‘Nobody likes her’: Trump tries his likability standard for female politicians on Kamala Harris

“People don’t like her. Nobody likes her. She could never be the first woman president. She could never be. That would be an insult to our country,” Trump said Tuesday at a campaign rally in Winston-Salem, N.C.

The president didn’t say why it would be insulting for Harris to occupy the Oval Office — a position she is not actually running for, although Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden said it was key that his VP pick be ready for the top job on “Day One.” But in the president’s attacks on Harris last month, he used several unflattering adjectives to describe the woman hoping to become vice president.

“She was nasty to a level that was just a horrible thing, the way she was, the way she treated now-Justice Kavanaugh. And I won’t forget that soon,” he told reporters. “I thought she was the meanest, the most horrible, most disrespectful of anybody in the U.S. Senate.”

“Nobody likes her.” ‘Nasty.” “The meanest.” “Most disrespectful.”

Trump regularly attacks his male critics, giving them nicknames that he hopes shapes their image for his supporters and other voters. But focusing on the likability of the women who threaten his position seems to be a particular focus of Trump’s. And it is a sentiment that women in the workplace often hear when attempting to climb the career ladder.

He used his “nasty woman” phrase when competing against his 2016 opponent, Hillary Clinton, someone he regularly portrayed as unlikable even though she went on to receive more votes than Trump. And now he is using that line of attack against Harris, who has a higher favorability rating than Trump, according to the most recent Washington Post poll.

It is likely that Trump will spends quite a bit of time on Harris’s likability because he believes it will be effective. Amplifying how unlikable Clinton supposedly was worked in Trump’s favor in 2016, and the president is probably hoping the same will be true this year.

My colleague Amber Phillips previously wrote about research from the Barbara Lee Family Foundation, a nonpartisan group that advocates for women in politics, showing that female candidates must be likable to earn a person’s vote. The organization published a 2017 report on likability and electability for women that said:

Likability and qualifications are the two components of electability that women must consistently balance. Past research conducted by BLFF has repeatedly shown that women face a litmus test that men do not have to pass. Voters will support a male candidate they do not like but who they think is qualified. Men don’t need to be liked to be elected. Voters are less likely to vote for a woman candidate they do not like.

Women have to prove they are qualified. For men, their qualification is assumed. Women face the double bind of needing to show competence and likeability.

Which is perhaps why Trump is also attacking Harris in the area of competence. While speaking last month to supporters in New Hampshire, Trump said:

“You know, I want to see the first woman president also, but I don’t want to see a woman president get into that position the way she’d do it — and she’s not competent. She’s not competent. They’re all saying, ‘We want Ivanka.’ I don’t blame you.”

It’s no surprise that Trump believes his own daughter — who has worked alongside him in business and the White House — would be a more competent president than Harris, a former prosecutor who broke glass ceilings on her way to holding statewide offices before entering Congress — achievements that neither Ivanka nor even the president have accomplished. Which raises the question: Why doesn’t Trump like Harris — someone whom he previously supported in her political career?

It could be as simple as he sees her as a threat to his political legacy. Harris has been quite vocal in her desire to devote her time to undoing as much of the Trump presidency as possible if elected.

But beyond that, perhaps Harris represents something — and some groups — that the president just doesn’t like or at least doesn’t believe should occupy the highest office in the land. The Trump presidency and the campaigns connected to it have been unapologetic in their affection for a vision of America that recalls the past — a time where the biracial daughter of immigrants would never be taken seriously as a future White House contender. Despite her accomplishments and her favorable ratings with the voters she connects with most, to Trump, Harris lacks what is most important to him — likability. And he’s hoping that that resonates with the voting blocs he needs to win in November.