Donald Trump’s been flipping and flopping like a panicked fish these days on the issue of abortion. Trump recently recently made the specious claim on Truth Social that he would be “great for women and their reproductive rights.” On Thursday, the Republican candidate caused a commotion amongst conservatives when he seemed to signal disapproval of Florida’s abortion ban, claiming “we need more than six weeks” and implying that he plans to vote for an amendment that would repeal the state’s new law in November. Even though he was almost certainly lying, Trump swiftly got heat from anti-choice activists. So on Friday, he flipped yet again and affirmed that he plans to vote against the amendment — which means he’s voting to keep a near-total abortion ban in place in Florida.
It’s impossible to track from minute to minute what Trump is saying about abortion, but the one constant, of course, is that he’s lying. We know from Project 2025, which was created to handle Trump’s policy agenda in lieu of a traditional transition team, that the goal is to ban abortion nationally, either through an act of Congress or by fiat, with an executive order making it a crime to transport drugs or other materials to be used in an abortion. Trump doesn’t want Americans to know this. Abortion bans aren’t just wildly unpopular. Polls show anger over abortion bans are motivating voters, especially women. They are now registering to vote at astonishing rates.
“Trump wants young men to view him as a ‘playboy’ to look up to, though the details of his encounter with Daniels suggest that his sexual prowess is about as real as his orange-hued skin tone. Vance, however, tells the real story of MAGA government’s plans for young men: trapping them in hasty marriages alongside the women who are being forced to bear all those children.”
But Trump’s dodging and weaving around this issue isn’t just about women. Abortion bans aren’t popular with men either, especially the kind of male voters Trump has been heavily marketing to in recent weeks: bro voters. They are the younger, more secular crowd of men that Trump has been courting by appearing on podcasts ranging from generically dudely ones to those hosted by far-right bigots. Not all younger men are interested in demonizing feminism, of course. But, as journalist Max Read explained in his newsletter, the “d*ps**t outreach strategy” is premised on the idea that “a consistent media campaign among them might increase turnout” with “low-propensity voters.”
It’s an evil strategy, but one with some logic to it. Trump is a loudmouthed misogynist who was proven in court to have committed sexual assault against journalist E. Jean Carroll. These facts can’t be changed, but the Trump campaign believes they can spin Trump’s hatred of women as an asset, marketing him to men who resent women’s social and economic progress. In this view, Trump is presented as a “fun” misogynist, offering permission to men to be oinking pigs who sexually harass without apology and expect to be indulged at every turn just for their wise choice to be born male.