October 3, 2018
Stop being surprised. Stop looking for decency or humanity from Trump or anyone in his orbit. Understand that Trump is a depraved monster devoid of decency, who has lived his entire life free of consequences. We all need to fully comprehend that he has millions of cultists who will gladly follow him into the abyss and govern ourselves accordingly. Yesterday, at a rally for a female Congressional candidate in Mississippi, Trump viciously mocked Dr. Christine Blasey Ford and the crowd cheered in response, (Source: “Trump Taunts Christine Blasey Ford at Rally,” by Maggie Haberman and Peter Baker, The New York Times, 10/2/18). Think for a moment about what those in the audience were applauding — the sound of the leader of the free world mocking an accomplished woman’s sober account of the soul shattering impact of a sexual assault at the hands of an entitled frat boy, who happens to be that leader’s pick to sit on our nation’s highest court.
That is the Trumpian mindset that has been thoroughly embraced by his supporters, both in and out of Congress. Women are never to be believed and if they dare to try to hold powerful men accountable for their actions, they are to be resoundingly mocked and thoroughly destroyed. These people believe that women’s trauma is a small price to pay for a reliable fifth vote to overturn Roe v. Wade; to deny bodily autonomy or agency to women once and for all. While Trump was busy disparaging Dr. Ford, Congressional Republicans were rummaging around in Julie Swetnick’s past, searching for information with which to discredit her explosive charges about Kavanaugh and his buddy, Mark Judge’s drunken behavior in high school. They found it in an ex-boyfriend of Swetnick’s from the 90’s, Dennis Ketterer, who claimed that Swetnick told him that she enjoyed “group sex with multiple men,” a transparent effort to inoculate Judge and Kavanaugh from allegations that they participated in gang rape, (Source: “Republicans on Senate Panel release explicit statement about Kavanaugh accuser’s sex life,” by Elise Viebeck, The Washington Post, 10/2/18). The mask is off and we can have no illusion that Trumpists think anything should get in the way of what they think they’re entitled to.
We can only hope that some of the 53% who chose white supremacy over womanhood get it now. They believed Trump’s reckless and vicious scapegoating and thought nothing of his plan to round up and deport law abiding Latinx adults. The 53% didn’t realize that they were voting for brown children to be ripped from their parents and jailed in cages without beds or showers (Source: “Trump’s family separation policy was flawed from the start, watchdog review says,” by Nick Miroff, Maria Sacchetti and Seung Min Kim, The Washington Post, 10/1/18). Even if some of the 53% were okay with torturing brown children, they probably didn’t realize that they were voting for people who would blithely poison their American children who speak perfect English, by weakening regulations limiting mercury emissions, if it means wringing out a few more dollars of profit for their coal baron buddies. Perhaps the 53% were able to ignore all of this because Trump promised restoration of an order that cemented unearned privilege as a shield to insulate mediocrity from competition. Their tragic mistake was in believing that “they” were part of whom Trump was protecting. I don’t know about you, but I wonder how they can look their teenage daughters in the eye.
#VOTELIKEBLACKWOMEN
#KAVANAW!!