Bondi and Noem were incompetent. But that’s not the only reason they’re gone
Remember when our president attacked a female journalist for asking uncomfortable questions with a casual, friendly “Quiet, piggy”?
That was five months ago, a lifetime spent in the chaos of the Trump administration, but it was a telling moment that speaks to how not only our president but his policymakers view women and their place in society. Hint: It’s not at the top.
I don’t feel the slightest pity or dismay that Pam Bondi and Kristi Noem (former U.S. attorney general and former Homeland Security Secretary, respectively) have been given the axe by President Trump in recent days, but it should be noted that this is another “quiet, piggy” week for an administration that is increasingly openly hostile to women in power.
“I see a theme” Texas Rep. Jasmine Crockett wrote on social media:. “He will throw incompetent women under the bus much faster than incompetent men.”
When democracies collapse and movements, especially Christian nationalism, rise, the erosion of women’s equality almost always comes first. Bondi and Noem are part of the erosion of the United States, which should alarm us all, regardless of your gender identity.
First, the obvious. Good riddance. Noem seemed to enjoy cruelty and treated her job like a costume party; He was constantly attacking the cameras with guns and fake toughness, as if tearing lives apart and imprisoning even children was a game. Forget the scam.
Bondi, meanwhile, always seemed to be the football team’s third favorite cheerleader; desperately vying for the attention of the sporting gods around him; even if it meant stooping low for approval, even if it meant selling out all the women with his eventual censorship of the Epstein files.
But while Bondi and Noem are clearly incompetent, incompetence has never been a fireable offense for Trump. Just ask Pete Hegseth, whose Thor fantasies are now playing out in a battle that has become fully realized. Or Robert F. Kennedy Jr., who demolished American science while glorifying training done in beef tallow and jeans. Don’t even get me started on Kash Patel.
The purge of women at the top of the Trump administration is no coincidence. They were useful in the early days of the regime, when power was still consolidated and flashes of diversity were useful. But as the sexist and racist nature of the MAGA machine begins to gain mainstream acceptance, if not acceptance, the need to maintain the appearance of diversity becomes less and less.
Take, for example, the far-right attacks on Supreme Court Justice Amy Coney Barrett in the wake of her recent pointed and skeptical questions about Trump’s attempt to end birthright citizenship.
“A woman as a mother is a precious gift, but a woman as a civil judge is the death of the nation.” wrote Joel Webbon, far-right pastor and increasingly popular anti-equality influencer on social media.
This is the gentleman from Texas who recently went viral and declared: “Women, shut up! Certainly. “It is literally a crime against God for women to have a say in the governance of society.”
Room part of a group of far-right religious leaders – including a priest associated with Hegseth – who supports ending women’s right to vote and replacing it with a single “household” vote to be used by, you guessed it, men.
Bondi and Noem may be the most notable examples of how this misogyny plays out in the MAGA reality, but they aren’t the only women ousted from power by Trump and his cronies this year. This is a much more systematic and insidious oppression than we give them credit for. Hegseth all but erased women from the upper echelons of the military – I personally removed two women from a promotion list recently.
Meanwhile, RFK Jr. and others are busy pushing women away from science. The Washington Post stated: this time last yearThe feds purged women and people of color from boards that oversee science and research at the National Institutes of Health; Of the 43 experts fired, 38 were women and minorities.
A report published last month It also revealed that all the attacks on universities last year, with cuts to grants even in areas such as cancer research, had disproportionately affected female scientists. Many of these female scientists, especially younger ones, will never recover from canceled research projects and job loss in a field that requires results and published work; This means we are facing a generational loss of women’s scientific talent.
And let’s not forget Renee Nicole Good, who was shot by an ICE officer in Minneapolis with as much nonchalance as Trump’s “quiet, piggy” demeanor. “skb-” he said after shooting him and walking away.
Bondi and Noem aren’t just unqualified villains shown at the door. They are bad guys.
The Trump administration knows the difference, and so should we.
