Donald Trump and the Politics of Bathroom Humor

Women urinate and have periods.  So what else is new?   Coming out of two of the presidential debates this year the biggest headlines are that Trump accuses Fox’s Megyn Kelly of having her period as the reason she asked him tough questions, and that it is disgusting that Hillary Clinton had to urinate during a break in the most recent Democratic debate.  Something is wrong with politics and the media if these are the stories that capture our attention.

If there was any doubt that Donald Trump deserves to win the misogynist male pig of the year award that ended with his comments making fun of Hillary Clinton’s bathroom break during last Saturday night’s presidential debate.  They come after jokes about Carly Fiorina’s physical appearance and  accusations about Megyn Kelly’s mood and menstrual cycle. The reality is that bodily functions exist and that there are some differences between men and women.  Adults accept this and move on.
In the course of a work day adults accept the reality that we need to take bathroom breaks.  Studies have documented shortages of bathrooms for women in many public places and that in many cases it takes women more time to do their business than men.  Adults also recognize that  women can get pregnant and for good or bad (or sexist reasons) are assigned more domestic and child rearing duties than men and therefore should not be discriminated against for that.  Trump’s campaign is replete with dragging out double standards and sexism.  I suspect it is no surprise he was once a big supporter of the Miss America pageant; it appears that the only part of women he likes are their T & A.
But also there is something just sophomoric and juvenile about these comments.  In fact, that is the campaign he is running–sophomoric.  His campaign is about name calling, making fun of others, and jeering at bodily functions and people’s physical looks.  On the stump he also swears, challenges the masculinity of others, and picking on others.  All that is missing are groin kicks and fart jokes and what you would have is Tom Bernard’s KQRS morning show.  Its staple humor for a quarter century has been this type of insulting puny humor.  Perhaps that is acceptable conduct for a morning show seeking to appeal to the lowest common denominator to achieve ratings, but it should not be the basis of a political campaign.  Yet if the polls are to be believed, 39% of those who claim to be Republicans (32% of adults X 39% = 8%) seem to like Trump’s views.  
Whether this support is for Trump the candidate or Trump comedy road show it is not yet clear.  But the major point here is that Trump is using the same type of insults and jokes that make  make adolescents to help fuel his campaign popularity.  Yes it gets him in the news but should we not hope that this country is better than that? Is the key to making America great against reside in making fun of the women who pee?  I hope not.

A Tale of Two Parties: The Challenges Facing the Republican and Democratic Parties in 2016

            In contrasting ways both the national Republican and Democratic parties are divided and dysfunctional, facing terrific challenges as they enter the 2016 elections.  Their respective troubles speak to many issues, but among them is both a generational shift occurring in the US and the failure of the establishment in the parties to keep pace with these changes.  Political scientists like to speak of critical party realignments.  These are processes where parties redefine themselves, adopting new policies and coalitions to reflect the changing political landscape.  Realignments are necessary for political survival.  Yet in so many ways, what we are seeing with the Republicans and Democrats are realignments that are either going in the wrong direction or which are stalled, thereby contributing to the problems they face as they enter 2016.

The Republicans

            When Abraham Lincoln in 1858 gave his famous “A house divided against itself cannot stand” speech he was referring to a country torn by slavery not a House of Representatives and Republican Party divided against itself.  But that is exactly what we are witnessing now.  First it was the presidential race where the so-called establishment party candidates with governing experience (Jeb Bush for example) are losing to the outsiders (Trump, Carson, and Fiorina) or to the hard right (Cruz).  But now the House of Representatives is a mess: Boehner is out, McCarthy is out, and the Liberty Caucus of the House (aka the Tea Party members) is looking to weaken the Speaker’s position and pull the Republicans even farther to the right and into even a more confrontational mode against Obama, Democrats, and really government and the institution of the House itself.  One thought it was bad enough that the Republican House could not accomplish anything in the last four years, now it cannot even rule itself.  It is a party hugely divided against itself, and against its future.

            The Tea Party has won.  They have achieved a critical realignment of the Republican Party, remaking it in is conservative image.  It took five years but now they have enough clout to at stalemate the party, if not perhaps completely take it over.  Critical realignments of parties are good–they are ways to realign the base and policy preferences of the party so that it will be able to survive and reflect the changing and evolving political landscape.  Yet the critical alignment of the Republican party is retrogressive–it is a party taking it backwards in time. 

            The new Republican Party is one that seems to represent not a new emerging demographic of America–one that is more multicultural and racially diverse–but one that is a throwback to the aging base of its that will literally die off in the next few years.  Phrase otherwise, the future belongs to the Millennials but the Republicans are still locked into the politics of the Silent generation.  They are adopting views on immigration, abortion, GLBT rights, and taxes that are clearly at odds with those views held by the Millennials.  Moreover, they are hardly a populist party.  Their views on GLBT rights, guns, and money in politics are in clear opposition to where public opinion in America is headed, and also to where majorities of their own members are in some cases.  Throw in their views on taxes and it is clear that the new GOP is a plutocratic one, increasingly anachronistic and at odds where history is headed. Contrary to the claims of some that the Republicans are the party of no, they actually do have an agenda.  It may not be one that they can govern on, but they do seem to have an emerging an clear narrative, even if that narrative is one that is a throwback in time and to a set of views that is so many ways take them back to a world before the New Deal.

The Democrats

            The best thing the Democrats have going for them is the Republicans.  Yet the Democrats too are a divided party–just look at Clinton versus Sanders.  Clinton is still leading in the national polls and have a ton of party regulars and leaders supporting her, but polls show little enthusiasm for her among many of her supporters. She is the safe candidate, although one that the polls again suggest may not be able to win over critical swing voters in swing states.

            Sanders speaks to a base of the Democratic Party fed up with its institutionalism and elitism.  Obama  disappointed, he helped the banks and Wall Street and never did much for workers, unions, and middle class America.  He now seems paralyzed in waning presidency.  Sanders offers something Obama, Clinton, and the Democrats have not had since 2008–a narrative for why they should govern.  “Change” was great in 2008 but since then what has been the narrative for the Democrats?  What is the message they offer for why they should stay in power and govern?  Simply saying the Republicans are nuts is not enough.  The lack of narrative cost Democrats power in 2010 and 2014 and it was only a weak Mitt Romney that saved them in 2012.  Clinton has no narrative in 2016, Sanders does. He has pulled near even with Clinton in fundraising, still leads in Iowa and New Hampshire, and draws enthusiastic large crowds.  Clinton for now has huge advantages further down the line, even if Biden enters the race. Clinton should be able to wipe out a Socialist running as a Democrat, yet her failure to do so speaks to her weaknesses and to the dangers facing a Democratic Party establishment that has too quickly endorsed a candidate who too may not be where the future of the party is.  Clinton, like Bush, is yesterday, not the future.

            Moreover, Democrats are counting too much on “demographics are destiny” in 2016.  The demographics are against Republicans and favor Democrats, but one still needs a reason to get people to vote, and they includes offering a good candidate with views that will motivate and mobilize.  Remember 2014 where we threw an election and no one voted?   Clinton lacks the buzz, Sanders may have that.  The Democratic party divide mirrors the Republican Party–establishment v outsiders, aging Boomers v Millennials.   The problem the Democrats face right now is that while demographics are destiny, the leadership is fighting this destiny both by embracing policies and candidates who might now reflect this destiny, and by a failure to construct a narrative to take advantage of that destiny.

              It is the best and worst of times for the Republicans and Democrats.  Both have the potential to change but they approach and they direction they are taking may not where history suggests they  should move.  What also may be occurring is that the divides between and within these parties reflects more powerful divides within the US across race, class, gender, region, and religion.  Lincoln may have been right in that a house divided against itself cannot stand.  The divisions that we see politically reflect broader divides found in America society, yet neither the Democrats nor Republicans seem capable at addressing  these divides.

The Second Republican Debate: Truth and Democracy Lost

“Facts are stubborn things; and whatever may be our wishes, our inclinations, or the dictates of our passions, they cannot alter the states of facts and evidence.”
—John Adams, 1770

‘Facts are stupid things – stubborn things, should I say.”
—Ronald Reagan

“Listen, when you make comments that fly in the face of what 98 out of 100 climate scientists have said, when you call into question the science of evolution, all I’m saying is that, in order for the Republican Party to win, we can’t run from science”
—John Huntsmann

"Denial ain't just a river in Egypt."
—Mark Twain

By most accounts Carly Fiorina won the second presidential debate while Scott Walker, Rand Paul, Mike Huckabee clearly lost.  Others had mixed performances at best.  But the real losers were truth and American democracy.  Across the board the Republican candidates lied, fabricated, or spewed out stereotypes in ways that reinforced the prejudices of the voters.
The distortions were on different levels.  All of them exaggerated their resumes.  Rubio again told the story of his grandfather fleeing Castro–even though he left well before he came to power. Trump describes himself as a self-made billionaire (even though he inherited his start in life from his multi-millionaire father) and denies his four bankruptcies.  Fiorina is in denial about her horrible business record at Lucent and HP, and Scott Walter and Chris Christie simply inflate what they have accomplished as governors of Wisconsin and New Jersey (and no Christie was not named a federal prosecutor on September 10, 2001).   Resume fraud should not be a surprise among politicians, such lying is unfortunately common in the general popular.
Moreover, there are lies or distortions that are not so much based on a contravening of facts as being groundless or highly suspect.  Bush saying his brother kept us safe–safe after the largest terrorist attack on American soil since Pearl Harbor?  And then there was the general tone of the debate–long on assertions but shy in terms of actual documentation about how dangerous the Iran nuclear deal is or what Obama did or did not do as president.
But there are deeper lies.  Lies about public policy, about factual states of affairs in the world which are just not true.  I have written about many of them in American Politics in the Age of Ignorance.  American politics is dominated by political myths and failed public policies: These are ideas or policies of which we have overwhelming evidence of their failure or falsehood but which nonetheless are constantly repeated and fail.  Perhaps the voters can be blamed for their ignorance, but it is deplorable that elected officials and policy makers drool out and constantly return to these myths, pandering to the prejudice and ignorance of, in this case, the Republican voter.
Consider a second level of lies.  Fiorina lied about the Planned Parenthood video.  First, the videos have been proven to be doctored and several state investigations have validated that Planned Parenthood is not selling baby parts.  She also lied about claiming that one fetus had a beating heart as it brain was ready to be harvested.  Rubio lied in his assertion that North Korea had a nuclear missile that it could launch to hit the US.  It could not even hit South Korea on a good day.  Cruz lied in many ways about the Iran nuclear agreement.  There are no sites off limits to inspectors.  Huckabee lied when he said Hilary Clinton is being investigated by the FBI for destroying government files.
But the deepest lies are policy based, those where the evidence and data is overwhelming.  The biggest lie again was the vaccination-autism connection.  The original study asserting this claim has been widely and repeatedly refuted yet Trump trotted it out again.  Even worse, Ben Carson–a medical doctor–failed to clearly challenge Trump on this.  Ditto goes to the other doctor Paul too for failing to challenge Trump.
Then there is immigration.  Trump throws out a statistic that says illegal immigration costs the US $200 billion per year.  There is no verification or support for that figure and it also fails to account for how much more money undocumented aliens put back into the economy.  As I point out in my book and as overwhelming studies show, immigrants have lower crime rates than the general  population and put more into the economy than they take out.    Rubio’s claim about 40% of those here illegally are because of overstaying visas is unproven, and contrary to what all the non-lawyers  said, the Fourteenth Amendment’s granting of citizenship to all who are born here is well-established  constitutional law and the US is not alone in granting birth-right citizenship.  And by the way, there is little evidence that such birthright citizenship is the incentive for those emigrating from Mexico to the US.
While in this debate no one outright denied global warming, when the topic came up non candidate was willing to acknowledge it was occurring, that it was a problem, or that they should do anything to address it, even just in case it was happening.
But one truth was revealed in the exchange between Trump and Bush over the former’s denial that her tried to get a casino in Florida.  Or consider Trump here and in his assertions about being too rich to be bought or previously asserting giving money to Clinton and making her feel obliged to attend his wedding, or listen to Christie’s rants on teacher unions. There is a consensus  that money and special interests rule America.  But instead of proposing to do something about it the Republican field simply accepts it as given.
The truth that emerged from the second debate is that truth and democracy lost.  We saw candidates simply lie about themselves or the state of the world.  We saw them accept as given that the democratic process is broken.  And we saw them repeat their lies to an American public on yet another media event that was less news than entertainment.  Real leadership is about telling the truth, not pandering to ignorance and prejudice.  It is looking reality in the eye and leading based on what the world is like and not on what we hope it would be.  On this score the 11 candidates in the main  GOP debate failed on Wednesday.