Why A 'Nasty Woman' Just Might Get Things Done

“I think women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said.” –Carly Fiorina

Donald Trump s success in the primaries caught most commentators by surprise. It shouldnt have. The last 50 years of history laid the groundwork for the rise of a racist and sexist demagogue and the GOP is partly to blame for their current situation.

If anti-Trump Republicans recognize how Trumpism came about, they may be able to change course. It will take fresh leadership though, because Trump doesnt even appear to see what he is doing.

Donald Trump cannot stop belittling and objectifying women. Whether it is his opponent , former beauty queens , women who have accused him of sexual assault , or his own daughter , his near pathological need to turn women into subordinated sexual objects may have doomed his campaign. His attacks have energized Democrats who were previously lackluster about Hillary Clinton and provided a rallying cry that feminists will likely use for years to come. Trumps problems with women have turned Clintons gender from a weakness into a strength for her campaign.

Carly Fiorina may have said it best during a Republican primary debate thirteen months before Trump put his foot in his mouth once again by calling Clinton a nasty woman. Though Fiorina was referring to Trumps insults about her looks when she said, I think women all over this country heard very clearly what Mr. Trump said, Clinton could have used the exact same response to Trumps nasty woman remark. Fiorina provided the blueprint for dealing with Trumps sexist attacks that Clintons campaign has employed. Her response helps explain why using Clintons gender against her is backfiring: women know what Trump means even if he doesnt.

In September 2015, Trump apparently missed Fiorinas meaning. Instead of complimenting her abilities, he stayed focused on her looks. The issue to which Anderson Cooper had tried to draw attention wasnt that Trump called her uglyit was that Trump felt a female candidate should be judged on her appearance. This was just one of many examples of sexism by the eventual Republican nominee.

How The GOP Created Donald Trump

There is little question that Trump is damaging the Republican brand, but he did not do it alone. He is the logical outcome of Republican leaders decisions to use racism and sexism to motivate voters and attack their enemies over the past fifty years. Republicans provided the fertilizer that the unwanted Trump needed to grow. Now, Republicans need to decide how to deal with the weed they let take over. That Trumps rise was not so much a takeover as a result of Republicans cynical use of race and gender for political gain provides a warning for Republicans: change your approach or risk extinction as a party.

Trump was not the first Republican to use racism to motivate voters. The Republican Party has long used racist dog whistles and attempted to suppress minority voters instead of appealing to them. Even before Nixons 1968 decision to pursue a southern strategy, some members of the Republican Party used racism to gain votes. In the last decade, the use of racial fears and resentment among white voters has become increasingly important to Republican electoral hopes. Over the last eight years, Republicans have increasingly appealed to the racism within American culture to try and undermine President Barack Obama . The decision of many Republicans to explicitly or implicitly support the birther movement, interrupt President Obamas State of the Union Address, and allow racist dog whistles to be made under their banner without protest ensured a new Republican base ripe for Trumps takeover. Trumps continuation of this strategy led him to become more overt in his racism as the campaign went on. In making the subconscious into the conscious and the subtext into text, Trump has won the votes of the alt-right, or as historians call them, white supremacists .

But in doing so, Republicans have also lost the votes of most African Americans.

Trumps misogynistic tendencies and sexist attacks on Clinton are also not new to politics. Clinton has been attacked on gendered grounds for forty years, and much of the public distaste for her is a product of these attacks. As with racism , we do not always recognize the sexism in the system. For example, why is Clinton power hungry, but men who want the same job are not viewed negatively for their ambition? The answer is systemic sexism within our culture, which Republicans have continuously used against Clinton. From attacking her for not wanting to stay home and make cookies, to demeaning her for staying with her husband after he cheated on her, Republican operatives have worked to motivate a segment of voters against Clinton for transgressing traditional gender roles (though Millennials, at least, seem turned off by these attacks).

The attacks on Clinton played on a long history of women being portrayed as too emotional and not rational enough for public office. This has shaped how she presents herself to the public. If Clinton acted like Trump, with his explosive temperament and inability to control himself, she would be called emotional or, the favorite refrain of anxious men, hysterical . Imagine if she was caught on tape saying she had grabbed a married man by the penis?

Trump picked up where past attacks on Clinton left off, making what had been implicit attacks on Clintons gender explicit. In calling Clinton a nasty woman, Trump was stating outright his objection to her: not that she is nasty, as the great counter-puncher is a firm believer in using insults and nastiness to win elections, but that she is a woman who is being nasty. Trumps hypocritical attacks on women, his rejection of political correctness, and refusal to apologize for sexist comments has cemented for him the votes of mens rights activists, or as I call them, misogynists .

This strategy has also alienated women.

Clinton knows her gender upsets Trump . Even before his nasty woman comment, Clintons response to his gendered attacks at the third and final debate was devastating. She even channeled Fiorina at one point in replying, I dont think there is a woman anywhere that doesnt know what that feels like. Clinton understands how to use her gender as well as, if not better than, Trump uses it against her. For many female voters, the Clinton campaign has transformed Trump from the great businessman he claims to be into the quintessential terrible sexist boss . If Republicans continue to embrace the sexism that Trump has tried to use to delegitimize Clinton, they may face a backlash from women.

Gendered Attacks May Continue to Harm the GOP

Recent history provides a warning to Republicans, who should be cautious of attempts to delegitimize Clintons election if she wins. The Republicans loss of African-American voters presents lessons for how they might contend with the possibility of the first female president and avoid becoming a party of just white men. Trumps part in the racist birther movement has helped ensure that he consistently polls in the single digits with black voters (regardless of what he claims in his stump speeches). The larger embrace by many Republicans of these attempts to delegitimize the first African-American president has alienated black voters from the Republican Party up and down the ballot.

While no Republican candidate for president has won a substantial portion of the black vote since the 1960s, Republicans have long been dependent on women to get elected. Similar attempts to delegitimize Clinton could alienate female voters for years to come. Republicans who wish to run in 2020 should be careful come November 9 to avoid angering over fifty percent of the electorate. Even the appearance of sexism has the potential to drive both independent and Republican voters away, and Republicans need to maintain their partys base, which is far larger than Trumps base.

While much has been made of the majority of Republicans who want Trump to remain in the race, the numbers available actually show a substantial drop in support compared to recent elections. In the last several cycles, Republican presidential candidates have consistently received over ninety percent of the vote from self-identified Republicans. For comparison, Bob Dole received only eighty-five percent of the Republican vote in 1996, and Bill Clinton trounced him. Unless a massive number of Democrats defect to Trump, a repeat of a Clinton trouncing a Republican candidate seems increasingly likely. Should Trump potentially lose fifteen percent or more of Republican voters to Clinton, this would indicate a difficult path for Trump and future Republicans running for president. The danger of alienating independent women should be even more concerning for the Republican contenders in 2020.

Hopefully, Republicans recognize that their pandering to some of the worst aspects of American culture was partially responsible for giving them Trump. In the coming months, the GOP will likely need to reorient and determine if their party will continue to use Clintons gender as they used Obamas race.

Sexist double standards, a product of our history, have clearly been a powerful weapon against Clinton, but Trumps campaign is quickly showing that using sexism as a political tool carries the potential for substantial blowback. His campaign has helped transform the party of Lincoln into the party of sexism and racism. To be a national party, the GOP will need to lose those labels. Just as white voters are less aware of hidden structural racism than black voters, men do not always see the sexism hidden in societys institutions. But most women do . Clintons campaign has made it clear to many female voters that the Republican Party is not a welcoming party to women, and not just because of their desire to control personal health care decisions. Republican men ignore that fact that women are more aware of the historical sexism remaining in our culture at their own peril.

For all our sakes, I hope Republicans recognize the danger of using race and gender to make political gains. I pray this election gives the GOP motivation to work with Clinton to solve issues and avoid another eight years of obstructionism based on identity politics. If they want to survive as a party, they will have to stop attacking Hillary and start working with President Clinton.

Adam H. Domby is an Assistant Professor of History at the College of Charleston. He is also a former congressional staffer. This is his fourth post on how history can inform our understanding of the Trump campaign. His previous posts covered Trump’s campaign strategy , military policy , and institutionalized racism and sexism . The views expressed here are the author’s alone.