‘MOAB’ – the ‘mother of all bombs’. The biggest non-nuclear bomb ever, apparently, now hurled at Afghanistan. I always thought we were unwise to make jokes about the putative size of Trump’s member; is this his reply? And if so, is there something more to it than that?

One of the things that defines Trump is his retarded masculinism. That came out in obvious forms during his election campaign – grabbing pussies, etc – and afterwards – that picture of a whole room of men watching him sign an anti-abortion directive. Enlightened women immediately spotted the threat this posed to ‘their’ causes, marching against it in impressive numbers in Washington and elsewhere; but it could have wider repercussions. Syria exemplifies this gun-toting, macho side of him. And I’ve begun to wonder whether it might not also significantly explain his extraordinary – almost demented – hostility to Clinton and Obama: Clinton because she’s a woman, of course; but Obama because he was – in ‘masculinist’ terms – a wimp. It was his feminine, or liberal, side that so outraged Trump. We all thought that, deep down, it was Obama’s race. That was understandable, in view of America’s long racist history. But it may have obscured the gender thing.

Which is making me reassess my own views about the dominant forces in modern history and politics, which in the past have mainly centred around money, power and class, with race/cultural/religious attitudes the fourth great determining factor, and gender relegated to number five. I’ve always counted myself a feminist; but I’ve also been critical of feminist theorists and historians who have diverted attention away from what I have taken to be the crucial economic and class aspects of modern history, so taking some of the heat off the capitalists for the time being. OK, I’ve thought, liberate the women (and us men along with them), but only after the major political and economic battles have been won. Now I’m wondering whether those battles might not be connected with, or even secondary to, the gender one. Defeat masculinism, and liberty and equality might follow.

Trump is – among other things – a capitalist, probably a racist, and a misogynist. His presidency can be seen as the natural culmination of the rise and runaway triumph of uncontrolled capitalism, which is how I’ve generally taken it; or else as the reaction of white American racists to decades of perceived disempowerment. Alternatively, it’s the victory of the macho tendency in American history – the frontier, guns, military, John Wayne and so on – over the feminist political correctness that threatens to emasculate America.

I don’t know. It has only just occurred to me in this form. My ideas are crude and uninformed. I imagine others – especially feminists – are on to this already. If only his new super-bomb didn’t look so much like a prick.