Video has been deleted. Transcript below.
Listen, I’m not here to push the idea of a Trump presidency or a Trump nomination or even a Trump casino. The best thing I can say about such a thing is that the last time this country elected an actor/TV personality/know-nothing, his name was Ronald Reagan and he was responsible for the greatest turnaround this country has seen since the Battle of Midway.
But if you didn’t find this exchange and its aftermath to be one of the most important things that has happened on the public stage this year, you’re not paying attention. And if you contrast it to what happened at the Netroots Nation conference a month and a half ago, it’s even more instructive.
Let’s discuss the question first:
KELLY:You’ve called women you don’t like fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals. On your Twitter account, your Twitter account has several disparaging comments about women’s looks…
TRUMP: Only Rosie O’Donnell.
(Audience applause)
KELLY:No, it wasn’t. You once told a contestant on Celebrity Apprentice that it would be a pretty picture to see her on her knees. Does that sound like the temperament of a man we should elect as president?
The fact of the matter is that insulting people is part of Trump’s public persona. Someone has made a ten hour supercut of Trump insults. But the question isn’t really about his temperament; it’s about his decision to insult women the same way he insults men.
Isn’t that one of the goals of the equalist society? To have men and women treated in exactly the same manner? To eliminate all vestiges of charity, chivalry, and deference? Ask any feminist and that’s what you will be told. But when it actually happens — when men dare to treat women like men, all of a sudden IT’S AN ISSUE.
Note, for example, what happened to poor Rayon McIntosh. Warning, clip contains strong language:
If that’s two men who jump over the counter to attack the guy, you can’t tell me that anybody’s going to have a problem with it. It’s self-defense, plain and simple. But change the sex of the attackers, and the Huffington Post decides to describe it as “A McDonald’s cashier is caught on a horrific cell phone video using a metal rod to brutally beat two female customers who’d jumped the counter of his West 4th Street restaurant early Thursday during a fight over their order.”
A fight over their order? There was no fight over the order. He scanned the $50 bill — which is his job — and the women taunt, threaten, and, after he retreats, chase him with the purpose of injuring him. The HuffPo helpfully tells us that McIntosh murdered someone when he was 19, by the way, just in case we failed to get the message that he is a terrrrrrrible Black Man.
Why didn’t Rayon McIntosh receive the same benediction given by the media to Michael Brown or Trayvon Martin? Because he hit a couple of women. This, by the way, is what happens when you let FeelsVille identity politics rule the day.
Let’s make up a sign that stands for “is automatically guilty in any confrontation with, no matter what the fuck actually happened” and let’s make that sign, oh, I don’t know, “!!!!*!!!!”. So, in the world of FeelsVille:
Cop !!!!*!!!! Black Man
but
Black Man !!!!*!!!! Black Woman
and
Straight Man !!!!*!!!! Lesbian Woman
so you can plainly see why Rayon was judged guilty by the HuffPo. Now, when the cases actually came to trial, Rayon was exonerated and his two attackers were convicted. That’s why we need an actual rule of law in this country as opposed to the dictatorship of the media or the proletariat.
And I’ll tell you something else: everybody at that restaurant knew Rayon was in the right. How do we know that? Because of the white woman screaming “STAHHHHHHHHP IT!!!!!” She wasn’t saying anything when the women went after Rayon. She knew, somehow, that Rayon might listen. That he was actually not the aggressor and she might convince him to lay off. Had two thugged-out brothers come in there and started beating Rayon within an inch of his life, do you think she’d have spoken up?
Okay, long digression here, but let’s return to Mr. Trump and his response to Ms. Kelly:
I think the big problem this country has is being politically correct. I’ve been – I’ve been challenged by so many people and I don’t frankly have time for total political correctness. And to be honest with you, this country doesn’t have time either. This country is in big trouble. We don’t win anymore. We lose to China and Mexico in trade at the border. We lose to everybody. Frankly what I say and often times it’s fun, kidding, we have a good time. What I say is what I say. And honestly, Megyn if you don’t like it, I’m sorry. I’ve been very nice to you, although I could probably not be based on the way you have treated me. But I wouldn’t do that.
Was the headline the next day “TRUMP CALLS OUT COUNTRY FOR LOSING TO CHINA AND MEXICO?” Of course not. The only people to even notice were the folks at the Washington Post who then wrote a totally fucking Orwellian article assuring us that China is actually not kicking our ass at all:
The China he conjures is strong and powerful, while the U.S. is beating a lame retreat. It is a narrative that seems to resonate stateside but is starkly at odds with how China sees itself. China, in its own eyes, is not a “winner”—yet—but an emerging economy trying to get back on track after a century of humiliation. What, they might ask, did America “lose?” (Trump did not specify.)
Tell me you can read that without feeling nauseous. What kind of through-the-looking-glass world does the Post live in if they cannot see that China has assumed control of everything from textiles to supercomputing? Is it willful ignorance or outright treason? It’s beyond a sick joke. Trump didn’t have to “specify what America lost” because he was speaking to a nation of 330 million people who know perfectly well what America has lost.
Jobs.
Manufacturing capacity.
Engineering capacity.
Scientific capacity.
Military capacity.
We know these things because we live in the real world where you literally cannot purchase an electronic device with the majority of its parts made in the Western world. We were all told that the “tech economy” would make up for the wholesale transfer of our manufacturing base to China but it turns out that in the “tech economy” it’s 80% Indians doing the white-collar work and 95% the Asian tigers doing the manufacturing. What do Americans do, exactly? Drive the Google Bus?
Nobody but the Post bothered with that, however. They focused on DONALD TRUMP’S OMG DISRESPECT TO ROSIE O’DONNELL. Okay, he was disrespectful to her. So what? How the holy hell is “respect to Rosie O’Donnell” one of the criteria for election to the leadership of the free world? So he called her a “fat pig”. She is a fat pig. That’s as true as calling me “forty pounds overweight” or the endless criticism Trump gets about his hair. She’s a public figure who makes a living being fat and loud and gay and obnoxious. If he’d called Chris Farley a “fat pig” before Farley’s death, would this be a matter for the nation to consider?
With that said, let me tell you why we could do worse than Donald Trump for a president: He’s not afraid of conflict, and he understands that you can often accomplish with aggression what would cost money or blood otherwise. Look at Mr. Obama for a counter-example. Has there ever been a milder, weaker, or more feminine president than Momma’s Boy Obama, product of an adventurous single mom and a special-snowflake upbringing? Has there ever been a president more likely to appease our enemies, bow before our critics? And did any of this meek-mugging save a single American life? Did our enemies ever decide not to kill an American soldier or civilian because they were impressed by Mr. Obama’s self-abasement and sense of shame about being American? Did Mrs. Obama’s well-known contempt for Americans ever stay the hand of an Islamic militant?
Ronald Reagan, on the other hand, was a loose cannon who was portrayed as an insane, mentally ill old man by the world media from New York to Moscow — and it worked.
Just think about that.
I don’t know if anybody serious expected Trump to apologize for the capital crime of DISRESPECTING ROSIE. Maybe they did. I mean, look what Mr. O’Malley did in a vaguely similar situation:
Tia Oso of the Black Alliance for Just Immigration, who represented the demonstrators, climbed onto the stage, secured a microphone, and delivered a speech while O’Malley looked on.
“We are going to hold this space. We are going to acknowledge the names of black women who have died in police custody. And Governor O’Malley, we do have questions for you … As the leader of this nation, will you advance a racial justice agenda that will dismantle — not reform, not make progress — but will begin to dismantle structural racism in the United States?”
“Yes,” O’Malley replied, but before he could say more, the demonstrators in front of the stage shouted over him by reciting names of black women who have died in police custody. While they shouted, O’Malley stood in silence… The demonstrators started shouting and booing again when O’Malley said: “Black lives matter. White lives matter. All lives matter.”
O’Malley later apologized for the remarks, telling This Week in Blackness, a digital news site, that he “meant no disrespect” to the black community.
“That was a mistake on my part and I meant no disrespect,” O’Malley told the outlet. “I did not understand the tremendous passion, commitment and feeling and depth of feeling that all of us should be attaching to this issue.”
And when he stepped off stage, he chanted, “Black lives matter! Black lives matter!”
BLACK LIVES MATTER!
BLACK LIVES MATTER!
FOUR LEGS GOOD!
TWO LEGS BETTER!
This milquetoast mook apologized for implying that “All lives matter”. Think about that. He apologized for saying that all lives are of equal worth. Isn’t that a key component of secular humanism? But he abandoned it without even the pretense of courage. And having quickly read which way the wind was blowing, he adopted the chant forced on him before he even left the stage.
You want that guy dealing with Vladimir Putin? He’ll leave the conference room chanting “Mother Russia must rise!” Imagine you’re a leader of one of the many East Asian nations whose security against China is guaranteed in part or whole by the United States. You want us to elect a guy who can’t even face down a bunch of loudmouth demonstrators without immediately capitulating, apologizing, then parroting their demands?
Then poor Bernie Sanders got up. Bernie’s credentials as a progressive were unimpeachable — until that moment. They didn’t care that he’s spent fifty years in the corner of African-Americans. They wanted him to chant or shut up. To his credit, he refused:
Sanders proceeded to deliver his usual presidential stump speech over sporadic shouting from below.
After talking over one another, Sanders eventually ditched pre-planned remarks and tried to address questions from demonstrators.
“Black people are dying in this country because we have a criminal justice system which is out of control, a system in which over 50% of young African-American kids are unemployed,” Sanders said. “It is estimated that a black baby born today has a one in four chance of ending up in the criminal justice system.”
When Sanders cited the Affordable Care Act as a law he supported that helped people of color by making health insurance more accessible, one man shouted, “we can’t afford that!”
Before Sanders finished speaking, many of the protesters walked out on him toward exit doors in the back.
They left because they weren’t interested in doing anything other than displaying their power. And Bernie didn’t give them exactly what they wanted, so they left.
Note that Bernie hit the economic note hard — over 50% of young Black people unemployed — but nobody listened, or cared. The coverage the next day was “SANDERS STUMBLES ON #BLACKLIVESMATTER.”
In many ways, our media functions exactly like a compressor does in the creation and recording of music. Anything within range gets boosted; anything outside the range simply disappears. Nobody’s talking today about jobs, or economic competitiveness, or whether Trump’s right about China. They’re talking about Rosie O’Donnell and disrespect to women. But it’s worth noting that the audience that tuned in for the debate was the largest in history. Some of it was just to see Trump, obviously. But one wonders how much longer people will be interested in that media filter. How much longer people will want their news Auto-Tuned. (Insert Gregory Brothers joke here.) How much longer people will have any interest in being told who and what they’re allowed to consider as worthy of consideration. About one in ten adult Americans tuned in last night to hear Mr. Trump speak for themselves.
I’d call that a victory for democracy, no matter who wins this election.
So. Russia has a megalomaniacal, asshole, bully (Putin) as its leader, so we should have one, too? Got it.
That’s the reason we have police and correctional officers and a military, you know. So that not all the force and violence and willpower is on the “other side”.
Would you want prisons guarded by 100-pound women without guns?
Even the police and correctional officers and military don’t come at every situation guns-a-blazing, all the time. Trump and his sort do. I don’t think that Trump in particular would represent our country well. One doesn’t have to be an inconsiderate jerk to be a strong leader. One more thing: What’s the difference between being polite and being politically correct?
Examples (I’m not implying I agree with any of these statements):
Impolite: Islam is evil and must be destroyed
Politically incorrect: There are several parts of Islamic law and tradition that could be used to justify what ISIS is doing
Impolite: America is evil and is responsible for terrorism
Politically incorrect: America’s recent history of constant warfare and enmity to several Islamic nations is causing radicalization
Prisons should be guarded by hard-ass folks, but should maybe be run by someone able to distinguish between the eggs which must be cracked to produce the omelette of polite society, and the human beings which could potentially exist therein.
I’m aggressively apolitical, and know basically nothing about anything, but Putin doesn’t seem interested in producing a fecund culture, and I’m not too worried about Russia harming me physically or otherwise just yet. As long as we have some hard mother fuckers on the ground and in the background, with the knowledge and ability to effectively advise towards aggression, I’m okay with a softer leader.
Either way, IMO our comfort level is the source of our apparent weakness, and our political choices and options (farcical as they are,) are a reflection of that. As a simpleton, it seems to me that a group’s desire to win comes from having something to prove.
I’d say the folks I meet on a daily basis demonstrate that we’ve cultivated a feckless, lazy culture, and I can’t pretend I’m not a part of it, having met people from destitute parts of the world who work tirelessly at virtually the same job as I, for 2/3rds the pay. Frankly I’m embarrassed to be a part of it.
Only guarded should be italic. Point proven.
None of this matters. Reagan, whether you agree with him or not, had a clear vision for what he wanted to do for this country. Trump is just an asshole, and the only reason people like how he “tells it like it is” is because he’s telling them what he wants to hear. He gets off on being a spectacle, and if thats what you want to vote for, you deserve what you’ll get.
+1.
It’s amusing to hear a clown amidst the polished liars who make up the rest of the profession but that appeal is already wearing thin and simple buffoon is all that’s left underneath.
Our side’s Al Sharpton.
Man, American politics is Cray Cray.
Elect the biggest douche because he’s an equal douche to all (oh, and we’ve done it before!). I think if anything my takeaway from this is *sheer terror* that this is how the worlds last superpower makes governing decisions.
As a retired Correctional Officer, I agree with Jack: force only respects force. If you are a weak, fearful prison guard, the convicts will see that, and immediately exploit you, mercilessly and relentlessly. This a lesson every guard learns, his first day in the pen.
And this was perfect: “What kind of through-the-looking-glass world does the Post live in if they cannot see that China has assumed control of everything from textiles to supercomputing? Is it willful ignorance or outright treason? It’s beyond a sick joke.”
they haven’t “assumed” control, we’ve given it to them.
The same principle applies on the factory floor.
God forbid we offend anyone’s fee fees in the process of try to run a country and provide better opportunities for 300 million people. Fee fees triumph over all in the world of social justice.
Trump is a windbag, but you’re entirely right that we shouldn’t have some milquetoast beta male representing us to the world
Yeah, well I resent the notion that my choice should be restricted to those extremes.
Ok, so The Donald is an asshole who say’s what he thinks without running it thru a PC filter first. So friggin what? Is hearing some truth that abhorrent to most people? Apparently it is judging by the reactions by many in the media. However out here in the world that I inhabit, many of what I call “regular folks”, agree with what he is saying.
GAK.
How dare these “little people”, obviously uneducated rubes, not follow the carefully crafted playbook that has been promoted over the last 50 some years; “Everyone wins and nobody loses, boys and girls are the same, straight white man is scourge of the earth, play nice and share, blah blah blah”.
Anyone who has ever run a business has been called an asshole at some point in their career. Just a fact of life. No matter whether its a disgruntled employee, a competitor who you took work from, or an unsatisfied customer, somebody is not going to be singing your praise. Trump just is bringing this to a national stage, where most others can barely get an audience at the corner bar, even if they are buying the drinks.
I would equate the way Trump speaks his mind, with a 5 year old child. If a 5 year old says that you are fat, or ugly, or smell bad, guess what; you are. Kids don’t have filters yet, don’t know how to lie(other than about who ate the cookies). Not that I think Trump has the brain of a 5 year old as you don’t become a billionaire by being stupid.
Could he win? Maybe. Would I vote for him? Maybe. Would he be a good president? Damfino. Is he pissing off people? You betcha. I happen to think thats a good thing.
And as an aside; why are his thoughts on things any less relevant than Micheal Moore’s, or Cher’s or any other famous person on the left?
Before you crawl too far up his ass, keep in mind that it’s a lot easier to get rich when you have a rich father to give you a leg up. “Self-made” he is not.
Plus he self lost at least once. There are also several people claiming his actual net worth at more like 500 million not 10 billion.
Never said he was self made, just that he was a billionaire. Personally I don’t care whether he earned it, it was given to him, or how he got it.I’m commenting mainly on his positions, which his money is allowing him to offer. He appears to be funding this himself, so he isn’t worried about loosing donors.
As for “crawling up his ass”, I got a good chuckle over that. Because I think somebody actually speaking their mind cause’s you to think I’m crawling up their ass, says more about you than it does me.
“The Donald is an asshole who say’s what he thinks without running it thru a PC filter first. So friggin what? Is hearing some truth that abhorrent to most people?”
Not being politically correct is one thing. Being an ignorant blowhard when it comes to government, policy or anything beyond stirring the primal emotions of the lowest common xenophobe is completely another. You wanna talk about feelsville politics…
Seriously, just skip Trump and elect a WWE superstar.
I think your being a bit hard on Obama. I don’t really like the guy but i think he’s tougher than you give him credit for. On the international stage he has to balance the democratic base and his campaign promises against what he wants to do. I think he has shown in drone strike approval special forces missions etc that he would like to be more aggressive but he is being held back by his promise to not involve troops. Some of his administration have been giving tough talk on China lately over the South China Sea, he has stepped lightly here my guess is because he wants the trade deals to go thru before he gets aggressive himself. My guess is next year we will see some tough talk directly from the president as tensions increase as we have a large fleet hanging in the South China Sea.
Ahh yes poor Bernie i think he has recovered from that poor media coverage rather quickly as his poll #’s continue to rise.
Lots to chew on here, but a few random points…
1. I got the sense that a key part of the Fox agenda for the debate was doing as much as possible to make Trump look bad so they can push him aside. I don’t think anyone wants him in the race because the guy is a buffoon.
2. While I have no problem with McIntosh defending himself against two thugs, you cannot compare people’s reaction to his case to that of Trayvon Martin and Michael Brown, who were killed with very little to no reasonable justification.
3. How, exactly, is China beating us militarily? We outspend them by an absurd margin and still possess the most advanced hardware on the planet. Or do you mean China’s military is acting more aggressively in the region?
4.i agree with the previous commenter that you’re being too hard on Obama. His predecessor was a loose cannon who said what he thought and clearly preferred to shoot first and ask questions later. Look where that got us,
1. I had dinner last night with some farm-country Republicans (USMC Iraq veterans among them) who very badly want Trump in the race, largely for the reasons which, as Jack laid out, are to them self-evident. I thought the Fox questions, even the fat pig one, were all fair, but Trump is immune to, and is in fact bolstered by, high-falootin’ criticism. He irritates all the right people.
2. Your objection proves the point. The FACT of whether violence was justified in the two examples you point out had yet to be established when The Court of We All Know What Really Happened Here published its opinions.
3. At some point, every hegemon in human history was more advanced technologically than its challengers. China’s spending on missiles and aircraft carriers and America is spending on already-obsolete fighter jets and military pension managers. I recommend to you the book 100-Year Marathon.
4. We elected our President because we were tired of casualty reports, not because we wanted a new caliphate established. Maybe we were trying to have our cake and eat it too, but that’s the kind of judgment we pay am executive branch to discern correctly.
Trump tells(natural born) Americans what they what to hear with regards to immigration. As long as he does this he’ll remain in the lead and likely win. Our immigration policy in the face of prolonged recession is so obviously moronic that even the average rube understands it’s a problem and isn’t keen on either of the big parties candidates intent to fucking rollover on the issue.
In summary, fuck you Jeb, fuck you Hillary, we aren’t ready to concede that we’re actually an oligarchy yet.
the problem with those “natural born” Americans is that it’s very likely there were people who wanted to kick their grandparents or great-grandparents out of this country back in their day. God help you if you were Irish or Italian in the US in the 19th century.
Immigrants have always been an easy scapegoat when those in power need to point the finger of blame. The wealthy convince the middle class that the poor are the cause of all the country’s ills.
JZ,
I agree with you that immigration has always been contentious in the United States. The phrase “No Irish need apply” is ingrained into the consciousness of educated Americans. But there’s also a difference between immigration into a mostly empty country of fifty million people and immigration into an economically depressed country of 330 million or more where most of the wealth and capital has already been concentrated into the hands of a few.
If we’re going to have open borders, we should have them — which means we should stop restricting European immigration to a trickle while permitting a flood across the southern border.
“If we’re going to have open borders, we should have them — which means we should stop restricting European immigration to a trickle while permitting a flood across the southern border.”
to be fair, it’s a lot easier to “close off” a border when the only entry points are airports vs. a continuous land border.
aside from that, as far as the “middle class” goes I have less of a problem with unskilled immigrants filling low-paying jobs than I do with the execrable H1-B classification.
I’d like to write an entire book about H1-B. Basically it’s been a mechanism to take the last skilled blue-collar job left — computer work — and hand every penny it generates to guest workers. It’s been utterly deranging to the business.
I should point out that a LOT of doctors are under that H1-B.
This.
What we spend on illegal immigrants is, in the grand scheme of things, not what’s sinking our ship. Our problems are institutional and are multiples larger than the financial burden of illegal immigrants.
Now, regarding speaking off the cuff: Reagan’s live mic banter sent the world to DefCon 3 at one point. Trump’s latest comment, “…bleeding out her, whatever.” set a new low in journalistic criticism. Trump, through ignorance or willful defiance, will make us enemies where none existed before, and escalate tensions with existing enemies with one ill-conceived, offhand comment. Frankly, while he is entertaining at times, and makes for good TV, he’s a risk I’m not ready to take when it comes to the world stage.
Mike Judge did a great job foretelling the Idiocracy prophecy. It just wan’t supposed to happen so soon.
5-time Ultimate Smackdown champion…
Porn superstar…
And President of the United States…
Has called a summit, with the smartest man in the world.
I don’t mind someone telling it like it is and speaking their mind; I do it all the time. But that doesn’t make one worthy of presidency. Regan had political experience before he was elected. Trump has none. I’m not seeing the comparison, other than the tough talk. With no experience, Trump may not understand the need for constraint. You can’t win em all and often you can’t keep the promises you made before they voted you in.
Yes Obama is way too soft on some key issues, but he’s not Jimmy Carter. That comparison is nuts, and I cringe whenever I hear it. Carter was a shag carpet. The Obama administration does a lot of unpleasant shit but keeps pretty mum about it. Our increasing reliance on drones is getting some of the dirty work done without troops on the ground.
I don’t fully get the Reagan worship either. Jack and I are the same age, but I had a whole lot of other shit happening in the 80’s so politics wasn’t my primary focus during those years. 🙁
Jack, as usual you are correct on some things and others not so much. I agree that the media has lost their minds when it comes to “The Donald”. It’s nothing but a smokescreen, let’s face it,like Auto Racing nothing worth mentioning happens before the singing of the national anthem, and like auto racing or BMX nothing happens before the primaries and I believe the 1st one isn’t till December. So everything you hear now is white noise.
With Mr. McIntosh I agree, you want to act like a man, you get treated like one.
As far as the reference to Ronnie you were far too young to appreciate the damage that he did to this country and its citizens. Your father did a fantastic job keeping you and your brother shielded, living in one of the wealthiest suburbs in central Ohio(Upper Arlington). With tricky dick opening the door the year after you were born and Ronnie walking through that door with this countrys’ manufacturing, engineering, scientific, and military jobs. He handed all that over to the Chinese when he told the American manufacturers it was fine by him to close up shop and move production facilities due south(Mexico) and due east(China). Meanwhile offering grants to their students to come here and study. While cutting programs that were designed to propell people like me forward. Never-mind turning the worlds largest creditor nation to the worlds largest debtor nation in less than a decade. But hey living in Upper Arlington you wouldn’t know anything about that, why would you?
The Hillbilly from Arkansas and the Redneck from Georgia fixed some of it, getting the budget balanced and the National Debt eliminated, but your boy “W” found a way to fuck that up, having all that “political capital to spend.”
As far as your President, you should send him a Christmas card every year. Because everything he has done, has been with you in mind, his white brother. That raggedy ass house of yours is worth more now because of that President you call nigger. The Auto Industry is on track to sell 16.5 million cars and trucks this year, which directly puts dollars in your pocket. Government Motors or no.
Your boy “W” stole Trillions under the guise of trying to kill Bin Ladin, where that nigger spent Billions and killed him.
Now I realize you have big problems with women named Michelle so I won’t touch that, I get it.
I will end with this, though you have travelled the globe like Marco Polo I find it disappointing that your views are rather myopic.
With much love,
Rodney
I’m with you on Reagan, D, but I think Obama is merely perpetuating the same policies as Reagan. Reaganomics is the default economic model, ie, if there’s more money to be made somewhere else, even at the expense of Americans, then by all rights go to Malaysia and pay $.30 an hour! That doesn’t seem to have changed, just become more entrenched and hidden behind thicker veneers. And I think you’re being too hard on GWB, they didn’t steal trillions, they were just idiots. Barack and his bunch are the slick ones, I’m very interested to see what comes out after he’s out of office. I don’t think he’s such a bad dude, but the top of the Dems right now is filled with the worst type of ‘caring’ hucksters who know how to get what they want, and that’s all they care about.
Jack, I think you are missing an important part of the logic behind the outrage at Trump over this latest flap.
“his decision to insult women the same way he insults men.”
The media’s point (lost in the noise, most likely), is that he doesn’t insult women in the same way he insults men. By insulting women for being ugly and unattractive, he betrays a worldview in which women should be judged primarily by their looks. He insults men, generally, by calling them idiots and fools. It’s an important difference.
I think if you look at the amazingly long lists of Trump insults published by USA TODAY and elsewhere, he is more likely to call a woman an “idiot” or a “loser” than he is to insult her appearance. Rosie was obviously the exception — but to be fair, she is a fat pig, the same way Trump’s characterization of various “Apprentice” contestants as “slobs” was usually correct.
We seem to have lost all moderation. There seems to be an attitude in society now that one side is always all right and the other is all wrong. The difference between Jack Baruth and Huff Post on Rayon McIntosh is a perfect example. Those women jumped the counter and he had every right to defend himself. Huff Post post seems to have missed that. He broke one women’s arm and fractured the others skull and continued hitting them after they were on the ground while his coworkers tried to hold him back. JB seems to ignore that. They are wrong, he’s not right either.
That’s a fair comment — he did go pretty far in self-defense.
But to some degree, when you attack someone, you forfeit the right to receive a perfectly measured response.
In a perfect world, Rayon would have knocked them down and called it a day. But he was frightened, angry, who knows.