Nearly three years ago, I predicted that the sexism surrounding the 2016 presidential election would be “more sly than straightforward”. I thought Republicans would never want to repeat the mistakes of 2008 – the “iron my shirt” moments and comments about Hillary Clinton’s cackle.

“If Clinton runs again,” I wrote, “it’s doubtful that we’ll see the same level of sexist vitriol.” Well, the joke is on me!

In this election, we’ve seen the Republican presidential nominee brag about the size of his penis on a debate stage, defend calling a woman “Miss Piggy”, suggest women who have abortions be “punished” and claim that a female moderator must have been on her period. Let’s not even get into Trump’s past disgusting comments on women. Or, as was the case when he talked about finding 12-year-old Paris Hilton attractive, his past disgusting comments about little girls.

It’s hard to imagine a more sexist candidate or an election that hinged more on gender politics.

I was naive to think this could go any other way. That Americans could elect the first female president without T-shirts calling her a bitch, jokes about sex tapes and insults about women’s bodies. That we could make this happen without embarrassing ourselves. Instead, we chose to confront the possibility of a historic moment for women with a candidate whose misogyny is so mythic he could have sprung fully-formed from Freud’s skull. Trump is more symbol than person at this point, representing just how juvenile and ridiculous America is when it comes to the way we think about women and leadership.

I’m not too hard on myself for the early error in judgment, though. After all, a few years ago Republicans were proactively trying to downplay the party’s sexism. The anti-abortion group Susan B Anthony List, for example, started a training program to keep candidates from making gaffes about women’s health. And Republicans looked to pollster Kellyanne Conway to give them advice about how to stop saying stupid things about rape. Poor Conway, now Trump’s campaign manager, should be awarded a lifetime supply of Xanax to get her through the next few weeks.

One thing I was right about, however, was that sexism would help Clinton win the presidency. The gender gap in this election is expected to be historic, and the more Trump doubles down on his misogyny, the more female voters dislike him.

Instead of trying to mend that relationship, the Republican establishment has abandoned all efforts of securing women’s support. In the vice-presidential debate this week Mike Pence refused to condemn Trump’s comments on women, preferring to simply deny they ever happened. And after Trump once again insulted Alicia Machado’s weight, Newt Gingrich chimed in by saying “you’re not supposed to gain 60 pounds during the year that you’re Miss Universe”. Now Trump says that his comments about women over the years were for “the purpose of entertainment”.

We are not laughing.

It would be nice to think that a Clinton win in November will mean the end of all this. That we’d finally be done with men making unprompted comments on women’s bodies, or that we’d never hear a woman shamed for her sexuality or called a “bitch” because she dared to have an opinion. But that’s just me being naive again.