Trump’s History of Misogyny Was Obvious Long Before the Epstein Files Scandal

Long before the Epstein scandal cracked Trump’s image among his base, feminists and gender violence prevention advocates had been warning about his misogyny and the dangers of normalizing it.

The Trump administration’s handling of the Epstein files has rattled his MAGA base unlike any other issue, and caused the president a major political headache. It remains to be seen whether he or the Republican Party he leads will suffer any lasting damage.

But for the many millions of Americans who are not fans of the current president, one of the truly astounding features of this scandal is how long he has been able to evade meaningful accountability for his history of misogyny—as well as serious scrutiny of his long friendship with the late sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein. Trump’s close association with the disgraced pedophile has been a matter of public record for more than two decades. 

The New York Times put it this way: 

Behind the tabloid glamour, questions have lingered about what Mr. Trump’s long association with Mr. Epstein says about his judgment and character, especially as his allies have stoked sinister claims about Mr. Epstein’s connections to Democrats. After their relationship ruptured, the disgraced financier ended up behind bars not just once, but two times, after being accused of engaging in sex with teenage girls.

What’s even more tragic is that despite all of this, Trump has managed to get elected president of the United States not once, but twice. He has then used the awesome power of the presidency to roll back feminist gains in a number of different ways. His administration’s regressive agenda has included, during the early months of his second term, a dramatic reversal of progress in federal support for sexual assault prevention initiatives.

L’affaire Epstein Reveals Cracks in the Trumpian Myth

The Trump administration’s mishandling of the Epstein files has created what is, in essence, a crisis of faith among his most devoted followers. Until now, Trump’s true believers thought they had found in the bombastic former real estate developer and reality TV star a champion who would, once in office, dismantle the deep state, exact revenge against the corrupt elites who had “rigged the system” in their favor, and hold them accountable for their treachery. 

According to standard doctrine in parts of the right-wing populist MAGAverse, those nefarious elites—especially liberals and Democrats—not only looked down on average Americans, but thought they could get away with all manner of immorality and depravity—up to and including the sexual exploitation of children. 

Stopping them and returning the government to “the people” was a job for a larger-than-life figure, a mythic hero. It was a role that Donald Trump, with his insatiable need for attention and entertainer’s instinct for giving the audience what they want, was more than happy to play.

But reality intruded. Due to recent missteps by members of his administration, public interest in Trump’s longstanding friendship with the late mysterious financier and serial abuser of young women and girls has reached a fever pitch.

It’s almost as if the very fact that a president of the United States had a long friendship with a prolific, criminal sexual abuser of women … would itself be unremarkable, were it not for the fact that it’s hurt the president politically less than a year into his second term.

L’Affaire Epstein is a gigantic media story, and in the new and (somewhat) democratized and fractured media environment, all manner of journalists, podcasters, MAGA influencers and others are eagerly milking the growing scandal for views, likes and followers. 

The storyline in much of the coverage focuses on politics. Specifically, commentators and pundits of all political stripes have been discussing the price Trump and the Republicans might have to pay as a result of the president disappointing his most zealous supporters. This angle of the story is undeniably important and newsworthy.

Unfortunately, however, this narrow political frame has largely overshadowed the fact that the Epstein scandal is rooted in an older and more pervasive reality: the sexual exploitation of young women and girls by powerful men. 

In a healthier society, a scandal of this sort would prompt a huge national discussion about the deep misogyny in American culture, and the ongoing pandemic of gender-based violence here and around the world. But these are barely mentioned in much of the media coverage, outside of dutiful denunciations of Epstein’s predatory behavior, along with appropriate expressions of sympathy for the victims/survivors.

It’s almost as if the very fact that a president of the United States had a long friendship with a prolific, criminal sexual abuser of women—some of whom, as Trump himself acknowledged, “were on the younger side”—would itself be unremarkable, were it not for the fact that it’s hurt the president politically less than a year into his second term.

This normalization of men’s violence against women is one important effect of Trump’s first election in 2016, and reelection last year. Trump’s political success did not in itself cause this normalization. Men’s violence against women—in all its forms, in both the private and public spheres—has been an enduring and often unquestioned feature of societies around the world for millennia.  

But amidst renewed interest in the lurid stories of Jeffrey Epstein’s misogynous abuse, and the tragic lives and fates of many of his victims, it’s important to note that the tens of millions of Americans who voted for Donald Trump in 2016, and the 77 million who voted for him in 2024, sent a very powerful message. In effect, they said that his behavior toward women—whether or not concrete evidence of criminal conduct surrounding his activities with Epstein ever surfaces—did not disqualify him from holding the most powerful, prestigious and culturally influential position in this country.

A Trail of Unheeded Warnings and Minimized Concerns

Even before Trump’s first election, many people who were concerned about men’s violence against women and girls, warned about the damage he could do as president. From the moment Trump emerged as a candidate in 2015, advocates and activists in the gender violence prevention field sounded the alarm. Electing a president with a proven track record of misogynous statements and numerous sexual assault allegations would send a terrible message. 

Some of the criticism from the field was muted, as people who receive federal funding for critical programs have to express their beliefs in a nonpartisan manner, lest they jeopardize funding for survivor services and other critical endeavors. Nonetheless during Trump’s first presidential run, red flags were raised all over—even on the right.  

In fact, a signature moment of the 2016 campaign came during the first Republican primary debate, when moderator Megyn Kelly, then at the conservative Fox News channel, stated that Trump had referred to women he didn’t like as “fat pigs, dogs, slobs and disgusting animals.”

Kelly asked Trump if that “sounded to you like the temperament of a man we should elect as president, and how will you respond to the charge from Hillary Clinton … that you are part of the war on women?” 

Trump’s deft reply set the tone for the rest of the campaign—and for his decade-long domination of American politics. “I think the big problem this country has,” Trump said to raucous applause, “is being politically correct.” 

Alas, not long after that Kelly, whose podcast has more than 3.7 million subscribers on YouTube, pivoted and became a full-on Trump supporter. She even went so far as to call him a “protector of women” when she endorsed him in 2024. 

Before the 2024 election, an ethnically and racially diverse group of men who run programs, conduct research and do gender violence prevention education with men and boys released a public statement about what effect the reelection of Donald Trump would have on their ability to work with young men. The statement read, in part: 

“We are men who care deeply about the women and girls in our lives. We’re also men committed personally and professionally to doing whatever we can to reduce the appalling level of men’s violence against women in this country and around the world…

“Since the early 1990s, gender violence prevention educators have taught young people to speak out when they see friends, classmates, teammates, and colleagues engaging in misogynous behavior—from casual sexist comments to gang rape. If bystanders remain silent, their silence serves as a form of consent and complicity in the abuse—even if they privately disapprove. 

“But some people around the abuser do even more to enable the abuse to continue, notably by downplaying it and making excuses for the person doing it. This then lowers the standard for everyone else…     

“When people vote for Trump—especially this time around—they are in effect minimizing the seriousness of his misogynous behavior, and the considerable harm he has caused in his personal and public life. In fact, this minimizing is one of the ways women who support him attempt to justify their support for a man who has not only abused numerous women, but who so often has been openly disrespectful and cartoonishly vulgar toward them. 

“There is no sugarcoating it: Trump returning to power would be a catastrophic setback for the longstanding struggle against all forms of gender-based violence. Returning him to the White House would send an unmistakable message to men—and young men in particular—that our society does not take men’s violence against women seriously, that a lifetime of abusing women is not enough to disqualify a man from ascending to the heights of prestige and power.

“It would undermine many years of gender violence prevention work with young men, who are already getting a torrent of damaging messages from the misogynous manosphere and porn culture about the callous and cruel ways that ‘real men’ are supposed to treat women. 

“Re-electing Trump would also send an unmistakable message to men who physically and sexually abuse women. Many of them will take it as a sign of tacit approval—if not outright support—or their misogynous attitudes and behaviors.

“We say to our fellow men, especially those who might be planning to vote for Trump: is that a message you want to send to the men—and young men—who will interact in coming years with the women and girls in your lives?”

A Way Forward

Of course, none of these or other warnings were heeded. Trump was reelected with a decisive victory in the electoral college, and with a small but significant majority of the popular vote. But the Epstein files scandal—and Trump’s flailing response to it—has opened up space for at least some portion of his voters to reassess their vote.

In fact, the way Trump has lashed out at his supporters who are upset about his handling of the Epstein files merely reinforces what many of his critics have long argued: that beneath his blustery, macho exterior, Trump—like the Wizard of Oz—is a deeply insecure man who can’t tolerate criticism and feels the need to mock and punish anyone who dares to question his authority. 

It is notable that in addition to castigating his doubting supporters as “dupes” for having bought into the “Jeffrey Epstein hoax,” he referred to them as “weaklings.” This sort of juvenile name-calling remains one of Trump’s favorite bullying tactics; he has seen it work repeatedly to build his popularity and silence his critics. 

It works especially well with Republican men, who live in fear that the MAGA King can rhetorically “unman” them, causing them to lose the respect of other men (and women), along with their ability to earn a living in conservative politics or adjacent enterprises. 

That is why the recent criticism of the Trump administration’s lack of transparency on the Epstein files by Joe Rogan and other “brocasters” hurts Trump politically. It sends a signal to men who voted for Trump—including the “low engagement” young male voters who played a critical part in Trump’s electoral victory—that it’s okay to question one of the central pillars of Trump’s carefully curated image: that he’s a “fighter” who’s willing to take on “the system” they feel is unresponsive to their needs.

If he’s not willing to come clean about Epstein’s diabolical schemes, maybe he’s not really a populist at all, but just another card-carrying member of the privileged and self-serving elite.

Democratic strategist Simon Rosenberg states bluntly that “Trump” as a strongman brand is being rejected by the American people, and is now clearly failing.

One reason for this failure is contained in a critical element of the Epstein scandal. Jeffrey Epstein was not just a sexual abuser of women. He targeted teenage girls, some of whom were 14 years old, and possibly even younger. It strains credulity to think Donald Trump knew nothing of this.

For many Trump-voting men who are traditional Republicans and Independents—especially those who are fathers of daughters—this might simply be a bridge too far.

All of this is to say that the Epstein scandal at least has the potential to be seen, in the fullness of time, as a turning point in Trump’s iron grip on both his followers and on American politics writ large. 

If that should come to pass, in one sense the story will have a dramatic, even Shakespearean, conclusion: An ambitious, charismatic and deeply flawed man builds and rides a movement for masculine restoration all the way to the White House, only to be brought down by the ancient sin of hubris, in collision with a 21st century society’s halting attempts to enforce a measure of accountability for sexual exploitation and misogyny.