Evaluating the pro-Trump Claims Made by MRA Karen Straughan
Karen Straughan is a leading voice in the MRA (“Men’s Right Activism”) world. In fact, some may view her as the leading voice in the movement, although she doesn’t appear as active on social media as she once was. She is a unique thinker, in that she might be the “steelman” of the MRA world. That is, if you’re looking for the strongest arguments in favour of the MRA perspective, she is the best single person from whom you might hear those arguments.
None of this is meant as an endorsement of Straughan’s worldview. But the strength of her intellect makes it surprising that she appears to be not merely a Trump supporter, but an ardent one (that being said, it’s not surprising that the Venn diagram of MRAs and Trump supporters would have significant overlap). Two days ago, following Trump’s loss in the 2020 election, Straughan released a three-minute video on YouTube with 20 claims about Trump. She has repeated this list in various comment sections. Her words are as follows:
I’m so disappointed in the American people right now.
The man who spearheaded a global initiative to decriminalize homosexuality is a homophobe.
The man who negotiated 4 historic peace deals and managed to avoid having to go to war against a NATO ally is a warmonger.
The man who brought troops home does not value the US military.
The man who fixed the VA thinks people wounded or killed in war are “losers and suckers”.
The man who increased funding for black colleges and universities and locked it in for 10 years hates black people.
The man who created Opportunity Zones to revitalize distressed communities hates minorities.
The man who champions school choice hates the poor.
The man who presided over the biggest increase in median household earnings in decades hates the middle class.
The man who began closing the wealth gap is only in it for his own financial gain.
The man who reduced our dependence on communist China hates democracy.
The man who reopened the Iron Range and created hundreds of thousands of high paying resource jobs hates the working class.
The first man in American history whose net worth went down while he was president is a greedy fat cat.
The man who instituted prison reform and criminal justice reform is a racist sociopath.
The man who had a record number of small donations to his campaign and funded much of it out of his own pocket is a Wall Street shill.
The man who doesn’t take a salary as president is not paying his fair share.
The man who appointed the first openly gay person to his cabinet is anti-gay.
The man who wants to take his case to court and let the court decide is a dictator.
The man who followed the constitution and allowed the states to generate their own coronavirus policy failed on coronavirus.
The man who presided over the single largest quarterly rise in GDP is destroying the economy.
The man who told his supporters to vote in person so there’d be no cheating is trying to steal the election.
We are officially living in upside down land.
This list is intriguing. Some of the items on it, if true, have clearly not been reported on as much as they might have deserved to be. Others appear to be clear attempts at rationalizations in favour of Trump. Most of these items seem like very positive things, at first glance.
However, the first, and fundamental question is whether the policies on this list should be credited to Trump. For one, if a policy gets enacted while a certain president is in power it doesn’t mean it was that president’s policy nor even proposed at their initiative. Far from it. Bills can be introduced by any member of either party, and, of course, some bills are bipartisan. If bills survive a vote in both houses of Congress, the president usually signs it and it becomes law. Not vetoing a bill wouldn’t be much to credit Trump for.
If any of the above items were enacted by executive order or involved a treaty, the second question is whether any other president would have done the same thing. A president doesn’t deserve much credit for doing what was necessary or a “no brainer” for whoever else would have been president at the time.
The third and final question is whether some of the above policies had no real, tangible benefits to anyone but were simply good PR for Trump. Trump, and politicians generally, are more than happy to claim they’ve enacted some great new policy or made some great new executive order if it’ll boost their popularity, even it has no real effect.
Starting with #1, the question of whether Trump is or is not a homophobe isn’t terribly relevant. I’m also unsure that many have claimed he’s homophobic. If so, I haven’t seen it very much. Either way, I presume Straughan would agree that it’s his policies that matter. In that regard, it’s true that Trump’s administration began a project to decriminalize homosexuality abroad. That should be applauded.
However, this initiative is inconsistent with the Trump administration’s LGBTQ record at home. The record speaks for itself: Trump’s administration was a huge setback for LGBTQ rights and interests in the US. The contradiction between those polices at home vs abroad is puzzling. My best guess is that the initiative abroad cynically allows the US to castigate Muslim majority nations for being anti-LGBTQ. Conservatives are fond of embracing leftist values in service of attacking a disliked outgroup.
Moving on to #2, I agree that Trump is not a warmonger. That was perhaps the best feature of his presidency: the fact he didn’t start any new major war. However, he clumsily came close. But Trump didn’t avoid war because of any principled opposition to American imperialism. Rather, according to John Bolton’s book, it was simply Trump’s incurable provincialism that kept America out of another major war. He was too small-minded for foreign affairs.
As for the four peace deals, these weren’t the accomplishments Trump touted them to be. They were deals between nations that were already at peace and cooperating. All Trump did was formalize this, then claim he had been a factor in bringing peace between these countries. He wasn’t, he just put his stamp on it then leveraged it for the PR.
It’s unclear what Straughan is referring to about Trump managing to “avoid having to go to war against a NATO ally”. Presumably this must be referring to Turkey and the Andrew Brunson detention. This created tension between the US and Turkey, but there’s no indication that this tension ever came close to war. It’s hard to see how Trump deserves credit for preventing a war that never had any real chance of occurring anyway.
Turning to #3, it’s true Trump reduced the number of overseas troops, but not as much as Obama did during either of Obama’s terms. That being said, when there’s more troops abroad fighting wars that never should have begun, it’s easier to bring a greater number of them home as Obama did.
Either way, the number of troops an administration brings home from abroad is not a good metric of whether the president of that administration values the US military. There’s simply too many other variables involved in that kind of decision making. Further, withdrawing troops suddenly is not necessarily a good thing, although that’s not the point Straughan was making.
On to #4, it’s unclear Trump “fixed the VA”. Rather, it seems positive reforms of the VA were spearheaded by John McCain and were largely implemented by the Obama administration. However, the Mission Act 2018 was another step in the right direction. Although it was Republican sponsored, it was clearly bipartisan in support. But in other ways Trump’s record on Veteran’s Affairs appears mixed. Regardless of Trump’s policies on Veteran’s Affairs, it doesn’t undo his denigration of John McCain and war veterans who were POWs.
With regard to #5, again we have Trump signing a bipartisan bill (with a Democratic controlled House) increasing funding for historically black colleges and universities (“HBCU”). This is a good thing, but it’s difficult to imagine he supported it for any reason apart from trying to appeal to black voters, which the Republicans have been increasingly desperate to do. It might have worked a little bit, because Trump’s support among blacks increased slightly in the 2020 election. Naturally, Trump exaggerated his HBCU accomplishment.
In any case, does this mean Trump is not a racist? Few people would dispute that Donald Sterling, former owner of the LA Clippers, is a racist after an audio recording was released that showed just that. His then-ownership of an NBA team didn’t shield him from this fact. Quite the contrary. Similarly, there’s no logical inconsistency with Trump choosing to sign a bipartisan bill supporting HBCUs and being a racist. All it proves is that he isn’t such a hardcore racist that he would do everything in his power to oppose anything and everything that could help non-white people. The allegations of his casual racism remain credible.
#6 is like #5, another bill aimed at helping minorities. Like the bill helping HBCUs, this one was also bipartisan. It was co-sponsored by Republican Tim Scott and Democrat Cory Booker. Like #5, it was a good thing. It’s nice to know Donald Trump’s administration was capable of doing good things sometimes. Again, Trump doesn’t deserve much credit for this, and it doesn’t disprove his racism.
As for #7, school choice may be a positive policy for minorities. But narrowly focusing on that instead of the Trump administration’s broader education policy obscures a not-so-rosy picture. Trump’s secretary of education, Betsy Devos, was not popular among educators or supporters of public education. Indeed, her agenda was one of defunding public education to favour private and religious education.
#8 suffers from the same problem as the previous ones. Whatever Trump believes personally isn’t going to necessarily be reflected in his policies. But this claim about increasing household incomes has a deeper problem, which is that it’s almost always incorrect to attribute any economic climate to the current administration presiding over it, let alone the president. In any case, Trump’s claim about an increase in the median household income is reasonably disputed.
#9 suffers from the same problem as #5. There’s no logical inconsistency at all with Trump becoming president for financial gain while also promoting policies aimed at reducing inequality. However, the notion that he reduced income inequality appears unfounded or at least disputed.
Personally, I don’t believe Trump became president for the purpose of his own personal enrichment. Rather, I see it as part of his longstanding desire to be in a position of status that matches his limitless ego. I’m unsure that many people claim he became president to enrich himself. Instead, it seems Straughan is conflating Trump’s self-dealing and myriad conflicts of interest (i.e. corruption) with a goal to enrich himself. Trump’s foreign emoluments received quite a bit of attention during his presidency, deservedly so.
#10 is laughable. Straughan’s error of reasoning here is thinking that Trump’s opposition to China could only be based out of a respect or liking of democracy. It’s unquestionable at this point that Trump is not pro-democracy. Today, five days after it became clear he lost the 2020 election, Trump has yet to concede defeat. Instead, he claims without evidence that massive voter fraud led to his loss. And 2020 wasn’t even the first time he undermined democracy with such a bogus claim.
But Trump’s bald lie about voter fraud is just the tip of the iceberg for his anti-democratic pronouncements. Infamously, he’s called the press the enemy of the people. Trump also notoriously praised numerous dictators including Mohammed Bin Salman of Saudi Arabia, Recep Erdogan of Turkey, Vladimir Putin of Russia, and Rodrigo Duterte of the Philippines. Trump’s appointments were made up of loyalists and cronies so he could run the administration as much like a dictator as the US political system would allow him to.
In part 2, I’ll explore #11–20.
