Lindsey Halligan Is a Case Study
- john raymond
- 4 hours ago
- 2 min read
There is nothing wrong with women wanting to look their best. That is basic autonomy, not a moral failing, and it should be stated cleanly at the outset. Likewise, the problem is not that the women in President Trump’s orbit want to look glamorous; the problem is what his preferences reveal about him and the message they send about what matters in public life.
When Trump consistently elevates women who are styled and deployed in ways that evoke a cartoonish “bimbo” stereotype, that choice reflects his misogyny, not their worth as human beings.
Lindsey Halligan is a case study in how this works. Her catastrophic performance and the finding that she was improperly appointed do not just expose her own lack of qualification; they reinforce the oldest, laziest misogynist script in American life: that women in power are there for how they look, not what they can do.
That is a disservice to every competent woman who has had to fight to be taken seriously.
By picking someone whose chief visible attributes are telegenic loyalty and on-brand aesthetics—and then throwing her into matters far beyond her depth—President Trump all but guaranteed an outcome that would be weaponized against women, not against the man who made the hire.
This is of a piece with his broader casting choices. It is not just the “ignorant pretty boys” like Pete Hegseth, selected for a certain preppy, flag-waving sheen rather than intellectual seriousness. It is the overall lowering of discourse when image, flattery, and willingness to play a part matter more than competence, rigor, or respect for the law.
In the Trumpo-verse, women are valued for how they decorate the frame and how reliably they echo his grievances, not for independent judgment or expertise.
And that is the core indictment. Misogynists like President Trump do not see women as agents in their own right. They see them as surfaces—skin, hair, pose, tone of voice—props in the show, extensions of their own ego and brand.
When that worldview reaches into judicial proceedings and the machinery of the state, it does not just humiliate the individual appointee. It broadcasts a poisonous lesson to the country: that for women, looks still come first, and competence is optional.
The outrage belongs there, on the misogyny of his hiring choices—not on the fact that women choose to look the way they want.