Trump bragged during that now-infamous hot-mic moment on Access Hollywood about being entitled to kiss women on the mouth and grab them by the pussy … because he’s a star. That was just the latest in a series of outrages that should have disqualified his presidential campaign.
But I wrote in “Evangelicals Supporting Donald Trump like Israelites Worshipping Golden Calf,” January 20, 2016, that we’re experiencing a black-swan election year in which political norms do not apply.
Well, it now seems the seminal moment of his second presidential debate with Hillary Clinton came when he denied ever sexually assaulting any woman. Because that denial hatched all kinds of chicks to come home to roost:
Donald Trump assailed as ‘absolutely false’ the allegations by several women that he groped them, and accused Democratic rival Hillary Clinton, the media and lobbyists of engaging in an effort to stop him from winning the White House…
Trump spoke after the New York Times reported that two women said they had endured sexual aggression from him, and several other women made similar allegations in other media outlets.
(Reuters, October 13, 2016)
In fact, as of this writing, CNN has reported the accounts of eight women who have come out of the proverbial woodwork.
And it does not bode well for Trump that, during a press conference with one of his accusers yesterday, famed attorney Gloria Allred, who represents most of Bill Cosby’s 50-plus accusers, warned that many others are considering coming out too.
More to the point, these women are clearly rattling Trump, causing him to fulminate about conspiracies that are even more unhinged than his birther madness about President Obama.
The only defense one can decipher from his “unshackled” diatribes against his accusers, which is now passing as his stump speech, is that a) his accusers are not pretty enough for him to have groped any of them; and b) a global power structure of corporate interests, the media, and the Clinton campaign is using them as part of a “yuge” conspiracy to “stop his movement.”
Perhaps most notably, though, he’s furthering his racist rant against Mexicans by claiming that Carlos Slim, a major investor in the New York Times, is the immigrant mastermind behind this conspiracy.
Like I said, it’s sheer madness.
Meanwhile, his Republican apologists are unwittingly aping his madness as they try to defend his increasingly deranged protestations.
This was brought into cringeworthy relief yesterday, when his vice presidential candidate, Mike Pence, said on CBS This Morning that Trump would present evidence within hours to refute each and every allegation. That evidence turned out to be nothing more than another Trump rally featuring more of his unshackled diatribe.
Seriously folks, Trump’s presidential campaign stopped being a national laughingstock long ago. It now represents the most egregious betrayal of the country’s democratic and Judeo-Christian values since the days of Jim Crow 50 years ago.
Not to mention the threat it poses to national security – complete with Trump’s almost treasonous bromance with Vladimir Putin. This, despite U.S. intelligence agencies declaring that Putin’s Russia is continually feeding WikiLeaks hacked information, which is clearly intended to sow political discord and undermine confidence in the outcome of this presidential election.
Then there’s the spectacle of Trump fomenting distrust with his brazenly baseless claims about the election being rigged. This is plainly the last refuge of this political scoundrel: better to play victim than accept his ironic fate as the biggest loser in the history of American politics.
Incidentally, nothing demonstrates how baseless his claims are quite like Trump blaming the “rigged media.” After all, this is the same media whose billions in free coverage helped him win the Republican nomination — as he himself used to boast. And this is the same media whose reporting on the hacked e-mails of Democratic operatives seems orchestrated to rig the election in his favor … if only his campaign were not such an unprecedented and inexorable train wreck.
The problem, however, is that Trump might use these claims as a pretext to refuse to concede. This would impede the orderly transfer of presidential power, which has been the most hallowed and reassuring feature of American democracy for over 200 years. Even worse, it could trigger chaos and violence that make the infamous fallout from Bush vs. Gore in 2000 look like an extended national holiday.
But, frankly, Trump is too self-centered, stupid, and reckless to give a damn.