Trump Is Calling It Quits On The Women's Vote

It's no secret that Republican nominee Donald Trump has a decades-long history of making misogynistic comments, and his campaign for the presidency hasn't exactly toned him down. After Hillary Clinton mentioned Trump's treatment of former Miss Universe, Alicia Machado, at Monday's first presidential debate, the Republican presidential nominee has seemed almost physically unable to stop himself from taking swings at her. While Trump is already doing poorly with women, this latest debacle made me wonder if this is the final proof that Trump doesn't care for women's votes.

It's a fair question. So much of Trump record suggests he has almost gone out of his way to show his disdain for the opposite sex. When Howard Stern asked Trump in 1993 if he "treated women with respect," he said "No, I can't say that either." Who does that, even if you don't have any intention of running for president? When it comes to the utter miracle of creating another human being inside your body from a singular cell, Trump made a point of claiming pregnancy is an inconvenience to employers. Of course, we're all well aware that Trump thinks breastfeeding is "disgusting." And then there's the casual way he degrades women, with names like "pig", "slob", and "fat."

It seems that every way he can offend women, Trump does. And since the presidential nominee has covered an alarming number of the bases when it comes to systematically insulting and shaming women, it's shocking that people of any gender are still voting for him. Now, in his latest attack, he's transformed fat-shaming into slut-shaming Machado in just a matter of day. Instead of attacking her weight, on Friday morning, Trump made a strange allegation about some "sex tape" in her past that there is no proof of, thus far.

Trump's camp is now trying to frame the latest ignominious and reductive comments towards Machado as a good thing. Some surrogates are claiming he did Machado a favor, explaining that Miss Universe wanted to fire her for gaining weight, so at least he told her she need to trim down, instead of giving her the boot. How kind.

Trump has even said himself he doesn't want certain people to vote for him, and to consistently treat women this way indicates to me that he especially doesn't want their vote.