In this fashion, he humiliated his male Republican primary opponents, demeaning them with nicknames -- Little Marco, Lyin' Ted, Low-Energy Jeb -- and denigrated his only female primary opponent, Carly Fiorina, by unfavorably appraising her appearance. ("Look at that face! Would anyone vote for that?") More recently, of course, he's disparaged "Crooked Hillary" in a similar fashion. ("Such a nasty woman!")
Growing Up in America
Hillary Clinton, as Trump himself has acknowledged, is a fighter who will not quit -- unperturbed even by his stalking her on stage throughout the second presidential debate and body-shaming her afterwards. "She walked in front of me," he said of a moment in that debate when she crossed the stage to speak to a questioner in the audience. "Believe me, I wasn't impressed." In the third debate, she called him out directly on his behavior. "Donald thinks belittling women makes him bigger," she said. "He goes after their dignity, their self-worth, and I don't think there is a woman anywhere who doesn't know what that feels like."
Here was something new under the sun: a woman on a presidential debate stage calling out an insufferable man -- a serial predator, at that -- on behavior so common among men for so long that the vast majority of women in this country have experienced it and learned to call it "life."
Some women still see it that way. The New York Times, for instance, interviewed a 62-year-old woman voting for Trump who said that other women offended by his "banter" should "grow up." I like to think that hers is a good description of what's happening nationally at the moment, though obviously not in the fashion that she imagined. After all, grown-up women led the way, among congressional representatives, in calling Trump out. Republican Congresswomen Barbara Comstock of Virginia and Martha Roby of Alabama both asked him to withdraw from the race. Kay Granger of Texas, Mia Love of Utah, and Ann Wagner of Missouri said they could not vote for him. Republican Senators Lisa Murkowski of Alaska, Susan Collins of Maine, Deb Fischer of Nebraska, and Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia withdrew their support. Susana Martinez, Republican governor of New Mexico, said she would not support Trump, while former Republican presidential candidate Fiorina said that Trump should step aside. Republican former Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice wrote on her Facebook page: "Enough! Donald Trump should not be President. He should withdraw."
Still, don't expect a serial abuser to be a quitter either. Faced with accusations of abhorrent and criminal acts he can't acknowledge, plus impending incomprehensible defeat at the polls, and the very real possibility of becoming one of those people he so despises -- a loser -- Trump casts about for others to blame. Given his character, it's not surprising that he follows, as if by instinct, what we might call the Joel Steinberg path to self-exoneration -- painting himself, and himself alone, as the ultimate innocent victim of abusive others in a world whose every aspect is "rigged" against him.
In his own telling, he, not the women he's demeaned or assaulted, is the abused one and he's taking it for us, for America. It's quite a self-portrait when you think about it and should make us appreciate all the more those women who stepped before the cameras, reported his sexual assaults, and left themselves open to further abuse from Trump and his supporters. They have done something rare and brave. It's one thing for a woman to say publicly that she has been sexually assaulted or battered or raped. Feminist speak-outs taught us decades ago to support our sisters by sharing our experience in this way. But it's another thing to name the perpetrator and call him to account. That's what these women have done. And wonder of wonders, most women and a whole lot of men believe them, and more than 60%, in the tepid language of the pollsters, "have some concerns" about the issue. Count that as a positive change of recent years -- a light in dismal times.
On the dark side, you never know what a sore loser and his loyal, bullying, misogynist followers might do. Say, for example, followers of the type who show up outside Hillary rallies with banners reading "Trump that b*tch!" The moment the trial of Joel Steinberg ended, armed guards surrounded him and hustled him off to prison. Unfortunately, when this election is over, whether Trump wins or loses, he's not likely to go away.
Ann Jones, a TomDispatch regular, is the author of several books on violence against women, including the feminist classic Women Who Kill and Next Time, She'll Be Dead: Battering and How to Stop It, which Gloria Steinem calls "the one book you should read" on the subject. It includes a chapter on the Steinberg case. She is also the author of the Dispatch Books original, They Were Soldiers: How the Wounded Return from America's Wars -- The Untold Story.
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Copyright 2016 Ann Jones
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