People downplay that Access Hollywood tape, but he wasn’t joking. He was completely serious. In his mind, he could - and did – literally grab women’s pussies because he thought they’d just let him do it.
Here’s the thing, as an SA survivor, there are several natural reactions to situations like that – fight, flight, or freeze. In close quarters, you often can’t flee, and with a large attacker, you can’t always fight. Freezing is a very common response to sexual assault.
So all these years, when he says ‘they just let you do it’, he’s been describing his victims’ freeze response. You don’t have to be a star for that to be your victim’s reaction. And yet his followers and the media have turned it into a joke.
I think I can speak for many SA survivors when I say that’s disgusting, appalling, and hurtful.
I don't find it funny at all and have to say my faith in humanity was absolutely crushed (below rock bottom) when he wasn't immediately cast out after the tape came out. My mother (in her 80s) was like "yeah, that's what we're dealing with, son".
100%. Worse, he says ‘they’ let you do it. How many women has he done this to? Obviously more than E Jean. Looking at the hell she’s been put through since coming forward, it’s no wonder his other victims haven’t been willing to come forward.
Trump was a co-defendant along with Epstein in the rape case of a 13 year old girl who dropped the case when herself and her family were threatened with death.
As a dude who's been in plenty of locker rooms... it is indeed "rapist talk". For sure, there's bantering of all sorts (mostly about boobs and dumbshit)... but there ain't nobody in there that's proud to talk like that; Unless they actually mean it and than they sound like a creepy fucking rapist, and nobody's really having fun with the "jokes" anymore.
He's a rapist. And by continuing to open his fat fucking mouth about how that's "fine and whatever", he brings down all men in the process. Fuck that dude, he ain't allowed to be part of the "cool men's club", ya fucking weirdo. Fuck that dude
That's the most important thing to remember about all this. They know he's an abuser. They know he brags about it. They know all the despicable things he's done.
And it's either unimportant to them, or they've managed to become so psychologically twisted that they actually like it.
We have a society being dominated by deeply, deeply broken people right now.
This is a common problem all over the place. We don't care what people we like do, and it's not limited to Trump/Republicans.
R Kelly was a known pedophile for years, and still a celebrated musician until he finally went to jail. Ray Lewis killed a guy, but was on the Raven's sideline as an honored guest and former player. Ellen Degeneres fostered a toxic work environment for year while hosting a popular talk show. Weinstein raped women for years while being a celebrated producer. Chris Brown has been beating women for years and still had success after many high profile incidents.
Chris Brown is wild to me. Many other cases are circumstantial-but-damning-because-frequency for a long time. Brown beat the fuck out of Rhianna, there’s police reports and photos of her in the public domain, and yet he still has a public celebrity that isn’t the “Chris Brown global apology tour”
A lot of it boils down to abortion. When you see abortion as baby murder, it would take an awful lot to offset that moral significance. In other words, many who support Trump wouldn't exactly condone rape, corruption, etc, but they feel abortion is a much larger moral issue.
Conservative morality isn't based on the things it claims to be.
The foundations are these:
Social hierarchy is natural and desirable.
The hierarchy is asserted by selective rule-enforcement
The game is zero-sum
They literally don't believe that rules should bind high-status people; that's what makes them powerful - and thus admirable - in their eyes.
Rules are only enforced downwards, protecting the strong from the actions of the weak - and violating that principle is the only sin.
That's why they're so hung up on race / gender / sexuality: those things are caste markers to them, and determine the right and proper role for people in their eyes. If someone steps out of their pre-ordained caste, that's violating the hierarchy and eroding the rules that keep society ordered-therefore-safe, and therefore inherently immoral to them.
Every time people post another scoop on Trump getting away with shit, it just affirms his kingly, even godly status in their eyes.
The only thing that can bring him down is defeat and failure, being subjected to rules and forced to submit to them, showing him to be low-status and thus not admirable.
The book Fascism Today: What It Is and How to End It (excerpts) is fantastic to explain this new fascism and provides a very useful new definition: “Inequality through mythological and essentialized identity”
That's why they're so hung up on race / gender / sexuality: those things are caste markers to them, and determine the right and proper role for people in their eyes. If someone steps out of their pre-ordained caste, that's violating the hierarchy and eroding the rules that keep society ordered-therefore-safe, and therefore inherently immoral to them.
You've nailed it. Also, if people start to realise these labels aren't as fixed they may naturally extend those conclusions to other arbitrary markers - like class and wealth.
Internalized misogyny is real. When you're absolutely brain dead stupid and have no personality, male validation is extremely powerful. You can get a ton of male validation by appealing to the dumbest ones who would drool at the chance to be in the same room as you.
He was elected despite being on tape saying "grab em by the pussy, you can do anything"
They aren't going to start caring about women suddenly. Women are just property to the base and they are expected to vote according to their owners. At least that's what it looks like!
It's not really a surprise coming from the party of hate filled losers, incels and criminals. I expect no less and hope that voters remember come election time. It is long past due to send the Republicans back to under the rocks from which they came
We’ve understood this forever. What MAGA people all have in common is that they’re terrible people. It’s the seven deadly sins all rolled up into one voting block.
Fascism. They fundamentally believe that inequality based on inherent identity is morally correct. And identity based on some myth. That is why capitalism, science denial to further deregulation, blind or fanatical faith and fascism work so well together.
MAGA sees women as property. 2nd class citizens. Subhuman. They are to be possessed and done with as you please. The primary tenet of conservatism is that natural hierarchies exist. Conservatives believe men are inherently "better" than women. Period.
His fascist supporters love it, because it puts women "in their place" and they want to return to a time (not too long ago) when all of society swept abusive misogyny under the rug.
I mean, why else would they constantly demonize feminism?
He's still talking about that wall he couldn't finish or make Mexico pay for. And he's gonna drill drill drill and re-defund the EPA again. How the f do you explain to your kid that 50 million, scary low for USA to get elected, opted for the grab guy again?
It's one thing to accept the fact that people are capable of terrible, evil things, and a totally different thing to encourage said behavior for political and financial gain.