It was not just a bad week for Trump, It was a bad week for men
The Atlantic came out with only its third endorsement of a Presidential candidate ever, the first in more than 50 years (Lyndon B. Johnson, 1964) by endorsing Hillary Clinton in its upcoming November 2016 issue. The remarkable thing about the magazine’s support for Clinton, much like its argument against Goldwater in ’64, is its reasoned notion that Trump not only possessed the same lack of temperament and statesmanship needed to be Commander-in-Chief as did Senator Goldwater but also further insisted that, “…the Republican Party’s nominee, Donald J. Trump, who might be the most ostentatiously unqualified major-party candidate in the 227-year history of the American presidency.”
The recent revelation of ‘hot mic’ comments made by Trump in 2005 to Access Hollywood reveal a shockingly disturbing, misogynistic, disgusting, self-aggrandizing, [borderline] sexual predator with an entitlement complex that goes beyond anything that is either normal or should be tolerated in this society. Especially a society that is often quick to claim a strong Judeo-Christian ethos, as often proclaimed proudly by Trump’s own running mate, Indiana Governor Mike Pence.
But I don’t wish to waste time calling out the blatant hypocrisy that is the Christian Right and their love of God, country, gun, and patriarchal order — you built Frankenstein’s monster called the Tea Party and with it left the barn door wide open for every fringe, hate filled, march back to the 19, err, 1850s, extreme right wing jihadist group to find comfort, from the American Nazi party to the Klan and one of its notable members, David Duke, who uses Trump’s ascension as fuel for his current run for the U.S. Senate in Louisiana. The blind eye given toward the rise of hate and intolerance in this country against celebrating our differences and diversity (often referred to as a war on political correctness and for family values) has helped nurture this new world order we all are challenged to struggle in to survive. Donald Trump’s predictable disclosure this week does not mean yet another bad political week for the nominee and his party, it is an indictment on all of maledom.
Men should be embarrassed by the fact that the deplorable language used by Trump on the tape only ranks a tepid “meh” as a response. Men should be embarrassed by Trump’s description of how he truly sees women, not as equals, hell, not even as humans, but as an object that he is entitled to have anyway he chooses. If you have been living under a rock this past week or have completely missed the salacious comments made by the human troglodyte, a complete transcript is available, which lays bare just how horrible a person Donald Trump is. His words merit no special consideration here because not only do they stand on their own, they should be read and discredited immediately for their vile, demeaning nature.
Sadly his comments are only indicative of a prevalent attitude many (and I mean many, including myself) men have voiced in the past or hold dear to this day. It is embarrassing to own up to the fact that actions you may have engaged in and attitudes held (hopefully no longer but sadly that may not be entirely true for many of us), maybe not to the appalling level of offensiveness as a man who has the possibility of being the leader of this country, makes us as deplorable and disgusting, owing a long, overdue apology to any and every woman we have ever offended.
A YouGov, CBS News Battleground Tracker poll taken Friday, October 7th after the 2005 tape became public found a gender gap in how Trump was viewed, based on the comments he made. Looking particularly at the states of Pennsylvania and Ohio where polls show Clinton with respective leads of 48–40 and 46–42, the analysis of voter attitudes in Ohio and Pennsylvania found that:
“Slight majorities in each state, 54 percent in Ohio and 51 percent in Pennsylvania, said the tape did not change their view of Trump, while 44 percent in Ohio and 47 percent in Pennsylvania said it made them think worse of Trump, though most in the latter groups were not supporting him beforehand. There is a gender gap on this: in Pennsylvania, women are more likely than men to say it makes their view of Trump worse, by 53 percent to 42 percent.”
This was a bad week for men. It’s a bad week because we have yet to come to terms with the fact that the way in which we treat women is just as creepy as this idiotic egomaniac who appears to be the fulfillment of some fading idea that America can become great again if only rich white men were again in charge. By the way, how did that work for us during the Great Recession of 2007–2009 when greedy bankers, insurance company executives such as those at AIG, and mortgage lenders (Washington Mutual, Countrywide, etc.) created exotic leveraged mortgage securities nobody understood, packaged and repackaged them, and operated the largest legal Ponzi scheme that brought the American economy to the brink of annihilation?
Maybe this musing will fall on deaf ears while for others it will invoke an angry response. I wish I cared but if I were given a bushel ‘fucks’ to give this morning my basket would still be full at the end of the day, a clear indication of how I feel about what you think. I am not an apologist for men and I am as much guilty of the enabling behavior I call out. I am baffled and amazed that a man barely qualified to own a checkbook (given his reported bankruptcies and business failures) enjoys so much widespread support among men and, as the emperor’s clothes are unraveling, none of you who support this person has the guts to say enough. If your opinion of Trump is unchanged by every incident, disclosure, lie, or deception that seems to be commonplace of this person devoid of moral substance, the question may be not what is wrong with Trump but rather what in the hell is wrong with men that we enable this behavior and accept this as a bare minimum?
Women deserve better than this — frankly, we all deserve better than this. Not because it is our job to give women better but to do better by women. The paternalistic attitude we express and the patronizing way in which we go about addressing women’s issues has to stop. It shouldn’t take a law to pay women the same as men, although income inequality remains unchanged, just do it. It shouldn’t take colleges and universities to insert courses on appropriate behavior, warning young women what to wear and how to act when in the company of young men on campus, as opposed to simply telling entitled young boys (really all boys) like rapist Brock Turner (N.B. media, please stop calling him Stanford swimmer, he is a convicted rapist, err, registered sex offender, who received a lenient sentence) to keep their penises in their fucking pants and hands to themselves.
We don’t need to protect women, especially from a boorish predator like Trump. We need to respect women.
