In its Misogynist, Racist, Newest Forms

As we wait for Trump and his tech-bros to take over, the waiting unsettles and disorients. So, this is my offering for inauguration day. Do not passively submit. Do not feel helpless. Feel courageous rather than scared. Find a demonstration and join it. And make sure to reach out to the people you care about and tell them that they are not alone, and that you love them.

I.

Nothing is clear — the old is teetering and the new still not clarified.

This is a time of chaos or of monsters as Antonio Gramsci would say.

The 2024 election was a punch in the gut to those of us who chose to be hopeful and support Kamala, because anyone was better than Trump. I was pretty sure enough of us would do this that she would win. I did not think enough about how many people were so disaffected that they would just not vote at all. Or that those who yearned for an end to genocide (like me) would risk everything for that, and not vote at all.

In the end, just slightly more than half of us cast a vote. And of those slightly more than half voted for Trump. So, it was a close call, but enough for him to win. Trump says he has a mandate. He is the chosen one and he will rule with an iron fist. None of the Democrats seem ready to fully challenge him. And he continues to bluster.

Most curious to me is that Trump flaunts his anti-democratic persuasions and yet the discourse of Biden and Kamala is that they must honor the rule of law/of democracy and welcome him to the White House. They applaud their orderliness from his activities on January 6. But really? You cannot keep him from the office, but you also do not have to normalize it.

II.

I have so many questions. Do not get annoyed because democracy needs questions and questioning always!

Why call a country democratic if they elect someone who is not democratic at all?

Why call the country democratic when almost half of the country does not vote, especially if voting is a criterion of what defines a country as democratic? What does it mean to use democratic means to choose a fascist racist misogynist? Are you less fascist or misogynist or racist if you are voted in/ chosen by these same people?

After losing the election the Democrats keep asking what they could have done/should have done but didn’t? They say they should have talked more about class issues. They should have paid more attention to inflation. Turns out they should have ended the genocide.

And, what about what Kamala didn’t do but could have?

We are being told that illegal immigrants will be rounded up, put in camps, and deported. At what point does this end democracy and become fascist?

What does it mean that Mark Zuckerberg says he is now for full freedom of speech, particularly lying speech?

What is it that Musk and the other tech Bros really want? More power? More money to become trillionaires?

What does it mean to authorize criminality given the President while pretending there is rule of law?

Stop saying that democracy has won, please.

III.

Meanwhile, from the U.S. to Sudan, to Iran, to Syria, to Afghanistan, women are fighting for their rights, their lives, and their bodies — free from assault and abuse and for reproductive rights.

Women — non-binary, gender-free, cis, trans, migrant and gay, and Black, and Latina, and Asian, and… — every single woman is fighting for real democracy. Kamala is nowhere to be found.

In the U.S. we need to rise against the exclusionary hatreds of fascism that privilege hypermasculinity and its practices of sexual prowess, sexual violation, sexual intimidation, sexual silencing, and rape no matter the race or color.

Our newly elected President is convicted of sexually abusing and defaming E. Jean Carroll and more than 20 women have accused him of rape. Most of his cabinet and White House nominees have been charged in one way or another with sexual misconduct. This even applies to several of his women nominees. And do not confuse his appointments of women in his administration, for any semblance of respect for gender equity.

Many/most of his Cabinet appointees are ill-prepared, right-wing zealots and sexual harassers. Most of the Republican party has become apologists for these bombast individuals. Today Pete Hegseth was interviewed and interrogated by the Dems, but he stood fast calling all the queries unfair, unsubstantiated/anonymous allegations. They are not. Jane Mayer has amassed his horrific record for all to see.

Trump has offered several, what I call, sexual decoys for his government officials. These are women who will do his bidding but obfuscate his basic misogyny by appearing like an equal opportunity employer. Using women as a cover for misogyny is part of the elusiveness of this form of fascism. One can be, and many are sexual predators while espousing opportunity rhetoric. And in this process sexual abuse or violence operates in the private sphere outside the public regime of accountability.

Military women and female veterans bleed through the public/private sphere. Sexual harassment of women in the military is well documented even while more women now serve in combat, despite this. The contradictions between sexual abuse and gender equity must be fully exposed and resolved. I am hoping we will make this central to the forthcoming resistance movement/s we shall build.

IV.

I am in Newark airport while writing part of this. It is a travel day which means that I am already frazzled. Planes do not run on time and not just because of weather alerts due to climate change. Ever since Ronald Reagan and the deregulation of the airlines it is “just in time service” which means there is never enough labor — from pilots to ground crews, or air-controllers, or maintenance check people, etc.

Storms and wildfires and tornadoes are a part of the story of a planet out of control. Melting glaciers. And the genocide in Gaza and wars in Sudan, Iran, and the rest of the mid-east and Africa. And the fires in California that have gutted tens of thousands of people’s lives. And Trump blames Governor Gavin Newsom in his hope of consolidating his own hold on these crises. And some Republicans are already saying that the federal government should not be sending fire assistance without conditions.

Trump and his tech buddy billionaires are readying to run the world, but they seem too eager to show off their wealth and power. The rest of us — from Panama to Greenland to Canada and Mexico — do not seem ready to capitulate. Russia and Ukraine have their own scenarios in mind.

So, this is messy and going to get messier. But all our movements — climate change, prison abolition, abortion access, worker’s rights — spanning Starbucks to Amazon, gun control activists, Black Lives Matter, health care workers, and more all need to work together to find our unity. There are so many of us that can challenge whatever this new administration tries to foster. There are more of us than them. We will find out where immigrants are being targeted and link arms with them. We will push back against the misogyny and keep making abortion available.

V.

The new/ish ruling class is forming and getting ready. They are donating millions for a seat at the inaugural dinner. They are invading the think tanks. Trump’s election exposes and authorizes that this democracy is for sale and has been sold. This fact is not new, but publicizing and advertising it IS.

Zuckerberg says META will no longer do fact checking. Fact checking is too limiting to free speech — so instead we will have freedom to make up truths and lie. AND DEI — diversity, equity and inclusion — will no longer be a policy directive on the platform. What does this mean? That white men should feel free to be themselves again.

One year after the storming of the Capitol on January 6 Biden and Kamala said repeatedly that there will be a passing of the guard, so-to-speak —peacefully. What good are laws and peacefulness if they are used to establish the rule of billionaire criminals? Since when is democracy defended openly as rule by capitalist sexist bullies?

This is not what democracy is supposed to look like for people who believe in fairness and justice and accountability. So, what does this complete exposure of non-democratic means, mean? When do we get to say that this is NOT democracy. When do we get to say that Israel is conducting a genocide and stop it? When do we get to make sure that rapists do not run the military or anything else?

When do we get to stand up and revolt against Trump in the name of real democracy? Now. Today. And each day after. We need to take a thousand different actions and disrupt the sense of calm that fascists want and need. Many demonstrations are planned. Take part in one if you can.

So, we rise to resist all aspects of fascism — its Aryan exceptionalism that targets all people of color, especially immigrants. But see that the assault against women is central here. This means that we must focus on the sexual disorder of misogyny and its abuse of women as central to the fight against Trump’s bullying fascism. There is no real democracy without freedom for all our bodies.

We will defeat Trump’s misogynist sexual abuse, sexual harassment, transphobia, and racist misogyny by denying him our support as vocally as we can. We, all of us must push back with whatever means we can create at every turn. No moment is too small.

VI.

We cannot depend on the Democrats for help here. They have become silent. We are not hearing direction from them. Or a counter vision for the next several years. So, we must do this. Imagine the world you want to live in and do something, anything that can help it emerge. Grab others with you. The next steps will emerge as you decide what you will not abide or let happen.

Get used to disorder. Do not get overwhelmed. Do not get dejected. Take a breath or a rest when you need to. But take this process of revelation and use the internal architecture of a flailing democracy for the rest of us.

It is this possibility that keeps me sane and ready.

VII.

Trump is taking office tomorrow, as I finish this, and we must begin the next phase of fight back. It will be up to us — a coalition of coalitions, a movement of movements that started in 2016, to re-ignite and fight like hell for ourselves and the rest of the planet, especially Palestine and Sudan. Maybe the Democrats will just get out of the way and stop authorizing the demise of democracy.

This inauguration day take actions to support abortion on demand, immigrant rights, transgender freedoms, and racial liberation. Choose one or two and be part of the resistance. And if you feel unsure, just remember that you should never obey, you should always wonder instead.

Find your posse of five and stay in touch with them at least weekly.

Zillah Eisenstein is a noted international feminist writer and activist and Professor Emerita, Political Theory, Ithaca College.  She is the author of many books, including “The Female Body and the Law” (UC Press, 1988), which won the Victoria Schuck Book Prize for the best book on women and politics; “Hatreds” (Routledge., 1996), “Global Obscenities” (NYU Press, 1998),  “Against Empire” (Zed Press, 2004), and most recently, “Abolitionist Socialist Feminism” (Monthly Review Press, 2019).

Header photo by Mark Fayloga on Flickr.