Friday, October 7, should have been the day when Donald J. Trump had the decency to announce that he is ending his candidacy for the presidency of the United States. Actually, there have been many days when revelations about his past and his basic character should have ended his candidacy and would have ended it for anyone else who has ever sought our highest office. But since Trump has never been held to the usual standards, we can only guess how long the outrage over the hot-mic tape will last or how many endorsements he will lose because of it. The degree to which the general electorate has gone into the gutter with this person is appalling and frightening.
At the heart of his lewd comments in the tape released on Friday by the Washington Post is his statement:
“And when you’re a star, they let you do it,” Trump says. “You can do anything.”
“Whatever you want,” says another voice, apparently Bush’s.
“Grab them by the p—y,” Trump says. “You can do anything.”
In Trump’s view, celebrity has its privilege. No one says “No” to power. Even more shameful for us as a culture is that when you’re a celebrity, “You can do anything” and people will still vote for you and one of our two major parties will still support you as their candidate for leader of the free world.
Emma Gray, in a Huffington Post article titled “Trump’s Latest Comments about Women Are Rape Culture in a Nutshell,” says:
As he says to Bush: “Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”
This is what rape culture looks like.
In a statement, Planned Parenthood Action Fund Executive Vice President Dawn Laguens explicitly connected Trump’s 2005 commentary to sexual violence.
“What Trump described in these tapes amounts to sexual assault,” she said. “Trump’s behavior is disgusting and unacceptable in any context, and it is disqualifying for a man who is running for president of this country.”
And what was Trump’s immediate response?
“This was locker room banter, a private conversation that took place many years ago. Bill Clinton has said far worse to me on the golf course — not even close,” Trump said in a statement to The Washington Post. “I apologize if anyone was offended.”
Where does one even begin on this statement? The tape in question was captured in 2005, eleven years ago. That means he was 59 at the time he made these comments and only a few months into his third marriage. His first four children were ages 28, 24, 21, and 12.
So a married man with grown-up children who work for him and look to him as a role model admits of an unnamed woman:
“I moved on her and I failed. I’ll admit it.”
“I did try and fuck her,” Trump added. “She was married.”
He said he moved on the woman “very heavily,” even taking her furniture shopping. “
I moved on her like a bitch, but I couldn’t get there. And she was married.”
This is what a person with no shred of moral decency calls “locker room banter.” He was 59 years old, not in junior high; and he was not just talking about a girl he thought was “hot.” He was bragging about his sexual assaults on women. As a words person, I can’t get past his choice of “banter.” According to the first dictionary I grabbed off my shelf, “banter” is “good-humored, playful conversation.” There is nothing good-humored or playful about sexual assault, adultery, or being a scumbag father.
Many years ago? Eleven years is not all that long. Eleven years ago, the 9/11 attacks were already four years in the past, George W. Bush was president, I was still coloring my hair, and my daughter who is now a 34-year-old mother of two was a 23-year-old bride. I remember that day as if it were yesterday. By contrast, Bill Clinton was president from 1993 to 2001; so his well-known infidelities during his presidency happened years before 2005, yet Trump isn’t willing to give Clinton the same leniency he claims for himself.
Trump’s first two sentences—“This was locker room banter, a private conversation that took place many years ago. Bill Clinton has said far worse to me on the golf course ― not even close”—can be boiled down to “Boys will be boys.” This is just how guys talk when no one else is listening. Not only should every woman in the world be outraged by Trump’s making light of sexual assault but every man should be outraged by the suggestion that this kind of talk is part of “boy culture.”
Don’t even get me started on the non-apology: “If I’ve offended anyone . . . “! The media have spent the last fifteen or so months mining every statement that has come out of Trump’s mouth for any small nugget of sanity or decency; so when they came across the word “apologize,” you’d have thought they discovered gold or struck oil. Fortunately, many of them are intelligent enough to acknowledge that throwing the word “apologize” into a sentence in no way makes it a real apology and have publicly said so.
Mentioning things which Bill Clinton allegedly said is the standard school-yard defense: “Well, Billy Clinton said it first” or “Billy Clinton said worse things than I did.”
Billy Bush doesn’t get a pass here, but at least his statement comes closer to being a true apology:
“Obviously I’m embarrassed and ashamed. It’s no excuse, but this happened eleven years ago — I was younger, less mature, and acted foolishly in playing along. I’m very sorry.”
Although Bush also tries to play down the impact of his actions by pointing out that he was younger and less mature, he does at least admit to being embarrassed and ashamed and says “I’m very sorry,” without adding the caveat “IF anyone was offended.” He does seem to understand that his actions and words were offensive, which shows some small sign of a conscience. It should be noted, however, that in 2005 he was 34 years old—plenty old enough to know better.
Trump’s vulgar words were said eleven years ago, but his slimy response to them was spoken yesterday. He still doesn’t know that people ARE rightfully offended by this kind of trashy talk; and he still, at 70 years old, doesn’t understand what real contrition is or what constitutes a sincere apology. The only thing Donald Trump is sorry about is that the Washington Post got its hands on this tape. And this is a person who, a mere one month from today, could be elected as this nation’s president and commander-in-chief and the leader of the free world. God help us all!
Finally, after hours of hunkering down in his golden tower with his panicky campaign staff, Trump issued a video “apology,” which Paige Lavender of the Huffington Post amusingly calls a “hostage tape.” He begins this attempt at damage control with the statement, “Anyone who knows me knows these words don’t reflect who I am . . . I said it, I was wrong, and I apologize.” Actually, Donald, as you would say into your “faulty mic,” “Wrong!” We voters are learning more and more about who you are, and these words reflect your character exactly. In fact, you should know that few of us were really even shocked, because the person in this video is the person we’ve been watching and reading about for over a year. From the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks.
Trump further invalidates his “apology” by returning to the school-yard tactics of talking about things Billy Clinton has done. In fact, nothing in the “hostage video” speaks of contrition or remorse. He sounds defiant, unrepentant, and evasive. He moves quickly from “I apologize” to brushing off the whole incident and trying to return to his lame, tired “campaign” lines and his attacks on Bill Clinton, who it bears noting is NOT on the ballot this November.
The only remaining question is WHY on earth anyone is still voting for this sexual predator! I guess he said it best: “When you’re a star, you can do anything.” To anyone still even considering voting for Donald Trump, you’ve been raped and you don’t even know it.