I've been trying to understand what it means, and I'm glad to see that Emily Crockett (at Vox) is trying to figure it out. The "it" has no obvious antecedent. Trump says:
If [Clinton] didn't play the women's card, she would have no chance, I mean zero, of winning. She's playing the women's card. She's going "Did you hear that Donald Trump raised his voice while speaking to a woman?" Oh, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I mean: All of the men, we're petrified to speak to women anymore. We may raise our voice. You know what? The women get it better than we do, folks. All right? They get it better than we do. If she didn't play that card, she has nothing.Crockett observes that the "it" in "women get it better than we do" could mean at least 2 completely different things:
It could mean that he thinks women have an easier lot in life than men — partly because men now have to be constantly "petrified" of being labeled sexists.I tend to think "get it" means "understand." I'd say "have it better, " not "get it better," to refer to having a easier time.
It could also be a reference to Trump's claim that Clinton is unpopular among women (which is technically true, but misleading, since women dislike Trump a lot more). So he may mean women "get it" (as in, understand Clinton's trickery) better than "we" (men) do.
Now, I was motivated to go looking for an answer to my question because I saw that Rush Limbaugh has another interpretation entirely, and it was something that hadn't crossed my mind:
What he means by women get it better than we do is -- do I need to point this one out? I mean, well, I have over the course of I don't know how many years. You're walking down the street with your wife or your girlfriend and you see some woman across the street and think, "Wow." You look at her, what you don't notice is your wife's looking at her, too, and hating on her and criticizing every imperfection there is, no matter what you're doing, you just don't notice. That's what Trump means. You shaking your head at that, Dawn? No way. That's what he means by women know it better than I do. He means women are bigger critics of women than I could ever hope to be.That came in the context of discussing this Clinton PAC ad about how Donald Trump doesn't "respect" women.
And Limbaugh's point is that this kind of material "isn't going to work on Trump the way it works on conservatives." It won't destroy him "like it would destroy anybody else."
I really don't know exactly what Trump meant, but I see what Limbaugh means: Women don't really support other women. We're not susceptible to the gender politics Hillary is purveying. In fact, it cuts the other way. Women don't like women. That's strongly put. I don't think it's what Trump meant, but there's surely some truth to the notion that women don't automatically support other women.
ON REFLECTION, the next morning: Here's how "it" comes together for me, using all the theories, including Limbaugh's. What women "get" — i.e., understand — is what's wrong with Hillary. It's even easier for women to see it than it is for men: Hillary has nothing. The "woman card" is a cover, and men may defer to it to some extent, because they've been cowed, but women are more able to see past the "woman" factor and know what's wrong with her.
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Wasn't Trump married to Miss Marple at one time?
The "it" is the ability to use victim status as a means of power.
but there's surely some truth to the notion that women don't automatically support other women.
Of course that's true.....Lefty women never support Conservative women.
No man could be this.
It's nothing, really. Just some stupid shit he has to say so that enough women will get over their hatred of him.
Everything he says is for effect, and any literal meaning just distracts from the subtext. Haven't you figured that out by now?
It might also have something to do with the fact that "Gender Sensitivity Training" makes things worse.
People who are genuinely interested in promoting greater respect and understanding among the sexes, and among different groups of people more broadly, ought to consider the implications of these findings, and how other awareness-raising efforts might similarly be backfiring.
College campuses, for example, have increasingly prioritized encouraging — even requiring — students to ruminate on social problems, whether they’re the problems faced by women, transgendered students, African-Americans or other minority groups. Yet this approach hardly seems to be healing divisions or reducing conflict.
Well, Obama was a community organizer.
I took it to mean that women see through Hillary's shit - she's a fraud and women know it. For many women, it doesn't matter - electing the first Vagina in Chief is more important than integrity or truth. Anyway, that's what I think Trump was alluding to. It's a variant on what Gahrie said above.
"It" is genius, and it doesn't matter if you ever figure out what "it" is or not. That's the level of political analysis we are in. If it wins, it must be a good thing.
"It" is genius, and it doesn't matter if you ever figure out what "it" is or not. That's the level of political analysis we are in. If it wins, it must be a good thing.
Well that's the way you run your business, isn't it?
What ideas do you have that are good for America... other than fighting wars and fighting the poor or whatever?
It seems obvious -
"It" is the rhetorical trick Clinton is trying to play. The unanswerable assertion of misogyny as a result of any opposition or argument from the man, that is the "woman card". A man can't object without sounding, well, misogynistic.
They get it is saying it is no mystery that strong men are not a threat to women, They are A gift to women if they behave themselves and respect the women, unlike Mister Clinton who shamed Hillary with his serial low rent sex with hundreds of whores.
"What ideas do you have that are good for America."
Getting people like you and your type to ignore me and my type. You know the people who employ you, build your stuff, and pay your bills. My big idea is that America would be better with more of us and less of you, especially if you had the courage, and ability to become one of us.
traditionalguy "They get it is saying it is no mystery that strong men are not a threat to women, They are A gift to women if they behave themselves and respect the women, unlike Mister Clinton who shamed Hillary with his serial low rent sex with hundreds of whores."
That, and we (women) get it that the entire PC thing against men by people like HRC and her cronies/feministas is bullshit.
What's the "it" in Trump's "women get it better than we do"?
"No, no... it's -- it's."
I guess "it" is what "it" is, or something to that effect.
Getting people like you and your type to ignore me and my type.
Nope. You're too busy making war with our money, Turd.
You know the people who employ you, build your stuff, and pay your bills.
And you say Trump is grandiose? It sounds like you're a weasel who would aspire to be Trump if you actually cared more about America than you do about your business and your money. But instead, you wallow in the knowledge that you have nothing to contribute to how the country is run.
Trump will make sure that assholes like you actually pay your bills, you stupid, cheaply bought prostitute.
My big idea is that America would be better with more of us and less of you, especially if you had the courage, and ability to become one of us.
Whatever there is to make of this incoherent garbage, I suspect it has to do with having been brought up with the low standards your dirt farming peasant parents raised you with and inflicting them on the rest of the country. Apparently they're the ones whom you find to be so beneath you. Not me.
But you did try to deflect all that about as nonsensically as Trump would have done. Just with much less skill and much less patriotism. And much more hatred.
Your game's exposed, Baghole. You hate the American people.
Trump and his hand gestures. I prefer to laugh at him. Here he is complaining complaining to coal miners about hair spray:
http://youtu.be/MYat87dsXZI
Baghole encapsulates the establishment GOPe mindset perfectly: Hatred for the American people, and a desire to abuse the American military so that he can feel better about himself.
As long as he gets the government to assist him in these things he's happy.
17 versions of agreement with him were decisively smacked down, but he's delusional enough to think he can "see past that."
And people wonder why this attitude has gotten the country nowhere all the time it's been in power.
The "it" is the ability to use victim status as a means of power.
That's more or less what I thought "it" meant. Trump treats his male and female employees equally, women don't get special treatment because of some code that "men aren't supposed to yell at women." Trump was referring to women knowing the absurdity of expecting special treatment if they want equality with men, even more than the men do. Men are still locked in the past sometimes out of fear and social conventions.
So Doggy Bags, what's it like knowing that the only candidate left representing you in this election is Hillary?
She's just as bellicose on abusing our military - channeling her very being into figuring out what sorts of messes she can get it into in Wherethefuckistan.
And she's bought out by the Chamber of Commerce and thinks the common man needs to rot. Just like you do!
Not only that, she cares not a whit for the small business owner, preferring instead to align her ideas of "worthwhile enterprise" to businesses whose assets dwarf yours by several orders of magnitude.
And she is just as incoherent and unsuccessful as you are in articulating her priorities!
You've never had a closer political soulmate, it seems. Bags and Hillary, sitting in a tree. "C"-"O"-"L"-"L"-"A"-"B"-"O"-"R"-"A"-"T"-"I"-"N"-"G" ! ! !
"It" is the feminist political movement masquerading as a civil rights movement.
I think women recognize that they are equal and complementary to men, and they are no longer content to be exploited by female chauvinists for leverage, money, votes, and baby parts. The women probably have unplanned daughters and sons, too.
Also, following premature evacuation, progressive wars, impulsive regime changes, social justice-inspired global humanitarian disasters, anti-native policies, and decades of corruption following the dysfunctional revolution, they are less likely to trust their false patrons.
Women "get" that Hillary plays the woman card. They understand what she's doing better than men do. Why is this so hard to understand?
Well, statistically they live longer. More of them are in college. Far fewer of them are in jail. They bang a child and get no jail time. They can be fat and not called fat. They can accuse men of rape and be automatically believed and lauded in the media.
What they generally can't be is conservative and/or Christian.
What is it?
It's it!
What is it?
It's it.
What is it?
You want it all but you can't have it.
"You hate the American people."
No, I think it might be you.
What makes you think that? Because you're with the Bags-Hillary! agenda of throwing the American people under the bus and onto the altar of the Chamber of Commerce and Defense Contractor industries?
I understand that you have a sickness that makes you hate most Americans. You require it in order to feel better about your very insecure and narcissistic self. But sooner or later, you'll have to face the fact that your positions (to the extent that you even have any) are very unpopular.
What is "it"?
The tendency to dream about Donald.
It's you who doesn't get it, Anne. Men just know it when they see it. We take it on the chin, while you have it easy. You're so out of it!
I agree with a couple of previous commenters. Women "get it" means women see through Hillary's bullshit.
The culture war is not over, but it is quickly losing its male, female, and baby fodder.
It depends what the meaning of "it" is.
--Slick Willie
I think the pretense was exposed when Europeans protested anti-native policies in the aftermath of premature evacuation, progressive wars, impulsive regime changes, and social-justice inspired humanitarian disasters.
According to O'Reilly tonight, in Oregon tou can shower with the women, but you can't play on their hockey team.
Women get it. Trump nicely immunizes himself against BS attacks. But Hillary's gender card will still trump Trump. Rush is thinking wishfully. Woman will go against a woman for her man; woman will support the woman for womanhood.
Identity politics is powerful. I never realized how powerful until Obama was elected twice. And people in America who have the same skin tone as him voted almost in lockstep.
Imagine if white people voted on lockstop for white candidates. Wow! That'd be proof of racism.
Well, men don't vote overwhelmingly for men. But something tells me women will vote overwhelmingly for women.
Trump needs to put a woman on the ticket. It's the only chance he has.
In other news, and interestingly related to this very topic, I read on The Onion this past weekend that Twisted Sister has decided they are going to take it now.
I told that to my kids and they had no clue what I was saying. Sad.
Women know there is a victim status which entails special privileges and they know Hillary is trying to use it.
Check your victim privilege when you enter a free speech zone.
A Letter from Miss Harriet Tubman, Kansas, 1954:
No, I am not THAT Harriet Tubman.
Mr. Hampton the Grocer is now going about town saying the only problem with his hiring Mexicans is the towns-women.
Like us women get the power to decide anything.
Drunk husbands and drunk Mexicans: we see the difference.
The men like to act like they are taking the town-women's feelins into account, then the Chinks and the Negroes and the Mexicans come in.
Our town does NOT need the Chinks and the Negroes and the Mexicans, we just need the Leaders of this Town to recognize the Needs of White Men.
I will never marry a Mexican, no matter his skills; nor will I bake him a pie.
I baked a pie once for the Chink at the Laundry once, but that is because she got that stubborn stain out.
I'm starting to think the Men can't do anything right without a woman leading the way.
I bet Mexican women probably feel this way too, bless their souls.
I am Laslo.
To get specific, "it" means "that Hillary Clinton is crooked." That anyone has to ask or speculate means Trump is not completely selling the idea. And what does he mean by "we" in "better than we do? Does he mean men? He's talking to a group that includes women. Does he mean Republicans? Trump supporters? He's subconsciously excluding women from the group of people on his side.
It looks like Trump just misspoke. He said (twice, I admit) "get it better" when he meant "have it better." Women can say whatever they want; men have to walk on eggshells. The man does not carefully parse everything he says, after all.
Look at how many words it might take to explain what Donald Trump conveys in a very few emphatic words
Hillary is trying to shut me up using a victim privilege trick.
[All of the men, we're petrified to speak to women anymore. We may raise our voice] But it's a trick. [You know what? The women get it better than we do, folks. All right? They get it better than we do.] And take away the victim-trick, you take away everything from Hillary [If she didn't play that card, she has nothing.] (He probably raised his voice at that point as he said, "she has nothing") The trick doesn't trick me, Donald Trump. I'll say it: SHE HAS NOTHING.
Check your victim privilege when you enter a free speech zone.
I suspect it means that "women" in some plural sense see that Hillary's act is an effort to pitch herself as the Champion, one American women will need to defend them from the depredations of The Patriarchy. And that they properly see that as not only a gross bit of pandering, but an absurd fantasy.
On the other hand, it may mean nothing at all. Trump knows how to manipulate the press and make it jump and dance any way he sees fit. The urge to do it even if just for fun must be irresistible. So here he may just be tossing the press a chew toy, something to keep it busy and out of trouble for a while.
Now, if you want a curmudgeon's meaningful insight into how the world ticks, turn as usual to H.L. Mencken's large legacy of aphorisms - "On one issue at least, men and women agree; they both distrust women."
At the end of the Day, Balls, you'll still end up pulling the lever for The Clinton Crime family.
I have no idea what Trump meant. Every time I try to think like Trump, it just gives me a headache.
What got me about this clip is everyone's assurance that Donald Trump doesn't drink. In this video, Trump seems inebriated. Like the classic Manhattan drunk in a downscale New York bar late on a Friday after a very bad week, and too many scotches.
""You hate the American people."
No, I think it might be you.
What makes you think that? Because you're with the Bags-Hillary! agenda of throwing the American people under the bus and onto the altar of the Chamber of Commerce and Defense Contractor industries? "
I deleted that comment because, in spite of the avatar, I don't think I posted it.
I think the "it" means the woman's card. I think he is saying women get that Hillary is playing the woman's card even better than men get it.
I don't think anyone here really understands what the 'it' is but I suspect come election day we are going to get 'it' good and hard. Whatever 'it' is, it won't be pretty.
Trump is often purposefully vague. You fill in the blanks in a way that makes him look best to you - in a way that's consistent with his poise and his moxie.
My vote is for "how to get ahead as a woman" and "how awful hillary is".
Trump has perfected the game of chicken in politics because he knows that they either flinch too soon or he spots early tells that they will drive off the cliff. He's got an n-dimensional John Edward talent of reading people then saying shit that will produce a predictable response.
When Chuck admits he gets a headache whenever Trump speaks, it is a heartfelt confession that Chuck has no earthly idea how sausage gets made. Best stay out of it to avoid a terminal case of the vapors.
Your average person hearing "[your type] get it better than [everyone else]" will just think "damn right! finally! trump gets that i get it!" and give themselves over to the holy trumpian spirit.
I'm not sure I know what Trump is saying about women in general. Maybe because women are better multitaskers, they pick up things quicker that men often miss. But I certainly don't think Hillary's faults are unique to women. Men can be cold hearted, calculating liars too. I have very sensitive ears and I've noticed through experience when people lie, their vocal chords tighten and their voice goes down a 1/4 tone in pitch as on a musical scale. Hillary's voice goes down a half tone. That's why people find her voice so irritating. She is a woman but there was nothing womanly in how she managed to bamboozle that doofus LeRoy Baca (disgraced former L.A. County Sheriff) into creating a staged media event with the arrest of the filmmaker for her benefit. Her conduct in the wake of Benghazi would have been hilarious to me if it hadn't been for the gruesome deaths of four Americans. Niccolo Machiavelli was not a woman.
The women in West Virginia who shouted at Hillary "Go Home !" might have given her a clue if she would pay attention.
He obviously means they "get it" that Hillary would be nothing if she did not play the female card.
Trump is thinking about divorce rules. And yes, they do get it better than men. Heck, women can rape 14 year old boys and get no where near the punishment men get when they rape 14 year old girls. They can scream about 'unwanted' advanced (sexual) and get more consideration. Sexual harassment is an easy charge for them to make.
Kathryn51 gets it.
Get it means understand. Get it?
Anyone remember the old Danny Kaye movie The Court Jester?
"Get it?"
"Got it!"
"Good."
Do you get the point? Trump made a point. Did you get it it, or did you have it? If you think you have it you didn't get it.
I am not sure what Rush is trying to say, and I have a high regard for Rush's insights, but to pretend Trump is trying to say "women have it better" is really projecting onto his words the thing that "Evil Trump" MUST be saying, because his actual point, that women understand that Hillary is trying to get her vagina elected POTUS causes them too much cognitive dissonance.
Also his point that without a vagina, a bumbling fool of a Secretary of State under criminal investigation for misuse and mishandling of classified materials would be dodging prison right now, not the favorite (In a betting sense) for the Democrat nomination.
He is clearly stating that women have an advantage in contemporary times.
Another spectacle that depresses tha male and makes him fear women, and therefore hate them, is that of a woman looking another woman up and down, to see what she is wearing. The cold, flat look that comes into a woman's eyes when she does this, the swift coarsening of her countenance, and the immediate evaporation from it of all humane quality make the male shudder. He is likely to go to his stateroom or his den or his private office and lock himself in for hours. I know of one man who suprised that look in his wife's eyes and never afterward would let her come near him. If she started toward him, he would dodge behind a table or a sofa, as if he were engaging in some unholy game of tag. That look, I believe, is one reason men disappear, and turn up in Tahiti or the Arctic or the United States Navy.
- Thurber, "The Case against Women"
He is clearly stating that women have an advantage in contemporary times
Please explain, in your own words. I simply don't see it. Maybe it's like that blue/gold dress.
Good morning, Tim, Oso, rh. Nice to see you here so early.
I just posted an update, coming to a conclusion about the meaning of "it."
Remember that Trump didn't punctuate the quote above, somebody else did, so you have to ignore the punctuation as best you can. I would have punctuated it this way:
The women get it better than we do, folks. All right? They get it better than we do; if she didn't play that card, she has nothing.
Good morning. I always come here first thing. First I take my dog for a walk and he sniffs everyplace another dog has peed and pees on some of them himself, I call it "reading the morning papers" and then I read all the posts and metaphorically pee on some of them. He and I are quite simpatico.
Hillary loses another primary. At what point do the superdelegates start to think maybe that the pure math of the impossibility of a comeback for Bernie should take a back seat to the fact that Democrats don't what her?
"Hillary loses another primary. At what point do the superdelegates start to think maybe that the pure math of the impossibility of a comeback for Bernie should take a back seat to the fact that Democrats don't what her?"
Unless the Clintons hold something over them, they should realize they're following her to ruin--even if she wins the White House. The odds of her making it through a successful presidency without being hobbled by scandal and incompetence are incredibly slim. Now would be a good time to suggest tactfully that she find some health related reason to drop out and open up their convention. Hell, even nominating Bernie wouldn't be so bad for the Dems.
I agree the point is that women (particularly young ones, and those not indoctrinated to this idea of Hillary as feminist icon) are better able to step back and ask what exactly is special about this particular politician. Take away the novelty of her gender, and you have a very spotty record, an ability to create unnecessary scandals, and whatever is the opposite of charisma. And all the Hillary-bots can come up with is "you young women don't know how good you have it due to our generation's struggles!" which isn't really a defense of Hillary. Instead, they need to explain why Hillary in particular is worthy of their support--but they cannot do this.
Good morning Ann, Tim, RH. Tim, re Trump - He is squeaking about the "woman card", by which I believe he means an advantage that should accrue to a woman by virtue of her gender. He riffs briefly on "Donald Trump has raised his voice to a woman". Then he says "women get it better that we do". To me that means that women have a better lot in our society and that the "woman card" is bullshit. I am writing from the vantage point of a 59 year old man, in whose working career it would have been an advantage to be a woman at every step of the way, with the exception of those odd moments as a plant manager when looking physically dominant was an advantage. Now a woman of comparable societal seniority, Ann for example, might very well read it differently and indeed, she has. I have no doubt of my interpretation though.
Parsing makes you look smart.
Trump hits 1138.
"Remember that Trump didn't punctuate the quote above, somebody else did, so you have to ignore the punctuation as best you can. I would have punctuated it this way: 'The women get it better than we do, folks. All right? They get it better than we do; if she didn't play that card, she has nothing.'"
I don't think Trump speaks with semicolons. Maybe dashes.
"Good morning. I always come here first thing. First I take my dog for a walk and he sniffs everyplace another dog has peed and pees on some of them himself, I call it "reading the morning papers" and then I read all the posts and metaphorically pee on some of them. He and I are quite simpatico."
I'm happy to come in second after peeing. That's a high rank!
"Now a woman of comparable societal seniority, Ann for example, might very well read it differently and indeed, she has. I have no doubt of my interpretation though."
But I am interpreting it the same way Rush did.
BTW, Rush and I are exactly the same age -- born on the same day.
Oso, well, OK. But I disagree and think you are projecting a little bit what you want to see. I don't disagree that rules a stacked in favor of women now, colleges are 60 40 women, which is as good a case of "be careful what you ask for" and a rainfall of unintended consequences as you will ever get, but I don't think even Trump would make that point as a throwaway in the middle of discussing something else.
Maybe he should have said "The women garner it better."
I guess that is the basis behind rules against using "get," to avoid situations like this. But to make it an absolute rule is like making a rule that "who" and "whom" should always be used properly grammatically, sometimes it just clanks on the ear and calls attention to the writing. Same as using "garner" does when "get" would be clear and unambiguous.
Heh - The alignment with Limbaugh on this issue is coincidental. Though not a regular Rush listener, it seems to me that part of his MO is to try to parse incremental meaning from the events to fill up his talking hours. You seem to be driven more by intellectual curiosity.
I think that House, the character, said something along the lines of "Rules are for stupid people, to keep them from fucking up."
Tim, I don't really "want" to see anything with regard to Trump. Really, I don't. But that riff reminded me of what might be said among a group of older corporate men when no women or HR types are present. "Oh, the woman card! Women get it better than we do."
You seem to be driven more by intellectual curiosity.
So is Rush, don't kid yourself. I just stopped listening to him because after 30 years of loyally listening, it got hard to sit through the repetitious stuff to get to the nuggets.
I bet you this guy could explain what "it" meant
Say no more!!
Juxtaposed with his comment about men being intimidated, it seems to me that he's telling men they shouldn't be afraid because women know exactly what this is all about- a power play. He's giving credit to women for being smart enough to know how to use this power against men.
I imagine this is a tactic he's used successfully in negotiations, to disarm his opponent by praising their caginess. This would be flattering to them but also let them know that the gig is up, he's onto their game so it's not going to work.
I don't like Trump but I think it's a mistake to misunderstand the him. He has instincts that obviously have served him well, and are transferring surprisingly well to the political arena.
replace the period after the final "do" with a colon. Boom. Now it's obvious that there was no antecedent because he was leading into it. IMHO.
At what point do the superdelegates start to think maybe that the pure math of the impossibility of a comeback for Bernie should take a back seat to the fact that Democrats don't what her?
Never. They're in her pocket with more favors and promises than one of Hugh Hefner's fiancees.
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