Last night was a big win for Trump. He swept five states and crushed the Stop Trump efforts of his rivals John Kasich and Ted Cruz. He is, as he asserted himself last night, the presumptive nominee.
Normally, the presumptive nominee would begin pivoting to the center. But Trump being his own man, the pivot was from racism to misogyny. He made only a cursory reference in his victory speech to building his infamous wall on Mexico’s border, but took real delight in making this jab against his likely Democratic rival: “I think the only card she has is the woman’s card. She’s got nothing else going. And frankly, if Hillary Clinton were a man, I don’t think she’d get 5 percent of the vote. The only thing she’s got going is the woman’s card and the beautiful thing is women don’t like her, okay?”
As it happened, Mary Pat Christie, wife of the governor of New Jersey, was standing next to Trump last night on the podium. She can be seen rolling her eyes as Trump railed against Clinton. No doubt many women across America, whether liberal or conservative, Democrat or Republican, had the same response. The Democrats will be the first major party to select a female presidential candidate. And the Republicans are matching her with a near perfect embodiment of toxic masculinity.