Well, several, really, but I feel that I must talk about this one. I was wrestling with whether to post anything but Christmas-related posts today, though I don’t have much else to do than work on Ethics Alarms. This compels me to comment as soon as possible.
During his keynote address at the Turning Point USA gathering three days ago, President-elect Donald Trump said, while assuring his audience that the U.S. was about to enter a new “Golden Age” under his leadership,
“There’s a spirit that we have now that we didn’t have just a short while ago. Sadly, we didn’t have. Who the hell can have spirit watching women get beat up in a boxing ring? I don’t think that’s spirit, right? We’re going to end that one quick! We’re going to end it very quickly. We’re going to end that one very quickly.”
I am resigned to Trump saying ridiculous and irresponsible things like that forever. The outburst is not a good sign. The Christmas miracle I’m hoping for (among others) is that somehow, some way, he will learn that he has to think before he speaks, just a little bit, and that someone will read the Constitution to him, explaining it along the way.
The only ways to “end women’s boxing” are, 1) to ban all boxing and fighting as sport just as we have made dog-fighting and cock-fighting illegal. (It’s not going to happen) or 2) that the culture rejects the idea of women beating each other bloody, and the sport is no longer profitable or popular enough to justify its existence. I suppose that’s possible, barely, but it’s not going to happen “very quickly,” if it happens at all.
Trump’s aspiration is rendered ridiculous by goo-goo gah-gah Constitutional law. The government cannot declare that men can engage in conduct that women may not. I would say that everybody knows that, except that the guy we just elected President apparently doesn’t know that, or, in the alternative, just threw that nonsense out there for the hell of it. If the explanation is the former, that is affirmatively disturbing. If it is the latter, why doesn’t he just go all the way and punch himself in the fave for the fun of it? Statements from Trump pledging to do what the Constitution forbids just bolsters the narrative of the Trump Deranged. “See?” they will say. “He’s going to be a dictator! He just admitted it!”
The slippery slope goes like this:
- First, ban women’s boxing
- Next, ban women in the military.
- Then ban women as police officers and fire fighters
- After that, make laws banning them from dangerous jobs like construction workers.
- Finally, limit women’s occupations so they can concentrate on being supportive wives and baby machines, as God intended.
It’s all absurd, of course, and nobody wants any of that who isn’t already in a padded cell. But Trump sounds like an idiot—or a dictator, or both—when he says things like “we’re going to end” women’s boxing. What other promises that he’s made does he know are impossible or have no intention of really trying to achieve?
If I were on the bar stool instead of George Bailey in his dark night of the soul, my prayer would be, “God… Oh God…Dear Father in heaven…I’m not a praying man, but if you’re up there and you can hear me, please find some way to make Donald Trump shut the hell up when he decides to improvise like he did at the Turning Point event. I’m at the end of my rope: it’s too important for him to succeed at bringing rationality to our government for Trump to create distractions like that and hand his foes ammunition to obstruct him. Show him the way, God…”
I’m not holding my breath.
Ethics Alarms 
The government cannot declare that men can engage in conduct that women may not.
Selective Service System
I cannot speak for Trump, but what I hope he is referring to are the incidents in women’s boxing in the Olympics — when it was thought that biologic males were competing in the women’s boxing event, and beating the crap out of one woman in particular.
You wrote about it at the time and it was more nuanced than, say, Lia Thomas competing in women’s swimming events.
Now, Trump is one of the last persons I’d accuse of being nuanced about stuff like this, but I think — I hope — he is referring to men competing in women’s sports. For most women’s sports, that is something that needs to happen.
It would be nice if he could learn to be more precise in his speaking. It would be nice, but I’m not holding my breath.
Women’s chess competitions – you’re on your own there. But swimming, volleyball, basketball, cycling — I think the pendulum is swinging back towards reason. I certainly hope so.
I’m pretty sure this is it. He wasn’t speaking about women’s boxing in general, he was talking about XY women boxing against XX women. Trump talks about whatever the internet has been talking about. Imane Khelif has been trending in the news and on social media again lately.
If that was what he was referring to, and I would not doubt it, that’s a bout as confusing a way to express it as possible.
It’s definitely what he was referring to. He’s one of the earliest and most visible boosters of the UFC, so it’s not women’s combat against women that he has a problem with.
I cannot speak for Trump, but what I hope he is referring to are the incidents in women’s boxing in the Olympics — when it was thought that biologic males were competing in the women’s boxing event, and beating the crap out of one woman in particular.
You wrote about it at the time and it was more nuanced than, say, Lia Thomas competing in women’s swimming events.
Now, Trump is one of the last persons I’d accuse of being nuanced about stuff like this, but I think — I hope — he is referring to men competing in women’s sports. For most women’s sports, that is something that needs to happen.
It would be nice if he could learn to be more precise in his speaking. It would be nice, but I’m not holding my breath.
Women’s chess competitions – you’re on your own there. But swimming, volleyball, basketball, cycling — I think the pendulum is swinging back towards reason. I certainly hope so.
(Usually I cull repeats, but I’m not sure which one mardybum replied to, and I don’t want to lose the response.)
Wouldn’t it be great if every word that comes out of Trump’s mouth first went through an ethical and Constitutional filter. Personally, I think silence from Trump would be a lot easier.
We can save a lot of ink over next for years by simply stipulating Donald Trump is not a conventional public speaker. Nor is he a lawyer, nor a student of civics. He is, however, surrounded by all sorts of advisers who can fine tune his policies. He’s also working within a very healthy (to the point of having been weaponized) constitutional framework of checks and balances. What’s the point of four more years of taking a red pencil to what he says and giving him an F? He’s not taking a public speaking course. Please?
All true. But every President of the United States has a duty of minimally responsible speech, as well as indicating a minimal grasp of the Constitutional limits of his office.
“[E]very President of the United States has a duty of minimally responsible speech, as well as indicating a minimal grasp of the Constitutional limits of his office.” Okay, maybe.
That being said, to make the same point once or twice a week for the next four years falls squarely into the definition of doing the same thing over and over and expecting a different result. He’s a big picture guy. He knows what he knows and he’s not going to spend any time learning what he doesn’t need to learn. Again, he’s Andrew Jackson-like. I hate to use such an over-worked term, but he’s a disrupter. To expect him to fall within all sorts of conventions is pointless. And I doubt he will be setting any trends. He’s a one-off. J.D. Vance or Ron DeSantis will be next up. Harvard and Yale (or both Yalies?). All will be well. I don’t see any other Trumps out there, unless Elon Musk decides he wants to give it a whirl.
I would agree, and usually what he actually means is fairly obvious. In this case, not so much so.
But the key is to parse the meaning of what Trump is saying, and not fixate on the precise words. We know that, his fans know that. The MSM has (I believe intentionally) never learned that.
Well, and another key is to look at his actions and again not fixate on the precise words.
Then again, sometimes what he says is unclear, with no good interpretation. Like this time. If he’s talking about the Olympics, Trump has no control over Olympics rules. Is there any trans boxer in women’s boxing in the U.S.? I can’t find one, so if that’s what Trump wants to “end,” it hasn’t begun. You can’t just decide, “Ignore what the POTUS says, because, you know.” A lot of what he says is dishonestly interpreted by a hostile media: the statements that concern me are the ones that can’t be honestly argued away. The public can’t be made to think that a woman’s right to box or do anything else a man does can be prevented by law.
Wait “til you see his Christmas message.
Ugh. I know.