When It Comes to Trump, Trust Women
They have recognized the president’s toxicity from the jump. It’s time men start listening to them.
This will be the last Morning Shots of 2025. Thanks so much for going on this ride with us this year. It’s been a particularly challenging twelve months, but we’re especially grateful for our Bulwark community.
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Here’s hoping 2026 is better than 2025 was. Happy Tuesday and Happy New Year!
C’mon, Men!
by William Kristol
As we approach the year 2026, the semiquincentennial of the nation’s founding, we’ll all be rereading the Declaration of Independence and associated documents. As we should! But let me add a modest recommendation: Take a fresh look at the book Harvey Mansfield described as “at once the best book ever written on democracy and the best book ever written on America”: Democracy in America, by Alexis de Tocqueville.
If you take that look, you’ll find there, in Volume II, Part Three, Chapter Twelve, this remark by our nineteenth-century visitor and admirer:
Now that I approach the end of this book where I have shown so many considerable things done by Americans, if one asked me to what do I think one must principally attribute the singular prosperity and growing force of this people, I would answer that it is to the superiority of its women.
Contemporary politics vindicates the great Frenchman’s judgment. After all, if our last three elections had been decided by American women only, Donald Trump would never have become president. Whereas even now, after a decade of exposure to the Trumpian malady, American men remain remarkably and stubbornly resistant to reality.
A recent survey from Civiqs, for example, has President Trump at 40 percent approval, 56 percent disapproval. But that split conceals an enormous gender gap. Just about half of American men—wishful and credulous beings that they are—still give Trump the benefit of the doubt (47 percent approval vs. 49 percent disapproval). American women, on the other hand, disapprove of Trump by almost two-to-one (33 percent approval vs. 63 percent disapproval). (There is some hope among younger men.)
So a tip of my male hat to the female of the species—and to Tocqueville. But I also want to cite three women who’ve offered some of the most helpful guidance to the Trump phenomenon.
Two of them spoke before his rise, but their comments are indispensable to understanding the phenomenon of Trump. One is the late Maya Angelou, who told us, “When people show you who they are, believe them.”
Trump has shown us over and over again who he is, and yet we hesitate to believe him. He campaigned on the mass deportation of immigrants, but we’re startled when his administration goes ahead with it. He said he wants “his generals” to be loyal to him, but then we’re surprised when Pete Hegseth fires generals who might be more loyal to the laws or to the Constitution. Trump has shown over and over he doesn’t want the Epstein files out, but then we’re taken aback when his Justice Department fails to act in good faith to release them. Trump has repeatedly shown he’s well-disposed to Vladimir Putin, yet we’re a bit shocked each time he displays that preference.
And Trump has shown a willingness to thwart or to overturn the results of free and fair elections. Will we be shocked when he uses every means available to him to ensure that his opponents don’t prevail in 2028?
If Angelou helps us understand Trump, Dr. Ellie Sattler provides guidance for understanding his administration. In a famous scene in Jurassic Park, Ellie’s colleague, Dr. Alan Grant, says, “Okay, it’s just the two raptors, right.” But he does have the wit to ask Ellie, “You’re sure the third one’s contained?” And Sattler responds, “Yes, unless they figure out how to open doors.”
As Ellie seems to have suspected, the raptors had in fact figured that out.
As with our failure to take Trump seriously enough, we’re often quick to dismiss many of his subordinates as incompetent and ridiculous. So they often are. But enough of the apparatchiks populating the Trump administration have figured out how to open the doors to exercising power, or have been shown how to do so, that they are very dangerous indeed. With the instruments of the federal government at their disposal, and with the force of an almost-unchecked executive branch behind them, these not-so-bright velociraptor-like operatives don’t need to act with great precision or finesse. Brute force will do the trick.
The reality of a virtually unchecked executive branch, unchecked thanks to the acquiescence of the Republican party, leads me to a statement by a third American woman, former Rep. Liz Cheney. On June 9, 2022, Cheney remarked, “I say this to my Republican colleagues who are defending the indefensible: There will come a day when Donald Trump is gone, but your dishonor will remain.”
The defense of the indefensible by Republicans remains a fact. And since Trump is not yet gone, their behavior is not merely a stain on their honor. It has a real effect in helping him do far more damage than he could otherwise do.
Now I suppose it is too much to hope that the American male of the species, notoriously stubborn and boastful, will in 2026 attend to the guidance of Maya Angelou, hearken to the warning of Ellie Sattler, or listen to the remonstrance of Liz Cheney.
But here’s an offer to my fellow American men: You don’t have to acknowledge that’s what you’re doing if it offends your pride. You don’t have to admit publicly the superiority of American women. Give them no credit—they’re used to that.
But please, men, even if you don’t bow your heads, do mend your ways. Man up!
AROUND THE BULWARK
When It Comes to Race, Vivek Ramaswamy Is No Moral Leader… The Ohio gubernatorial candidate’s political marriage of convenience with MAGA racists lasted until it became inconvenient, writes KAIVAN SHROFF.
Somebody Needs to Tell Trump Everybody Is Laughing at Him… His worst fear has already come true, observes MONA CHAREN.
Trump Admin Scores Visa for Founder of Russian Propaganda Outlet… Tenet Media’s Lauren Chen is back—even though the illegal-influence and money-laundering investigation remains open, reports WILL SOMMER in False Flag.
Trump Has Lost the Plot… On the Flagship Pod, BILL KRISTOL joins TIM MILLER to discuss how Trump is stuck in a Groundhog Day of his own making. (Where is Ned Ryerson? Bing!)
MAGA Intellectuals Under the Microscope… Joining MONA CHAREN on her eponymous show is LAURA K. FIELD, who joins to discuss her book, Furious Minds, which dissects the thought of MAGA intellectuals (yes, there are some).
Quick Hits
INCHING TOWARD WAR: Donald Trump has been threatening for weeks that America will soon start attacking alleged drug targets, not only in Venezuelan waters, but on Venezuelan land as well. Now those attacks have begun, as CNN first reported yesterday:
The CIA carried out a drone strike earlier this month on a port facility on the coast of Venezuela, sources familiar with the matter told CNN, marking the first known US attack on a target inside that country.
The drone strike, the details of which have not been previously reported, targeted a remote dock on the Venezuelan coast that the US government believed was being used by the Venezuelan gang Tren de Aragua to store drugs and move them onto boats for onward shipping, the sources said. No one was present at the facility at the time it was struck, so there were no casualties, according to the sources.
Read the whole thing. It’s worth recalling at this juncture that Donald Trump’s own chief of staff, Susie Wiles, has said he would need congressional authorization for military action on land in Venezuela: “If he were to authorize some activity on land, then it’s war, then (we’d need) Congress,” she told Vanity Fair.
THE DRONE ZONE: To hear Trump tell it, a peace deal between Russia and Ukraine is now just around the corner. But you wouldn’t know it from listening to either the Ukrainians, who are unwilling to cede additional land, people, or sovereignty to Russia, or the Russians, who are unwilling to stop fighting until Ukraine ceases to be a viable and independent state. Both are keen to make sure that, in Trump’s eyes, the other is responsible for the lack of a peace deal.
Yesterday, without releasing evidence, Russia accused Ukraine of conducting a “terroristic” drone strike on the home of President Vladimir Putin, saying it would redouble its war efforts as a result. Zelensky fervently denied having authorized any such attack, calling the accusation “a complete fabrication” and “typical lying tactics of the Russians,” intended to justify “additional attacks against Ukraine” and “Russia’s own refusal to take necessary steps to end the war.”
Asked to weigh in yesterday during his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Trump seemed at first to take Putin’s account as gospel: “It’s one thing to be offensive, because [Russia’s] offensive,” he told reporters. “It’s another thing to attack his house. . . . I was very angry about it.” In response to a follow-up question, however, he seemed to backtrack a bit: “Well, we’ll find out. You’re saying maybe the attack didn’t take place? That’s possible, I guess, but President Putin told me this morning.”
And hey, why would Putin lie?
THE MOST DECORATED PRESIDENT EVER: The participation trophies just keep coming. During their bilateral meeting yesterday, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu announced that his country would award Trump its inaugural Israel Prize for Peace for his “tremendous contributions to Israel and the Jewish people”—the first time an Israel Prize has been awarded to a person who is neither a citizen nor a resident of Israel.
The Israel Prize itself is nothing to sneeze at: It’s the nation’s highest cultural honor, with annual awards handed out in several categories for more than seventy years. But the “Israel Prize for Peace” is a new category this year, having seemingly been created, like the FIFA Peace Prize, for the purpose of lavishing Trump with more hardware.
It’s easy to see why Netanyahu might want to keep Trump in a good mood. The two men are currently hashing out how to move the fragile ceasefire in Gaza into its second phase, which they have said would require Hamas to lay down its arms—something the militant group has not yet agreed to do. But Trump’s not above a little pampering: He called the award a “great honor,” saying that becoming the “first one outside of Israel is really something.”
Cheap Shots
Extremely strange things are happening in the Manosphere:
Lovely, funny, and somewhat chastening for those of us women who really like men and wish they were better at the job. Indeed, man up. I'm looking forward to 2026 with The Bulwark. Thanks for everything you do for us and the country. PS: Worth a look at Jemima Kelly's piece in the FT this week: "In praise of male courage | The heroes of Bondi Beach should be celebrated in an era of ‘toxic masculinity.’" I'd like to think that's what we mean by "man up." If the link doesn't work (the FT is usually locked) I can post a few bits. http://ft.com/content/de12a366-f2ef-4bd2-aa49-ea10bbc506ed
When in doubt, I pick the woman. Although I try to research every candidate I vote for, sometimes, there's not much out there about down-ballot candidates (e.g., county judges) in Democratic primaries. In those cases, or if two candidates seem equally good, I pick the woman. Why?
1. They're more compassionate.
2. They have better interpersonal skills.
3. They're more pragmatic.
4. They're generally smarter.
And last but not least:
5. They're MUCH less creepy! (Sec. Noem excepted...she's forkin' creepy)