President Donald Trump's repeated claims that girls will have to get along with fewer dolls as his tariffs work their economic magic reveals an underlying MAGA misogyny that reinforces the beliefs of the manosphere, according to Salon's Amanda Marcotte.
A week ago, Trump seemed to speak off the cuff when he said, "maybe the children will have two dolls instead of 30 dolls." But Marcotte wrote that the "doll" talk became an actual talking point, as evidenced by the fact he told NBC's Kristen Welker, "I don't think a beautiful baby girl that's 11 years old needs to have 30 dolls. I think they can have three dolls or four dolls," then told reporters , "All I’m saying is that a young lady, a 10-year-old-girl, 9-year-old girl, 15-year-old-girl, doesn’t need 37 dolls."
Marcotte argued that "Trump defended his trade-destroying tariffs by lecturing parents about not spoiling their daughters" who are inherently "frivolous" due to their gender, a point that speaks directly to the MAGA base that helped Trump get elected.
Marcotte noted with interest that the the only children Trump talked about were girls, never boys or toys "more stereotypically associated with boys, like Legos or toy trucks."
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"This is likely not an accident, but part of a larger effort to sell the otherwise indefensible tariffs to the MAGA base by invoking the same misogynist resentment that helped Trump get elected," Marcotte wrote. "The image of 'too many' dolls taps right into this ugly worldview that overly indulged girls are growing into 'selfish' women who think they're too good to settle for Mr. Tweeting Incel."
In fact, Marcotte wrote that "Trump superfans on X started arguing that the tariffs were the key to restoring male dominance. They falsely claim that tariffs will drive women out of the workforce and force them to get married to survive."
Marcotte wrote that Fox News picked up on the sexist talk "and tried to argue that tariffs will restore the patriarchal gender order by bringing back manly manufacturing jobs, while destroying 'email jobs' that are primarily held by women in MAGA fantasy version of reality."
Marcotte noted that whether or not Americans pick up on Trump's misogyny in delivering his tariff message, they do hear him "admitting prices are going up — and most people are smart enough to know it won't be limited to dolls."