quote:

More urgent than the problem of Pussygate for many white Americans, evangelical and not, was the problem of Eve, the original signifyin’ woman, and her 21st-century avatar, Hillary Rodham Clinton. In the hefty catalog of misogynistic expression in the 2016 presidential campaign, the most determinative may well have been the Eve narrative in the collective unconscious: Whether the topic was Benghazi attacks or Clinton’s email server or the state of her health, the message, as conveyed by the Trump campaign, the Republican Congress, and the mainstream media, was that Clinton was hiding something. If you took a bite of the apple she offered you, you were doomed, forever expelled from Paradise.

Never mind that Trump, with his business holdings all over the world, refused to release his tax returns. Never mind that Trump told lie after lie—and made outlandish campaign promises that even his voters didn’t believe. Because he is a male politician, allowances were made, and because he is Trump, even more. As a white man who is clearly the head of his family, whose family-run business operates on a patriarchal model, Trump is a hero in the eyes of key demographic groups in white America.