For days and weeks to come, there will be endless analyses of how Donald Trump, a convicted criminal who fomented an insurrection and was found civilly liable for sexual assault, still somehow won another presidential election. There's racism, right-wing propaganda, a failing information environment, and perhaps an American death wish. All those were big factors, but we cannot overlook how much the Trump campaign was built around a pitch to men that he would finally bring women to heel.
Yelling "I HATE TAYLOR SWIFT" on social media is one of the millions of things Trump has done that should have disqualified him, if only on grounds of idiocy, but the underlying sentiment — disobedient women need to be punished — was unmistakable. The result is a nauseating gender gap in exit polling, showing a majority of women in every age group voted for Kamala Harris, yet the vice president could not crack 50% even with the youngest group of men.
