It Starts Early for Girls

It starts early for girls. Most of us have the experience of being grabbed and manhandled by some adult man before we’re old enough to vote. Possibly before we reach puberty. It might be a stranger, or a family friend. It might be a family member. It might happen on the job, especially if that first job is in food service. Restaurants do not pay waitresses. They subcontract that duty out to customers. Young women learn early that they must be pleasing and flirtatious, and tolerate unacceptable behavior with a smile if they want to be paid. It provides excellent early training for young women in what they can expect for the rest of their lives. That early grooming may be one reason we see some women defending Trump.

By now you’ve heard Donald Trump boasting on tape about how celebrity status means you can kiss and grab women, in the crudest of terms, to his giggling, testosterone fueled fratboy buddy, one of the lesser Bushes. Trump was 60 years old at the time. His wife was pregnant. For me the worst part of the whole tape was the way he referred to the actress that he and Fratboy Bush were about to glom onto as “it” - as in “it looks good.” Women aren’t actually people to Trump, they are objects. If they look good, they are objects that Trump is entitled to. If he doesn’t find them attractive, they are objects for public ridicule.

To dismiss this as “locker room talk” is not only insulting to women, it’s insulting to all of the decent men in the world who would never dream of speaking or acting that way. It’s a way of slapping the old “boys will be boys” label on this mess, as if we should tolerate and expect this behavior from boys, even when the boys in question are nearly old enough to collect Social Security.

This has created a big problem for the GOP, who weren’t all that popular with women to begin with. The recent émigrés to the Trump bandwagon are in a real predicament. In February, John Sununu Pere wrote an editorial piece for the Union Leader and urged people not to drink the “Trump Kool-Aid.” Recently we learned he’d been guzzling that particular beverage, presumably in the hopes that his son would be able to ride Trump’s coattails to the governor’s mansion. Chris Sununu isn’t backing down. He’s blithely giving Trump a pass, something his daughter may have a few things to say about in the future.

Speaking of daughters, imagine being one of Trump’s daughters, hearing that tape of their father discussing how he grabs women by the genitals, and “they let him”. The night of the debate, his younger daughter engaged in what appeared to be a very practiced maneuver to avoid being kissed by her father. One of my friends sent me the clip. He’s disgusted that we live in a world where girls learn how to do this.

Since this big revelation, we’ve seen a lot of reactions. Some Republicans have washed their hands of Trump. Senator Kelly Ayotte was engaging in a curious kind of dance, where she said she was supporting Trump but not endorsing him. She wanted to show her support for the GOP ideology without taking any kind of principled stand against Trump. She’s been freed to ditch him. Serial liar Frank Guinta once hoped to ride the Trumptails back to Congress, and now has to contend with not only the withering contempt of the NH Union Leader (the GOP’s statewide newsletter) but also with the fleas he’s picking up from lying down with that particular dog. Guinta also has a daughter. How proud she must be.

There is a certain irony in the fact that Trump started off by demonizing Mexicans, then moved on to all-purpose xenophobia by demonizing all immigrants, Muslims, and mocked a reporter with a disability. By far and away, though, the majority of his contempt throughout the years has been for women. His bizarre obsession with Rosie O’Donnell comes to mind. Once you have a billion dollars, and build yourself a tacky gilded palace complete with gold plated plumbing fixtures, one appears to have a lot of time on one’s hands for celebrity feuds and beauty pageants. The way he spoke about Miss Universe is certainly a lesson in perceived ownership, racism and contempt.

This is what a big chunk of the electorate wants to elevate to the highest office in our land. A morally bankrupt individual who loudly bellows ignorant proclamations, engages in rambling, sniffly speeches, promises to fix things but has no actual plan for anything, other than yonking down a tic-tac and kissing some women and grabbing them. Our country is sick. Trump isn’t the disease, but he’s the loudest and orangest symptom of it.

The disease is the contempt for government that the Republican Party began to nurture during the Reagan administration. They said gummint was the problem, and went on to elect a host of folks who did their level best to prove it. That was further fed by the Citizens United decision that unleashed unrestricted cash in the service of electing more terrible people. Tea Party ideologues have taken root and worked hard to obstruct in Congress, in the US Senate, and in state legislatures throughout the land, including New Hampshire.

This election cycle has cheapened the process so much that I don’t see how we can ever recover. Whatever happens in the general election – the aftermath is going to be ugly.

Trump has provided us with a barometer. Those who are supporting him despite recent revelations have made an illustrative choice. They may say that Trump’s commentary was offensive, give it the locker-room whitewash, and label it a distraction – but the fact that they’ve chosen to continue to support him means that they have just as much contempt for women and even more contempt for the process than their candidate.   

It starts early for girls. There’s no end in sight.