I believe, as I have believed for a long time, that Donald Trump is a rapist. The allegations by E. Jean Carroll of Trump raping her in the dressing room at Bergdorf Goodman are horrifying, and, in any sane country, they would be the end of Trump's presidency. But we don't live in anything like a sane country anymore. We are on a steep incline now, heading faster and faster into a darkness at the end of it. Each event and allegation that we simply overlook or ignore speeds us down, and, at some point, we're not going to be able to grab onto the ground to stop our fall. It's always going to get worse, it seems.
Because every day provides evidence of this, this afternoon, in a comment on Carroll's allegations, Trump made it worse. Talking to the Hill, the President of the United States said this about a respected writer who accused him of rape: "I’ll say it with great respect: Number one, she’s not my type. Number two, it never happened. It never happened, OK?"
Think about that. Sitting in the Oval Office, the center of power for supposedly the most powerful person in the world, the first thing our president wanted us to know is that his alleged rape victim wasn't his type. At best, that means Trump doesn't like strong, self-possessed women. At worst (and most likely), it means she wasn't fuckable enough for him to rape. It was more important to him for us to hear that he has a certain taste in women than it was that he didn't rape Carroll. Putting aside the truth of the allegation, you have to be an essentially terrible man to open with a judgment on how hot your rape accuser is. (And Trump has used the "not my type" reasoning often, even talking about Stormy Daniels.) And a whole lot of people are going to believe Trump on that. I've already had people send me tweets and messages saying that Carroll wasn't attractive enough for the obviously too handsome Donald Trump, as if that really matters in any way when it comes to rape.
I believe Carroll for many reasons. I know and trust two people who know Carroll, and they say they believe her. I believe her because I know many women from Carroll's generation and the nightmare of sexism and assault they had to negotiate just to work in their chosen fields. Talk to many women who were grad students or became university professors in the 1960s and 1970s or even the 1980s, as they infiltrated the old boys networks at supposedly liberal colleges. It wasn't a minefield. It was a full-on battle.
For decades, Carroll has had an incredibly successful career as a writer, as a beloved advice columnist, as a trusted figure in the lives of many people, especially women. To just make this story up now does her no good; in fact, if she were lying, she would torch her entire life's work. And she didn't need a fake Trump story (or a fake story of any of the men she writes about) in her forthcoming book to make it successful. Her thousands of readers would likely have done that anyway. She knew that she was going to get a buzzsaw of hatred and condemnation coming at her, and it's already happening.
On the socials, the right wing commentariat are saying that Carroll discredited herself this evening on CNN in an interview with Anderson Cooper. It was a fascinating appearance, with Carroll refusing to play the part of the tearful victim. She was bitingly witty with an awareness and sensitivity to women who have experienced more violent sexual assaults than she did. I'm sure that her attitude is going to confound a whole lot of sexists and Trump apologists, but they don't get to say how a woman processes her rape. She wants to own this story, although I'm sure she knows that that is going to be impossible now. I'm betting she's getting rape and death threats constantly. That's how we live now.
One of the most depressing things Carroll told Cooper is that she believes all the accusations of sexual assault against Donald Trump actually helped his candidacy. She told a story about being out to dinner with George McGovern when Bill Clinton's affairs were being revealed in 1992 (this was prior to Paula Jones and allegations of sexual misconduct). McGovern said it would help Clinton because it makes him seem more virile and manly to many people. Carroll said she thinks the same thing happened with Trump, that it made him seem like he was so masculine that he could take any woman he wanted, and that he could have sex with anyone, like porn stars, and then pay them off. That sadly makes sense, considering his supporters.
Today, I was talking to a young woman who is a Trump voter. She was trying to tell me he was a good person because he once had his limo pull over and had his employee help her mom and aunt change a flat tire and then he paid off her aunt's mortgage. I said, "Maybe, but he's a rapist." She said she didn't know what I was talking about. I repeated, "He's a rapist. He's been credibly accused of rape. More than once." She dismissed it with a wave of her hand, saying that "people just want to hurt him." I tried to point out that no one accused Barack Obama of rape (except, you know, deranged people). She didn't care. "They're all just jealous of Trump," she said.
It doesn't matter. No one is going to do anything. The New York Times and other news outlets buried the story, although the Washington Post featured it prominently. Fox "news" doesn't have anything on its website. The New York Post was ordered to scrub it from their site. I don't know how many days this story will stay alive, what with Trump's abuse of child migrants and war mongering with Iran also dominating the news.
I believe Carroll. I believe other women who have said that Trump assaulted them. I believe Ivana Trump when she said under oath that Trump raped her when they were married. I believe the president is a rapist, that our nation is being led by a rapist. And I honestly don't know what to do with that. I don't know what we do with that. This is where our other leaders are supposed to step in and help the country. But, as we slip further down this incline, they aren't trying to toss us ropes to save us. They are sliding with us into that chaotic, dark unknown below.
(Note: If your response to Carroll and the other allegations against Trump is "Yeah, but Bill Clinton..." then you're saying that you think Trump should get away with rape because you believe Clinton got away with rape. So you are a worthless human. Oh, and Clinton isn't president now.)
