What Frightens MAGA Men Most

Over the weekend Donald Trump posted that he hates Taylor Swift no doubt because of her reasoned and rational endorsement of Kamala Harris and Tim Walz, but also for another reason, a reason Trump shares with many, many of MAGA men: they are afraid of and dislike smart, independent and successful women who not define their lives by having a man telling them what to think and what to do. Liz Cheney's response to Trump's post "Says the smallest man who ever lived."  As more women work and achieve career success and as women increasingly exceed men in academic success, men with tiny egos and evangelical "Christian" men who want women subordinate to them are increasingly fearful of/outraged by women who simply do not need them to define themselves (I suspect MAGA men similarly dislike gays who do not need their approval to have a sense of self-worth).  I am not sure what the cure is for such men, but Trump seems to channel their anger towards all those they blame for their own unsatisfactory lives.  A piece in Salon looks at the phenomenon"

"With love and hope," Taylor Swift signed her endorsement of Vice President Kamala Harris, "Childless Cat Lady."

Most of the global star's Instagram post praising the Democratic presidential nominee and her running mate, Gov. Tim Walz of Minnesota, was thoughtful and earnest. She thoughtfully laid out her frustrations with Donald Trump for falsely claiming she backed him, writing immediately after Tuesday night's debate, "It brought me to the conclusion that I need to be very transparent about my actual plans for this election as a voter." Swift heralded Harris as "a steady-handed, gifted leader," and lauded Walz for "standing up for LGBTQ+ rights, IVF, and a woman’s right to her own body for decades."  . . . . The cheek only came at the end of Swift's endorsement, with a pithy "childless cat lady" callback. Well, that and Swift's photo of her hugging one of her enviably adorable cats. 

At this point, it's impossible to keep track of how many clips have been unearthed of Vance raving about how much he hates and fears childless women, who, in typical MAGA projection, he calls "miserable" and "sociopathic." Vance has insisted such women hate children and that shaming them is necessary to set them straight. . . . . Swift trolled Vance and all the sad MAGA men who want to believe calling women "cat ladies" is fresh humor. 

She deftly mocked what scares and enrages MAGA men most: women who don't care what they think.

Despite Trump's prediction that "she’ll probably pay a price for it in the marketplace," Swift is going to do her thing, write the music she wants, date the men she likes, and live her life as she sees fit. If men don't like it, well, too bad. They can cry about it online, and boy, they never seem to stop. But their lame insults don't matter to her. 

Obviously, the MAGA fury isn't really about Swift, who is just one person. She's a symbol of a much larger social change. There are metrics we can use to gauge women's liberation, from the closing of the gender pay gap to increased levels of female education to later marriage and motherhood ages. Swift, however, puts a face to the shifting social dynamics between men and women that these tangible gains have allowed. Simply put, millions of women have been liberated from having to care what stupid men think of them — and boy, are a lot of men mad about it. 

Vance's compatriot in the club of wealthy men who can't seem to overcome the stench of sexual insecurity, Elon Musk, made himself the avatar of this impotent MAGA rage.

It's painful to give this pathetic trolling any attention, but necessary because it so perfectly illustrates a crucial point. Musk embodies what is often called "toxic masculinity." As his tweet demonstrates, it's often too pitiable to warrant a word as powerful as "toxic." Other Trump supporters, like podcaster Dave Rubin, resorted to the more familiar right-wing fearmongering . . . .

There's a flailing quality to this behavior of men lashing out because they can't force women to care what they think. Swift will almost surely wrinkle her nose and say, "ew," of course. But so will most other women. 

It wasn't always this way. . . . . Instead of simply bowing their heads and begging for forgiveness, young women revolted.

The "cat lady" discourse reflects this profound, if immeasurable, change. Vance and his bitter male comrades keep reaching for the term "cat lady" because they have a lingering memory of when that phrase had power. But nowadays, it says more about the man flinging it than the woman being so labeled. The image of a lonely spinster comforting herself with cats has been replaced with, well, Taylor Swift: a sexy and successful woman who has cats because she likes them and because no man can tell her otherwise. And it makes MAGA men fume.