From Possible to Probable: President Trump 2.0
We're back to where we were in 2016. It's easy to imagine what might happen next.
ALSO IN THIS POST…
The ideological gender gap is bigger than ever
Help to measure diversity in the male-dominated world of VC
There are many things I remember about June 23, 2016. I remember the stern faces in the newsroom—faces of consummate professionals who knew better than to let their personal opinions and emotions compromise the integrity of their reporting, writing and producing.
I remember the lunchtime soup selection in the cafeteria: on the left a “British tomato soup” labelled with a little union flag for effect, and on the right a “French onion soup” adorned with a tiny European Union flag. I remember opting for a non-partisan sandwich.
I remember the tickle of nerves in my stomach as I sat down to prep for an early morning broadcast hit that would see me field Piers Morgan’s questions on live TV the following day, before being interrupted by news that David Cameron was resigning as Prime Minister and that Brexit was a reality.
But most of all, when I look back, I remember how wrong I was. Of course I knew—theoretically, at least—that Brexit (not my choice) was a real possibility. I knew what the polls were showing and, as a financial reporter, what markets were pricing in. But, from the vantage point of my liberal metropolitan bubble, Brexit was wildly improbable. It just wasn’t going to happen.
And then it did. And a few months later, in November, Donald J. Trump was elected 45th president of the United States of America: a sexist, misogynist, racist, bigoted, serial bankrupt former gameshow host, who’d muddled his way through life so far fueled by a noxious mix of nepotism, egotism and cash (that may or may not have been his) was the new leader of this imperfect, ailing land of opportunity. It’s embarrassing to admit—especially in light of my Brexit shock—that I genuinely hadn’t thought he’d actually become president.
That was more than four years ago. Now we’re back to familiar territory. Earlier this month, Trump chalked up a record-setting win in the Iowa caucuses, tightening his grip on the Republican presidential nomination. Then he won in New Hampshire. No Republican candidate has ever won the first two states in the primaries and then not gone on to secure the presidential nomination. The polls have had him ahead for months. On January 21, Florida Governor Ron DeSantis suspended his campaign. “His loss was inevitable,” wrote Tom Nichols for The Atlantic, “because Republican voters want Donald Trump.”
It’s this maelstrom of news—the big Iowa win, the polls, the quitting rivals—that has led me to a haunting realization, one which—once again sitting in my cozy, liberal, Metropolitan bubble but this time on the other side of the Atlantic— I admittedly have the impulse to suppress. We’ve been here before and we know what happens next. But in case you’ve forgotten, here’s a reminder.
During his presidency, Trump’s administration—according to a report compiled by the Center for American Progress in 2020—”used every tool in its arsenal to chip away at women’s health, employment, economic security, and rights overall.” In August 2017, it ordered the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) to halt the implementation of the pay data collection rule, citing concerns about burden and utility. The following year, in November 2018, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services finalized rules that expanded religious and moral exemptions for employers, universities, and insurers that objected to providing contraceptive coverage.
He dramatically reduced access to abortion coverage. In March 2019, the government finalized a rule prohibiting providers receiving Title X funding from referring patients for abortion services and from providing information or counseling related to abortion. The Title X program was established in 1970 as part of the Public Health Service Act. Its explicit aim was to address inequities in access to contraception. Under Trump, federal regulators obstructed this mission aggressively. The new rule required a physical separation between a facility that provides abortion services and one that provides other health services.
Research conducted by the Guttmacher Institute and published in 2020 illustrated that the rule—which became known as the domestic “gag rule”—had slashed the Title X national family planning network’s patient capacity in half and jeopardized care for about 1.6 million patients. Low-income, uninsured, and young women had especially relied on Title X.
As I write in my forthcoming book, by the time Joe Biden was sworn in as president on that chilly day January 2021—just two weeks after a deadly riot at the U.S. Capitol led by Trump supporters—women across America were “bruised and whiplashed by what had occurred during the preceding four years: a staggering reversal of their fundamental rights to control their own bodies, their own decisions, their own lives.” But more was still to come.
Last Monday, January 22, would have been the 51st anniversary of Roe v. Wade which effectively enshrined the right to abortion in the constitution. In June 2022, a Supreme Court, the most conservative the country had seen in decades, eliminated that right. Trump’s apostles continued—and continue—to yield power even as he whiles away his days on the golf course and in court (where he spent last week (unsuccessfully!) trying to defend himself in a trial centered around the writer E. Jean Carroll, who claimed he sexually assaulted her in the mid-1990s).
Quite apart from what you might think of his official policies and ideology, Trump’s views on women, as evidenced by words that he’s personally has uttered, are utterly repugnant. Dogs. Bitches. Psychos. All descriptors Trump has used when referring to women. And there are far worse. In what workplace would hurling insults around like that not result in grave consequences? The impact Trump has had by normalizing this sort of rhetoric is unquantifiable. When behavior is modeled, even subtly, by a person of authority there’s a part of the human brain that can’t help but recognize it as totally acceptable. I wrote about this in more detail for the BBC a few years ago.
I’m scared that what we’ve seen so far—hate, polarization, explicit assaults on democracy, a decisive reversal of progress towards equality, a deep disrespect for ethics and morals and mores that make communities function—is a bitter taste of the terrifying things to come. It’s wretched. But at least this time I’ll have seen in coming.
The Ideological Gender Gap
No, no, I’m not going to give you my two cents on the Barbie Oscar nomination snub this week (though I would challenge you to read Pamela Paul’s column in The New York Times and not explode into flames of rage at the headline. TLDR; I think she makes some excellent, nuanced, and important points). Instead, I want to draw your attention to an article that absolutely astonished me.
Writing for the Financial Times this past week, John Burn-Murdoch draws our attention to the gender ideology gap. Citing work done by Alice Evans, a visiting fellow at Stanford University and one of the leading researchers on the topic, Burn-Murdoch reports that “in countries on every continent, an ideological gap has opened up between young men and women. Tens of millions of people who occupy the same cities, workplaces, classrooms and even homes no longer see eye-to-eye.”
Take the U.S. for example: Gallup data here shows that for decades the proportion of women and men who were inclined to adhere to either liberal or conservative views were distributed roughly equally. But that’s no longer the case at all. Burn-Murdoch reports that women between the ages of 18 and 30 are now 30 percentage points more liberal than than men of the same age. And that gap, he notes, took just six years to open up. Other countries, including Germany and the U.K., have similar-sized gaps. In Korea the gap is particularly huge.
“Too often young people’s views are overlooked owing to their low rates of political participation,” Burn-Murdoch concludes, “but this shift could leave ripples for generations to come, impacting far more than vote counts.”
I’d urge you to read the full piece here.
What Gets Measured….
Finally this week, a quick favor.
Hephzi Pemberton, entrepreneur, advisor, angel investor, and founder of the diversity and inclusion consultancy Equality Group, has launched a survey to better under the funding landscape. Hephzi has made it her mission to quantify diversity and inclusion within organizations, and to create real measurable goals to incentivize and track progress.
If you are a founder in the VC ecosystem, she wants to know about your experience: how you’ve been treated and what obstacles you’ve faced on your fundraising journey.
You can learn more about Hephzi’s work and research, and complete the survey here.
And while you’re at it, you might want to check out her 2021 Amazon bestseller The Diversity Playbook: a practical guide to embedding inclusion and diversity across a business for long-term value creation.
WOMEN MONEY POWER: The Book
As usual, an update on all things book. Today I start recording the audiobook of WOMEN MONEY POWER. Send pronunciation tips, hot tea, and Ricola sweets my way please!
Here’s a link to the Columbia Magazine interview about WOMEN MONEY POWER in their Winter 2023-2024 edition.
On March 4 at 6pm, the evening before publication day, I’ll be reading from WOMEN MONEY POWER at the lovely Corner Bookstore on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. Drop me a note if you plan to attend. I’d love to see you there!
I’ll also be in London during the week of April 8 doing various events. Details to follow…
Publishers Weekly’s review came out last month describing the book as “a rousing testament to the achievements of women activists, and a damning indictment of how America has failed to protect their gains.”
You can read the full thing here.
I’ll also be coming to the U.K. for various book-related things during the second week of April. Stayed tuned for details of that!
Three Others Things I’m Reading…
Women and children are the main victims of the Israel-Hamas war with 16,000 killed, UN says (Associated Press)
64K women and girls became pregnant due to rape in states with abortion bans, study estimates (NBC News)
Jury Orders Trump to Pay Carroll $83.3 Million for Years of Defamation (The New York Times)