"Trump is the past. Hillary is the future."

[Content Note: Misogyny.]

I've got a new essay up at BNR examining the explanation for analyses which have found Donald Trump getting more positive media coverage than Hillary Clinton. (Spoiler Alert! It's misogyny!)

But there is perhaps no more relevant explanation than the basic reality that we live in a culture steeped in gender inequality.

Which is relevant not merely because Trump is a man and Hillary is a woman (although that, too), but because Trump subscribes—and appeals—to a very particular sort of retrograde masculinity, and because Hillary is a feminist woman who champions women.

Trump has become iconic of a breed of swaggering chauvinism on the verge of extinction, a Nietzschean superman who will usher in a new (old) world order by declaring "political correctness is dead."

Hillary, in contrast, talks about breaking down the very barriers that have limited the opportunities of marginalized people. She explicitly speaks to the needs of women, and people of color, and the LGBT community, and disabled people, and people in poverty.

She talks about the need to expand access for people who have been kept out and kept down. And she listens. Just the very act of listening confers credibility on the voices of people to whom she's listening—and amplifying our voices is a direct threat to existing power-brokers and gatekeepers.

Trump is the past. Hillary is the future.

Head on over to read the whole thing—and get ready, because I really didn't hold back on this one!

FLAMES.