Opinion

Was The Outrage Over Trump’s Morning Joe Tweets Sexist?

Reuters

Katie Frates Editor-in-chief of The Daily Walkthrough
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The media, professional left and a hefty portion of Republicans are beside themselves over President Donald Trump’s tweets attacking “Morning Joe” host Mika Brzezinski.

Trump said some mean stuff about Joe Scarborough, too, but you wouldn’t know it unless you were really paying attention.

And if he’d said those exact things about Mika instead, heads all over the country would be popping like balloons in a game of circus darts.

Here’s the text of what the president said June 29 in two tweets: “I heard poorly rated @Morning_Joe speaks badly of me (don’t watch anymore). Then how come low I.Q. Crazy Mika, along with Psycho Joe, came … to Mar-a-Lago 3 nights in a row around New Year’s Eve, and insisted on joining me. She was bleeding badly from a face-lift. I said no!”

Politicians latched on to the “bleeding” quip and condemned the president as a sexist and a misogynist who picks on women. Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee posted a video calling on the president to resign because impeachment isn’t fast enough. Rep. Jamie Raskin put forth a bill to create a panel that would determine a president’s mental fitness to be in office. House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi — after being reminded of what the tweets were — condemned them as “blatantly sexist. I don’t even know that there’s any question about it.”

Speaker of the House Paul Ryan joined Sens. Ben Sasse, Orrin Hatch and Lindsey Graham in urging the president to speak in a way more befitting the presidency.

Pundits and journalists all reacted in a similar fashion — that Trump’s attack on Brzezinski was anti-woman.

Yet very few of these same people seemed to care that Trump called Scarborough a “psycho.”

Here are a few headlines and snippets of stories about the tweets that gloss over — or omit entirely — Trump’s attacks against Scarborough.

The Washington Post headline: “Trump’s latest attack on Mika Brzezinski is laced with sexism.” It never addresses Trump calling Scarborough a “psycho.”

Variety’s headline: “President Trump Attacks ‘Morning Joe’ Host: ‘She Was Bleeding Badly From a Face-Lift.’

One CNN piece used a featured image of two pictures of Brzezinski and Trump and never once mentioned what Trump said about Scarborough.

Saying someone is bleeding because of a face-lift is a lower blow than calling someone a psycho. It’s personal, and chosen specifically to embarrass. But why doesn’t anyone care about Trump’s insult toward Scarborough? It’s not negated because something meaner was said to Mika, and hopefully it’s not negated because he’s a man.

Imagine if President Trump had called Scarborough stupid and Mika “psycho”? People would have combusted. The articles claiming “psycho” is some kind of dog-whistle for woman, combined with allegations that no man would be called psycho, would have poured forth like water from the mountain. The word’s meaning doesn’t change when applied to a man or a woman, yet the level of outrage certainly does.

Trump followed up with an additional tweet July 1: “More Crazy Joe Scarborough and dumb as a rock Mika are not bad people, but their low rated show is dominated by their NBC bosses. Too bad!”

Once again, the vast majority of coverage focused solely on what Trump said about Mika. All of this points to the feeling that most people only seem to care about Trump being mean when it’s directed at a woman.

This feeling goes all the way back to the Republican primaries. People snickered and laughed when Trump called Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker “slow” and came up with mean nicknames like “low-energy Jeb,” “little Marco” and “lyin’ Ted.” People did not snicker when Trump made a rude comment about Carly Fiorina’s face.

Rubio can’t control his height as much as Fiorina can’t control how she ages, so why does it seem more acceptable to make fun of one than the other?

Insulting a person’s physical characteristics is a low-level attack, regardless of if the person being attacked is a man or a woman.

To be clear, Trump’s tweets are stupid, juvenile, mean and damaging to his ability to uphold his campaign promises. They are unbecoming of the highest office in the nation. However, if people decide to criticize Trump’s remarks, they have to criticize them equally, no matter if they are directed at a man or a woman. People can’t ignore or laugh at his insults toward men, but be outraged when he does the same thing to a woman.

Lopsided anger indicates traditional partisanship more than some new egalitarianism.

The core concept is that being mean is bad, not that being mean to women is bad and being mean to men is not ideal, but tolerable.

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