When the "Strongman" is Challenged By a Strong Woman

Angela Merkel's experiences with Trump and Putin preview what a President Harris would face/Video of my convo with climate scientist Dr. Ayana Elizabeth Johnson

Angela Merkel, the Chancellor of Germany from 2005 to 2021, could write a book on the myriad ways "strongmen" leaders act when faced with a woman who has equal power to them. The more competent they perceive the female leader to be in obstructing their designs on power, the more they have a compulsion to put her down, preferably in public, to show they are able to exercise control of everyone in every situation. This often backfires on them by displaying their insecurities.

Americans and the world witnessed this dynamic when former President and GOP candidate Donald Trump floundered in the debate with Vice President and Democratic candidate Kamala Harris. Trump fumed and twitched and lashed out, not knowing what to do in the face of her calm authority. Far from seeming masterful, elements of his performance, such as his deranged and dangerous claims about Haitian immigrants eating dogs and cats, have made him the object of derision and ridicule, including by musicians, meme-makers, and comedians.

Merkel's experiences preview what Harris would likely face from authoritarians such as Vladimir Putin and Viktor Orban if she becomes America's first female president, although the far greater military and other power of the United States, and racist biases against Harris, would likely translate into worse behavior. 

Harris will not have to deal with former Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, who passed away in 2023 but never tired of finding ways of trying to demean the German chancellor. He loved to make Merkel wait to see him, and sometimes took long phone calls in front of her, as though she were invisible or a person he could disregard. If the meeting with Merkel did not go well for Berlusconi, he would let the media hear him using crass insults against her so they would circulate internationally, continuing (in his mind) her humiliation.

In 2011, during the Eurozone crisis, Merkel led a contingency of European leaders who pressured Italian President Giorgio Napolitano to ask for Berlusconi's resignation on the grounds that his distraction and incompetence endangered the Euro (Berlusconi did not want to impose austerity measures on Italy and was also busy with a major corruption trial). Berlusconi and his allies accused her of staging a "putsch," but in the end he was forced to resign, ending his time as head of state.   

Berlusconi's great friend Putin kept the misogynist Merkel putdowns coming. Putin has always made a show of appointing women to positions of authority, including as Chair of the Bank of Russia and Chair of the Russian Federation Council. The modern strongman can tolerate strong women as long as they work for him.

That wasn't the case with Merkel, who experienced Putin's contempt first-hand. The Russian President is notoriously tardy to meetings with everyone: keeping Popes and heads of state waiting evidently makes him feel important. Yet he set a rudeness record with Merkel, who in 2014 sat for four hours and 15 minutes before he deigned to make an appearance. He also unleashed his dog near her to trigger her fear of canines.

“I understand why he has to do this, to prove he’s a man,” said Merkel of this last episode. “He’s afraid of his own weakness. Russia has nothing, no successful politics or economy. All they have is this.”

"This" is the performance of misogyny: the words and behaviors that are designed to "put women in their place" by showing them disrespect, treating them as objects, or acknowledging them as little as possible. Russia may be a failure in many ways, but Putin can make himself feel successful as a man by putting down a female peer.

Putin's other political partner, Trump, acted similarly during his initial meeting with Merkel in March 2017. Trump refused to look at her, and pretended not to hear or simply ignored her request to shake hands. As they sat side by side, he stared straight ahead, scowling, uncomfortable, and impatient, as though the whole meeting was a waste of his valuable time. If he cannot dominate a woman, he must symbolically obliterate her.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and President Donald Trump in the Oval Office, March 17, 2017. Saul Loeb/AFP, via Getty Images.

Trump's rudeness continued in subsequent official phone calls, including one during which he called Merkel "stupid." At the G7 conference in 2018, with little patience left for Trump's destructive stances on NATO and climate change, Merkel confronted Trump, sending him into full infantile belligerent-denial mode (note the pout, the glare, and the crossed arms). Merkel's assertive body language is all the more notable next to that of the male world leaders around her, some of whom were also exasperated but did not confront Trump verbally or otherwise.

Since he reluctantly left the White House, his attempt to stay in office illegally having failed, Trump has manipulated tens of millions of Americans brilliantly to maintain his personality cult and the fictional world he has fashioned with plenty of assistance from Fox "News" and other partners. In that world, he is feared and revered as the untouchable hero who alone can save America, because he is a "strongman" and not a feminized Democrat or, worse, an actual female.

Enter Harris, the incumbent non-White and non-male Vice President of America, who disrupted this carefully crafted world of female submission, starting with her foiling his attempt to repeat the handshake refusal game he played with Merkel. Harris strode over in her elegant suit and power heels and stuck her hand out, introducing herself. This forced him to acknowledge her as an equal, although he did his best to avoid looking at her after that.

Harris's humor and quickness, together with her prosecutorial expertise, enabled her to expose Trump's profound weakness on the issues and his lack of self-mastery. By the end of the debate, Trump's misogyny machine, which has worked for him his whole life, had short-circuited. He had few defenses against Harris. He could not stalk her physically, as he did to Hillary Clinton in that creepy 2016 debate. He fell into the trap she set with her comments on the small sizes of his crowds and other indignities, responding with the kind of racist lunacy that helps her campaign and harms him with all but the most fervent followers.

No wonder Trump announced that he would not participate in another debate with Harris. The excuse he cited, that he had already won the contest with Harris and had nothing further to prove, was so feeble that his handlers had to come up with new lies to explain the debacle: Harris had the questions in advance, or even had special earpieces that told her what to say in real time.

In 2021, as her time as Chancellor was winding down, Merkel visited Washington D.C. and met with Harris. As the Vice President recounted, Merkel was very concerned about rising authoritarianism and threats to democracy in America.

"As imperfect as we are, as flawed as we may be, one of the strengths of who we are as a nation is we always fight for our ideals," Harris told Merkel on that occasion. What the two leaders said about Trump remained off the record, but implicit in Harris’s statement was a recognition that the authoritarians both women have had to deal with have no ideals to fight for beyond their own glory and power. What is most consistent about the strongman is his weakness and his misogyny.