You know what's shocking? How it isn't that shocking that, in a rally that was ostensibly for some repugnant Republican, President Donald Trump mocked Christine Blasey Ford's testimony about Brett Kavanaugh attempting to rape her. That's just fucking depressing, like when you hear about a mass shooting and if it's less than 10 people, you mostly just think, "Ah, fuck it. It's not that bad." Once you've danced your body around before a crowd to make fun of a disabled man, you may as well just do whatever the fuck you want.
I don't think any of us would be surprised if Trump decided to act out Kavanaugh exposing himself to Deborah Ramirez. "What did he do?" he'd ask the cheering audience. "He dropped his pants and hung brains for a couple of seconds. Frankly, that woman should have been grateful she got the chance to see his perfect, incredible penis."
What Trump did say last night was cruelly fascinating in its insulting tone. He restated Ford's testimony in the most degrading way possible: "'I had one beer right. I had one beer. Well you know there was one there.' Oh good. 'How did you get home?' 'I don't remember.' 'How did you get there?' 'All remember where is the place. I don't remember how many years ago was it. I don't know. I don't know what neighborhood was it and I don't know where's the house.'" He used a slightly higher pitched voice to indicate he was being Ford.
Then he said, like a brain-damaged actor spouting lines from an imagined David Mamet play, "A man's life is in tatters. A man's life is shattered," he mourned. And there you go. "A man's life" was fucked up by some crazy cunt. "A man's life" is that so valuable that others must be silenced and discarded. That's essentially what Trump was implying.
Trump went on to offer a short performance of a poor, deprived, innocent man talking to his sainted mother about what those evil bitches did to him. Again changing his pitch, I guess to sound younger, as a son, he implored, "'I did great in school. I've worked so hard. Mom, I'm so pleased to tell you. I just got a fantastic job with IBM. I just got a fantastic job with General Motors. I just got. I'm so proud, Mom. A terrible thing just happened. A person who I've never met said that I did things that were horrible and they're firing me from my job, Mom. I don't know what to do. Mom, what do I do? What do I do, Mom? What do I do? Mom?'"
Seriously, this was like a pathetic audition for Hell's community theatre production of Fatal Attraction, The Musical.
It was also of a piece with what Trump said earlier in the day. "My whole life I've heard, 'you're innocent until proven guilty,' but now you're guilty until proven innocent. That's a very, very difficult standard," he told reporters. "It's a very scary time for young men in America when you can be guilty of something that you may not be guilty of." First off, studies show that, at most, 10% of all rape allegations turn out to be false after investigation (and that means there was no conviction, so no one is "guilty" of rape). And other studies say that perhaps 65% of all sexual assaults are never reported. So for every University of Virginia-like falsehood, there are a whole bunch of unreported rapes and other attacks.
Plus, you know what I never did as a young man or as a not-young one now? I never fucking walked down the street wondering if I was going to be raped. I never fucking walked into a park wondering if I was going to get raped. I never fucking looked for my car in a parking lot wondering if I was going to get raped. I never fucking had trouble opening my front door with groceries in my hands while wondering if I was going to get raped. I never fucking went to an empty building on the weekend at my school wondering if I was going to get raped. I never fucking rode an elevator or walked down a stairway wondering if I was going to get raped. I never fucking went to a party or a bar wondering if I was going to get raped. I never fucking hung out with my friends and acquaintances wondering if one of them was going to rape me. I never fucking took a drink from someone wondering if it was going to knock me out so they could rape me. I never fucking got up in the morning and had a 100 times during the day where I wondered if I was going to be raped.
So I know very clearly who is and who isn't living in a scary time, and it sure as fuck ain't young men.
Perhaps even more gut-churning than Trump's own bullying of a sexual assault victim was the idiot horde's reactions to it. Again, it's shocking that, really, it's not that shocking. When Trump started his "I don't know" riff, so many in the crowd at the 8400 seat arena in Southaven, Mississippi, were on his side, and a whole lot of the credulous rubes started hee-hawing in delight, their yahoo yawps and grunts urging him on, their pounded clapping serving as his tribal rhythm, making him dance more enthusiastically for their adoration. What a bunch of goddamned animals, hooting their approval of the denigration of a woman who Trump himself said was credible. At this point, Trump has gone so low, so depraved, that he could select a MAGA hat-wearing child to finger his asshole through every rally speech and families would be tearing each other to shreds for their little ones to be chosen for the honor.
Of course, mostly, this was about Trump himself, as he gave away a moment later at the rally: "I've had many false accusations. I've had it all. I've had so many. And when I say it didn't happen nobody believes me." Well, the problem is that too many people believe him. Not enough people believe the women whose traumas he feels so free to knock down.
