Impact Research and completed between Jan. 19 to 25, also found that Musk evoked strong negative feelings. Of the 51 percent who disapproved of him, 43 percent did so strongly.

The survey isn’t a one-off, either. An Economist/YouGov poll published on Wednesday also found Musk’s approval rating underwater, 43 percent favorable to 49 percent unfavorable.

In the Democrats’ internal polling, pollsters asked respondents for their thoughts on “the creation of a government of the rich for the rich by appointing up to nine different billionaires to the administration,” and found 70 percent opposed with only 19 percent in support — a stat that suggests Democrats have landed on a message that could gain traction with swing voters.

That data and focus groups held by House Majority Forward helped bring attacks on the administration into focus: Democrats “shouldn’t chide Musk, Trump, and others for being rich,” the group wrote, but point out Musk’s conflicts of interests as head of DOGE and note that he could undermine key safety net programs to enrich himself at the expense of American taxpayers.

“Participants laud Musk’s business acumen and aren’t opposed to the ideals of DOGE,” HMF found. But “Musk’s relationship with Trump – who they view as inherently pro-big business” makes them wary that billionaire’s cuts “could include programs such as Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security.”

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House Democrats try, and fail, to subpoena Musk

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Democrats on the House Oversight Committee moved to subpoena tech billionaire and Trump ally Elon Musk at a hearing Wednesday — and one Democrat was conspicuously missing from the vote, Rep. Ro Khanna of California, who represents Silicon Valley and has a longtime relationship with the billionaire…
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Inside the Elon Musk-Jim Jordan ‘mind meld’ shaking up Capitol Hill

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Inside the Elon Musk-Jim Jordan ‘mind meld’ shaking up Capitol Hill

Musk has a White House office and growing pull across federal agencies. Now he’s burrowed into the House Judiciary Committee…
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