the tagline for the 2016 gop race might as well be, "make america misogynist again." on wednesday night, donald trump and ted cruz got into a twitter spat. after a conservative anti-trump superpac ran a gross, slut-shaming ad which used a half-naked photograph of trump's wife melania, trump threatened to "spill the beans" on cruz's wife, heidi, presumably because he thought cruz was behind the ad. (the superpac is not affiliated with the cruz campaign, though it is backing cruz against trump.)<u+00a0> trump then retweeted the below image, which compares a model shot of melania with an unflattering photograph of heidi. "these images are worth a thousand words," reads the meme, implying that when it comes to the position of first lady, all that matters is a woman's hotness.









to cruz's credit -- and i truly can't believe i'm giving a man who has compared abortion to slavery credit for anything<u+00a0>that has to do with women -- cruz didn't take trump's bait. instead he responded with this tweet:









for trump, and the gop candidates writ large, the 2016 election has come down to a pathetic (and terrifying) rallying cry for traditional masculinity. there have been comments about hand size and comments about dick size and comments about marco rubio's "high-heeled booties." trump has indirectly called cruz a "pussy" and a "soft, weak little baby," and said that romney would have "dropped to his knees" for a 2012 endorsement. as the guardian's jessica valenti put it, trump and cruz have officially "gone full cavemen."<u+00a0>we are seeing the #masculinitysofragile hashtag play out in real time.<u+00a0> as women -- or any group of people who aren't straight, white men -- continue to demand their voices be heard, and that policy change accordingly, we will see a backlash from those traditional arbiters of power. the 2016 gop race has become their vicious last stand. editor<u+2019>s note:<u+00a0>donald trump regularly<u+00a0>incites political violence<u+00a0>and is a<u+00a0>serial liar,<u+00a0>rampant xenophobe,<u+00a0>racist,<u+00a0>misogynist<u+00a0> and<u+00a0>birther<u+00a0>who has repeatedly pledged to ban all muslims <u+2014> 1.6 billion members of an entire religion <u+2014> from entering the u.s.
in trump's world, women have always been objects
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