Trump’s Effort to Kill Off #MeToo—And the Women Who Help Him
The nomination of multiple people facing sexual assault allegations is no accident.
FIVE YEARS BEFORE ALYSSA MILANO tweeted the phrase “#metoo” and sparked a deluge of digital disclosures of sexual assault, a small film made a huge splash.
The Invisible War, premiering at Sundance Film Festival in 2012, exposed a pervasive culture of rape in the miliatry. Two days after viewing the film, Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta announced an aggressive revamp of Defense Department policies. Congress held hearings on the topic. By end of year, President Obama had signed a new and improved Defense Authorization Act that took the issue head on.
One film had sparked a revolution on behalf of survivors. We just didn’t know then how short-lived that revolt would be.
Fast forward to today and an accused rapist, Pete Hegseth, stands on the precipice of becoming secretary of defense. But he’s hardly the only one in the incoming administration who faces these types of charges.
A whopping five of Trump’s nominees for top positions have allegations of sexual assault leveled against them. Notorious womanizer RFK Jr., tapped to head the Department of Health and Human Services, has been accused by a former nanny. Linda McMahon, nominated for secretary of education, has a pending lawsuit for enabling child sexual abuse while CEO of WWE. Matt Gaetz, who withdrew his nomination to be attorney general last week, has been investigated for sex trafficking of minors at drug-fueled parties. Even Elon Musk, now head of a made-up department named after his preferred cyber currency DOGE, has fielded charges of sexual misconduct.
It’s clear now that sexual assault is no longer a deal breaker for plum positions. It might even be a qualification. How we got to this place may be less evident. But ultimately, two groups are to blame: the cadre of male influencers who harnessed a MeToo backlash to fuel Trump’s victory, and the women who love and enable them.
WHEN TRUMP’S FIRST RUN for president was almost derailed by the “grab ‘em by the pu**y” recording and the multiple claims of sexual assault, building an army of unapologetic hypermasculine followers became central to his push to claim and hold power. It began almost immediately, with a dismissal of that Access Hollywood recording as mere “locker room” talk.
It crested with Trump’s 2016 victory, which catalyzed an unprecedented wave of female rage. The 2017 Women’s March boasted millions of attendees at demonstrations across the country. Shortly into his first term, Milano authored her famous tweet. Organizations were built, lapel pins distributed, money flooded into legal defense funds. Men scrambled for cover. Many prominent ones lost their jobs and status after accusations came out in the press. A 2018 New York Times report counted 201 powerful men relieved of their jobs since the first Milano tweet, most replaced by women. A long overdue cultural reorganization seemed underway.
Trump and his allies sensed the countercurrents—a cultural unease they could use to their political advantage.
The opportunity arose in the confirmation hearings for Bret Kavanaugh, whom Trump had nominated to the Supreme Court and whom psychologist Christine Blasey Ford accused of sexual assault when the two were in high school. For Trump and his allies on the Hill, failure was not an option: Kavanaugh’s confirmation became central to the fight for MAGA power. Not only would his ascension cement judicial prominence for the right, but Trump could leverage the moment to cast himself as the hero in the epic battle between everyday men and the bloodthirsty feminist mob hunting them.
Kellyanne Conway, Trump’s most loyal wing-woman, came out swinging: Speaking directly to those unnerved by MeToo, she insinuated that the opposition to Kavanaugh was partisan, not principled, and warned not to let Kavanaugh be sacrificed on the pyre of misandry. Right-wing commentator Matt Walsh lamented that Kavanaugh was “innocent until proven guilty,” an appropriate standard for civil and criminal proceedings, but one that falls short when applying for jobs that require public trust. News host Brian Kilmeade tapped into the universal protective instinct of parents, asking, “What if this was your son?” Within a period of weeks, Trump and his supporters reframed the accusations against Kavanaugh as a plot by MeToo activists to skirt due process and ruin lives.
The Republicans on the Senate Judiciary Committee picked up where Fox News left off. All of them were men, so they took the unusual step of bringing in an outside lawyer, Maricopa County prosecutor Rachel Mitchell, to question Kavanaugh and Ford for them. It would have been gauche for the men on the committee to suggest by cross-examination that Ford couldn’t actually prove anything, so they had Mitchell do it for them.
Against the backdrop of the most-watched confirmation hearings in history, Americans split into gender teams pitted against each other. A majority of Republicans said that Kavanaugh should be confirmed even if the charges were true. On the eve of voting to confirm Kavanaugh, Sen. Susan Collins gave a searing speech, positioning herself as a bulwark between social order and an hysterical mob pursuing vigilante justice. Kavanaugh was confirmed with Collins’s backing.
Misogynistic political movements have always needed cover from women, and Trump’s first term was no exception. His daughter, Ivanka, was a staple on the campaign trail in 2016. Her presence was designed to assuage women unnerved by her father’s behavior and rhetoric. Press Secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders denied accusations that her boss was singling out female reporters for abuse. Communication Director Hope Hicks admitted lying for her boss in congressional testimony. Trump wore these women’s loyalty like a suit of armor. If he was attacked for his anti-woman policies, he would point to them. If their performance was critiqued, he'd use it as evidence that feminism was fake.
TODAY, WE ARE SEEING A SIMILAR playbook with different players. Tulsi Gabbard, Trump’s pick for director of national intelligence and a veteran, made fighting military sexual assault a centerpiece of her legislative agenda in Congress. But she hasn’t uttered a word against Hegseth’s nomination despite indications that it’s already provoking fear among women in the military.
Former Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly defended Gaetz, saying the allegations against him had to be taken with a “boulder of salt.” Conservative influencer Candace Owens claimed the panic over Gaetz’s nomination was a reason to confirm him. For these right-wing women, the desire to own the libs is so paramount that it excuses putting unqualified, alleged rapists in positions of power.
But these frontwomen have a giant helping hand from their male counterparts. Sen. Bill Hagerty signaled his support for Hegseth in his appearances on Sunday shows, calling the nominee “inspiring” and quickly changing the subject when the charges of sexual assault came up. Trump lapdog Sen. Lindsey Graham pantomimed piety, committing to ignoring Hegseth’s well-documented rape accusation just as he did the thoroughly debunked one against Joe Biden.
This is the end result of the movement that seeks to promote individuals who defy the tenets of MeToo.
THE METOO MOVEMENT DISORIENTED many men in ways sometimes understandable, sometimes loathsome. Right-leaning men increasingly report feminism as a net negative in their lives. Last year, Pew reported that a majority of Americans hold MeToo movement responsible for an uptick in reporting of sexual assault and a reflex to believe accusers. Men profess confusion about how to act with women. Online influencers with millions of followers have parlayed that confusion into political grievance. Ben Shapiro has decried the lack of due process for men accused of sexual assault. Andrew Tate routinely claims women are responsible for their own rapes.
Young men came of age in a polarized information environment where one side hyped hashtags like #MeToo and #MenAreTrash and the other offered enticing opportunities for men to reclaim (what they were told was) stolen power. Many looked at Trump as an avatar. In him, they likely saw something akin to inspiration: a bulletproof man who has defied virtually all efforts to bring him down, much less to hold him accountable for the sexual crimes he is alleged to have committed.
Against this backdrop, it’s not particularly shocking that the post-election victory chant of self-styled white supremacist Nick Fuentes—“Your Body, My Choice”—trended on X in the first 24 hours after Trump won.
Trump has always thrived by pitting Americans against each other. So reigniting a war between the sexes is par for his course. Trump 2.0 is a doubling down on his intent to rule by fear, division, and displays of raw power. In that light, the charges against Hegseth and his ilk are a feature, not a bug, to this president looking to put the women who disrupted his first term in their place. With these nominations, Trump’s message is abundantly clear: Women are meant to be scared and men are meant to pick a side. The alleged rapists are here to make America great again.
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