How We Got to ‘Your Body, My Choice’ From #MeToo

President-elect Donald Trump received more than 77 million votes after having been held liable by a jury for sexual abuse in a civil case. (His previous election victory, in 2016, followed the release of a tape in which he bragged about groping women.) In turn, Trump has nominated men for some of the most important positions in government — including secretary of defense — who’ve also been accused of sexual assault. Meanwhile, a long list of Trump hangers-on have also faced alarming accusations . Although they deny the charges — and Trump excused his own comments as “locker-room talk” — the pattern of elevating accused sexual aggressors is clear. Meanwhile, for the first time in two decades, there will be no female committee chairs in the next GOP-controlled Congress.

To analyze all this, I spoke by telephone and email with Cynthia Miller-Idriss, director of the Polarization and Extremism Research & Innovation Lab at American University and author of Hate in the Homeland: The New Global Far Right. Her new book, Man Up: The New Misogyny and the Rise of Violent Extremism, is scheduled for publication by Princeton University Press in September 2025. Our conversation has been edited for concision and clarity.