Today’s must-read: Criticism of emotional expression has long been a weapon of choice for those who want to cut down women in political power.
 

One Story to Read Today highlights a single newly published—or newly relevant—Atlantic story that’s worth your time.

Sophie Gilbert explains what the attacks on Vice President Kamala Harris’s laugh are really about.

(Illustration by Liz Hart / The Atlantic. Source: Getty.)

 

Donald Trump doesn’t really laugh. He smirks; he bares his teeth silently. Sometimes he folds his arms or shakes his head to register humor, as he did during a 2019 rally in Florida, when he asked the assembled crowd what to do about migrants crossing the border and a spectator shouted in response, “Shoot them!” But he hardly ever laughs out loud. Mary Trump, his niece, has said that Fred Trump, the former president’s father, drilled into his son that “laughing is to make yourself vulnerable, it’s to let down your guard in some way, it’s to lose a little bit of control. And that can’t happen.”

Clearly, for Trump, laughter is loaded. Caught short by the disorienting speed with which Vice President Kamala Harris has become the presumptive 2024 Democratic nominee for president, Trump has struggled to come up with attack lines against her. But his comments during a rally on Saturday suggested one specific target: Harris’s laugh.

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