Trump’s main campaign slogan for the last 18 months has been MAGA (Make America Great Again). No great surprise that he has also been more than a little sketchy about just when exactly in the past that might have been.
We know that Trump is not a deep intellectual thinker, nor a fan of history, so it only makes sense he would be referring to some time in the last 70 years or so, coincident with his life experience on this Earth, which would not require any library or reference study to invoke.
A careful analysis of his various writings, speeches, interviews, and numerous Tweets, reveals that his Magic Trump Time Machine is probably stuck in gear somewhere between 1946 (Immediate Post World War II America) and 1972 (Peak Rise of Second Wave American Feminism).
That time frame happens to correspond to Trump’s own first quarter century, and would allow sufficient time for his social, gender, sexual, ethnic, religious, and moral attitudes to crystallize and harden.
Indeed, Trump has shown a remarkable resistance to personal growth and learning in the 50 years since then. He acts and talks regularly as if his world is a frozen specimen in a block of amber.
American print advertising often strikingly reflects some of the external surroundings abroad for the times when the ads are published.
Here are a few items dating to the best of times of the World of Trump, chosen from a Vintage Ad List compiled by one Nicole Rossetti,* and published on September 12, 2016 on Frankie’s Facts website. Just a Note: Nicole Rossetti turns out to be a reasonably common American name. There are multiple Nicole R. sightings in the first 12-pages of a plain Google Search, linked to the states of New Jersey Ohio, North Carolina, Virginia, Connecticut (2), Massachusetts, and Mississippi, among others.
Nicky’s List does not provide any obvious personal identifying characteristics, so let’s consider this a sort of Every Woman Nicole compilation. The real Nicole (assuming that is her given name, and not an alias) has selected a bunch of ads to display on Frankie’s Facts, a website that appears to be a click-thru engine for internet traffic. That fact aside, the pictures themselves have an independent value, and are worth a closer look.
To partially place Trump’s fundamental attitudes in perspective and a bit of historical context, here are eight choices from Nicole’s print ad collection. She has offered her own one sentence take on their meanings, but I have chosen only the actual ads for use here. To appreciate Nicole’s personal editorial view of each ad, visit the website and give her some clicks.
I have retitled the pictures to reflect their apparent social content and attitude towards women: A Girl Around the House (1), A Woman Waits (2), Firmly Under Control (3), First Thing Noticed (4), Follow You Anywhere (5), Man on Top (6), Where She Belongs (7), Women Do Belong At Work (8).
A Girl Around the House (1)
Look them over at your leisure. No other captions arecneeded.
A Woman Waits (2)
The ads are not exhaustive, but I believe they provide a fair summary of the streams about women flowing around in Donald’s head. The ad layouts present a commonality of theme and emphasis. They celebrate an antiquated, fixed gender role and social class hierarchy. They reveal sexual bias and fantasy as well, but they are actually more about status, power and control, than pure sexual domination.
Firmly Under Control (3)
They represent social attitudes not exactly uncommon in America in 1957, but that was 60 years ago. A fair bit has happened since those simple, far away and long gone days.
First Thing Noticed (4)
America has since largely grown up and matured in many of its social relations. Trump has not.
Can you imaging Trump watching a 17-inch black and white TV in a wood cabinet? Driving a 1959 finned Cadillac DeVille sedan today to impress a date? Flying around in a bright aluminum skinned DC-3 as his private jet? How about sending a Tweet out via a Western Union telegram?
How ridiculous. Of course not.
Follow You Anywhere (5)
Yet Trump’s personal attitudes towards women are as antiquated and unacceptably out of date, as it would be for him to use these fossilized bits of every day technology today in 21st century America.
Man on Top (6)
Trump needs an Attitude Adjustment Towards Women: a major complete makeover in the worst way.
Have any doubts on this score? Show these Trump’s Golden Era print ads to any random adult woman you encounter in America in 2016, and ask her if she doesn’t agree with their basic premise and appreciate the light humor portrayed, see what happens next. You’d better get ready to duck fast.
Where She Belongs (7)
Trump’s mental attitudes about women are a fossilized mental concretion, from a distant and little mourned social past. He may pine for an era of supreme male authority and unquestioned command over the little women walking around, but his shtick is worn past wafer-thin.
Women Do Belong At Work (8)
His campaign slogan (circa 1980), like his political policy proposals (circa 1987), and his degrading and patronizing attitudes towards women (circa 1950’s-60’s) are all recycled and outmoded.
Trump has managed to make this contest largely a referendum about his own attitudes and behavior towards 53% of the voters in America (her adult women). On Election Day, in two weeks, he is not going to believe the sheer numbers of women who just can’t wait to submit with joy to his proven Trump mastery for President.
See, there’s this nice bridge in Brooklyn. You can have it for a song: nothing down, no credit check, low monthly payments, and immediate possession of the structure. Just sign right here.
*Nicole Rossetti has posted at least two other list of the same type on click thru sites, pictures with one line comments. No guarantee, but it is likely the authoress is the same for all three. See if you don’t agree. If she is an impecunious student working her way through school, I wish her well. If the author is a click-bait anonymous hacker, may your click credits expire unredeemed.
Photos Hillary Doesn’t Want You To See, by Nicole Rossetti (Aug 30, 2016)
45 Olympic Gold Medalists Then And Now, By Nicole Rossetti (August 2, 2016)