Donald Trump’s repost of vulgar, misogynistic comments about Kamala Harris on Truth Social once again demonstrates his past record of sexist behavior and brazenly ignores pleas from members of his own party to highlight the issues rather than personal attacks.
With new polls showing Ms Harris’s approval rating rising further and her lead among female voters widening, Mr Trump drew online backlash after sharing a vulgar post on a social media site insinuating that the Democratic candidate’s political rise was due to sexual favours.
The post, originally posted by another user, included a photo of Harris and Hillary Clinton with the comment: “Funny how giving a blowjob had such a different impact on both of their careers…”
The remark was an oblique allusion to Harris’ past relationship with San Francisco Mayor Willie Brown. The reference to Clinton, Trump’s losing opponent in the 2016 presidential election, was an allusion to the affair between former White House intern Monica Lewinsky and her husband Bill Clinton in the 1990s that nearly ended Clinton’s presidency.
This isn’t the first time Trump has made vulgar remarks about Harris. On August 18, Trump shared a video from the Daily Meme Team, a group of right-wing content creators. The video, soundtracked by a parody of Alanis Morissette’s song “Ironic,” showed an image of Brown projected behind a photo of Trump and her husband, Doug Emhoff. It included the lyric, “She’s spent her whole life on her knees.”
But this latest post appeared among a string of extreme posts on Wednesday that also included nods to the QAnon conspiracy theory that President Trump is waging war against an elite network of Satan-worshiping pedophiles within government, corporations and the media.
He reposted “WWG1WGA! Tell the truth if you agree,” an acronym that is short for the QAnon slogan “If one goes, we all go.” He also reposted another QAnon phrase, “No one can stop what’s coming.”
The FBI has previously identified exotic theories like QAnon – whose adherents President Trump has praised but has not yet endorsed – as having the potential to incite domestic terrorism.
In another inflammatory post, Trump shared doctored images of some of his favorite targets – including entrepreneur Bill Gates, Anthony Fauci, who is leading the US COVID-19 vaccine effort, Joe Biden and Nancy Pelosi – appearing in jail and wearing orange jumpsuits.
Harris’ campaign did not immediately respond to Trump’s recent increased social media activity following revelations that there had been an altercation between members of the Trump campaign team and staff during a visit on Monday to Arlington National Cemetery, the resting place of fallen U.S. military heroes.
But CNN host Anderson Cooper said in a feature-length segment that the posts took Trump’s campaign to a “whole other level”.
“This is a story about two women, the Republican nominee for president and the 45th president of the United States. Whatever you think of their politics, they are two of the most accomplished women in the history of American politics,” Cooper said.
Wednesday’s online outrage came shortly after the latest Reuters/Ipsos poll showed Harris leading Trump nationally by four points, 45% to 41%. Among women, the vice president’s lead has grown to 13% from an average of 9% in July polls.
A separate Fox News poll showed Harris either leading or gaining support in four Sun Belt states seen as key battlegrounds in November.
In the two-way race, Harris leads by one point in Arizona and two points in Georgia and Nevada, while Trump has a one-point lead in North Carolina, according to the poll.
Beyond the polls, there was also frustration among Republican strategists who had previously urged Trump to stop attacking Harris personally and focus on issues that matter to voters, such as the economy, inflation and immigration.
“I think people are very frustrated,” Jason Law, a former executive director of the Michigan Republican Party, told The Washington Post.
Harris’ campaign and policy positions “gave the Trump campaign an opportunity to talk about issues that actually matter to swing voters. But instead of doing that, she’s diving deeper into this nonsense,” he said.
Stuart Stevens, a member of the anti-Trump Republican group The Lincoln Project and a strategist for Mitt Romney’s 2012 presidential defeat, suggested Trump’s approach will ultimately alienate voters and allow Harris to win in a landslide victory, challenging widely-held predictions of a close election.
“You hear a lot about this election being close, and that’s kind of a universal truth,” he told CNN. “I disagree. I think it’s going to be close until about October 20th, and then I think momentum will start to wane, like it did with Carter versus Reagan (in 1980, Reagan won by a landslide).”
“I think the Democrats are going to win this race over Biden,” he added.