Donald Trump—yes, I’m aware this is a column for a Canadian publication—has been in office this second time around just long enough that I think I’ve gotten a grasp on his approach.

The returning POTUS likes to take a not-altogether-unreasonable stance, or even a thoroughly reasonable one, and use it as the pretext to wrecking-ball whichever aspect of functioning American democracy. The switch from plastic to paper straws was yes probably a bit silly in the grand scheme of things? Time to abandon environmental protections generally. COVID vaccines can have very unpleasant side effects that their most enthusiastic proponents would sometimes elide? Time to stop vaccinating for measles in America and to shut down public health assistance internationally. Things of this nature keep happening.

Perhaps it’s due to the happenstance fact of my being a Jewish woman that I am particularly aware of the way that Trump is using feminism and anti-antisemitism in his now-classic pretextual manner.

The women thing: Because clearly there could be no other concerns for women generally, Trump has taken an oh-so-noble stand against transgender women playing women’s sports or being housed in women’s prisons. He’s rather plainly doing so in lieu of being good for women, on a policy level or that of such things as style, affect, or choice of vice president. In the midst of what was widely and accurately perceived as a revenge-of-men moment, Trump stopped and offered a little something for the ladies, in the form of one small (not so small if you are trans) symbolic measure that yes many women wanted but many didn’t want it and even those who did almost certainly had bigger concerns.

And now, ostensibly in the name of defending Jewish Americans against our enemies (I say “our” because I’m a dual citizen; I am getting to the relevance of this), Trump’s

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