Why Orange Men Melt Down
Saying the quiet part out loud.
I wasn’t sure how long I would watch the debate. The format was stilted. No audience, two-minute answers, mics muted to encourage civil turn-taking. It looked like a formula for ninety minutes of talking points.
And then — it happened. Harris needled Trump on his crowd sizes, and things got interesting.
A tiny part of me thought maybe he wouldn’t fall for it. It was such a transparent tactic - the 2024-Presidential-Debate equivalent of telling Donald Trump his shoelaces are untied. Surely his team has prepped him for this, I thought. Surely even this orange idiot won’t take the bait.
A much bigger part of me knew differently. Because I have witnessed so many Orange Men at point-blank range.
One of the tipping points - one of many - in my ongoing ordeal as a doctoral student at the Eastman School of Music was a lesson with Neil - my advisor - that I walked out on. I’d disagreed with him on a minor point, and he became unhinged - again.
It wasn’t the full-blown tantrums I’d seen previously, like when he began screaming that another professor’s decisions were “bullshit” - she, too, had politely disagreed with him on a minor point - or ranting that the school’s diversity efforts were bringing in “charity cases.”
There was no shouting this time, but he was hostile, rambling, not fully in control of himself. Trumpian.
In true Orange Man fashion, it quickly moved into weird territory. There was, of course, his ongoing fixation with a man he thought had “impregnated” me. Veering in another direction, he said in a bizarrely accusatory tone that I was “very American.” Lurching to yet another tangent, he told me, with a kind of cryptic paranoia, that an offhand question I’d asked days earlier was “very telling.”
You might have some questions. Like, what does it mean to be “impregnated” - metaphorically speaking - by your last advisor? What does being American have to do with anything in this story? And very telling… of what?
You might as well ask what fictional pet-eating immigrants have to do with the rate of inflation or whether it’s better to go down with your sinking electric ship or jump into an ocean full of sharks. There is no answer. To converse with a spiraling Orange Man is to be in Wonderland. We’re all mad here.
I have participated in versions of this scene many times. Never, thankfully, in my family or personal life. Only in the genteel spaces of my chosen profession - classical music.
There are the Orange-Men maestros and abusers, of course. The guys who scream, curse, harass, assault, and retaliate with impunity. They’re rarely the cold, calculating sadist-geniuses they’re made out to be. No, Orange Men are impulsive, sloppy, erratic.
Then there are the closeted Orange Men - more polite, but no less destructive. There was the manager that a few women warned me about. Each, on separate occasions, had come out of a closed-door meeting with him, notably shaken by his outbursts. I believed them, but I had never experienced it myself. He had always been civil, friendly even, with me.
Then I had my own meeting. I pressed on some gender equity issues in the organization, and - boom - there it was. The familiar spiral of male fragility, exactly as those women described it. Anger, tangents, irrationality, panic. So much panic. “I think you’ve made your point,” he snapped, shutting down the conversation.
You wouldn’t believe what happened next. Or, if you’ve been following this Substack so far, maybe you would.
And, of course, there’s the simmering Eastman dean - who is the school’s current Title IX Coordinator - who threatened me with a defamation suit - no doubt a panicked impulse move. He has an uncanny resemblance to that manager. The eco-system of bullies and cowards is full of stock characters.
As I watched the debate, Trump’s ludicrous crazy-town spiral was strangely familiar. I recognized every element of it. His sensitive buttons, so easily pushed, the veering and rambling, the desperate whatabout-isms, the excruciating lack of self-awareness. Do Orange Men not realize they’re throwing tantrums in public? Can they not read the room? Do they not see the side-eyes, the cringing, or worse yet, the stifled giggles?
I think the answer is, quite literally, no. When an Orange Man snaps, he loses touch with reality. He goes fully inside himself and becomes consumed with one thought: This. Can’t. Be. Happening.
And what, exactly, is the unnamed “this”? What is it that an Orange Man finds so intolerable it makes him lose his goddamn mind?
It’s not just being challenged or having someone stand up to him, although Orange Men do hate that. Nor is it sheer tin-foil hat lunacy. I’ve met Orange Men who present as (mostly) normal on first meeting.
No, the reactive, self-destructive, dissociated rage on display on that debate stage and so many other places is a noxious brew of knee-jerk bigotry and male entitlement.
Misogyny is a main ingredient, along with racism and nearly any other -ism you can think of. The manic tirades are not equal opportunity. When you see a man melting down, you see what he fundamentally believes about the world - what he thinks he deserves, and who he believes he is superior to.
This woman is speaking to me - the Orange Man thinks with a puzzled expression - as if we’re two adults. She’s not smiling or fawning. She doesn’t seem to care about my feelings. But - his confusion and frustration grows - women are supposed to make me feel good. They’re supposed to act like my mom, but without all the rules. Or my daughter if I feel like being big and strong and in charge. This. Can’t. Be. Happening.
Meltdown.
She seems to be making a point that I hadn’t considered, but - but - the Orange Man’s brain starts to overheat - how humiliating would it be for a woman to know something I don’t? But wait… wait… Oh thank God. I seem to have gone temporarily deaf. Her mouth is moving, but I can no longer hear her. What a relief. This. Can’t. Be. Happening.
Meltdown.
She’s arguing with me. Who the #$%$# does she think she is? I’m entitled to women’s unconditional admiration, respect, and approval. The nods and smiles of women are my #$*!ing birthright. Nobody tells me I’m wrong - especially not a woman. This. Can’t. Be. Happening.
Meltdown.
She just told me no. She told me I can’t have her time, her attention, her labor, her presence, her affection, her body on demand. That’s bullshit. I’m an Orange Man. Nobody tells me no - especially not a woman. This. Can’t. Be. Happening.
Epic Meltdown.
She says I’m sexist. Impossible. I created the $%&!*ing DEI committee. I got a %&!!$ing award for it. I’ve hired binders full of women - and all the ones I haven’t fired or harassed out of this place *%&$ing adore me. Sexism is Bad and I am Very, Very Good - The Best - and therefore I Am Not Sexist. Nobody calls me a bad guy - especially not a woman. This. Can’t. Be. Happening.
Full System Failure.
The meltdowns, the tantrums, the spirals - they show you who these guys are. They flip on the light switch in the crusty basement of a misogynist’s soul and let you see the rats and the cockroaches scatter.
For that reason, there is real value to the practice of letting the Orange Men melt down - to the art and science of refusing to suffer these fools lightly, or at all.
Novice-level is just watching it happen without caving or getting sucked in. I like to think I’m getting there. Jedi-level is what Vice President Harris did last night - to laugh at it. To really, genuinely laugh, even when faced with the double-whammy of misogyny and racism. To expose Orange Men for what they are - aggressive and destructive, yes. But also - tiny, silly, weak, little buffoons.
It still comes at a cost. Donald Trump can’t fire Kamala Harris, but I wouldn’t put it past him to incite violence against her. I am (thankfully) unlikely to be the target of political violence, but I may be - and have been - pushed out of spaces and opportunities that affect my ability to do my work and earn a living.
Women who stare down Orange Men have to gather all the nerve they’ve got and step into the blitz of blind male aggression. That’s the price we ask women to pay for being fully human.
Because you cannot be fully human from a crouch. And you certainly can’t lead from one. The ducking, the eggshell-walking, the placating, the care and feeding of an insatiable male ego - they leech doubt and uncertainty into your heart, your mind, your body at such a slow drip, you start to think it’s normal.
It’s not. The cost of saying no to the Orange Men is high. The cost of saying yes is much, much higher.