A lifetime of misogyny catches up with Trump

[malaise]

https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/oct/14/donald-trump-women-misogyny-lifetime
<snip>
A former Trump business associate from his early beauty pageant industry days, Harth said that the tycoon behaved inappropriately with her from the day she met him. The first presentation she gave with her boyfriend and business partner George Houraney back in December 1992 marked not just the beginning of their partnership with Trump, which Harth described as the professional “highlight” of their career, but also, the beginning of a steady stream of unwanted sexual advances, culminating in the alleged assault in one of the children’s bedrooms at Mar-a-Lago, his ostentatious Florida mansion.

“He pushed me up against the wall, and had his hands all over me and tried to get up my dress again,” Harth recalled, “and I had to physically say: ‘What are you doing? Stop it.’ It was a shocking thing to have him do this because he knew I was with George.” If she had known Trump a bit better at the time, she might not have been so shocked.

Today, the examples of Trump’s misogyny, casual and calculated alike, are as well-rehearsed as they are reprehensible. But something has changed again. Last week, the tape of his conversation with Billy Bush brought them front and centre in the American conversation; this week, further testimony from two women who spoke to the New York Times, alleging that his claims back then were more than mere words, have ensured that the spotlight will not shift. His unguarded phrase, “grab them by the pussy”, has stuck because it chimed with the testimony of Jill Harth, and so many other women who have spoken out about their experience with Trump. As a former Miss Utah, Temple Taggart, put it to the New York Times when remembering how he had introduced himself by kissing her on the lips: “It was like, ‘Thank you.’ Now no one can say I made this up,” she said. In this context, the stories of the women who spoke up about Trump have taken on fresh weight: now undeniable as a map to his values and treatment of women for more than 40 years.

Jill Harth was not the only woman who got in touch with me about Trump this year. Kari Wells, a former model and Bravo actor, described her own experience with Trump’s sexual entitlement back in December 1992 when she was modelling in Aspen, Colorado, at the Ritz Carlton hotel and the Little Nell Hotels doing various fashion shows.

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[malaise]

1. How will Trump feel, this man who has regarded women all of his life as mere adornments, to

understand that he was beaten, at last, by a woman?

What a delish last line.

[Warpy]

5. That's exactly why he'll shriek that it was all rigged against him

No bit of fluff, especially an old bit of fluff his own age, is going to be able to overcome his innate, alpha male superiority.

Eventually he'll become a laughing stock and when that happens--if he notices--he'll become a recluse.

[Mc Mike]

23. The danger is that he'll fall into one of his "black moods",

that I've heard many are saying he frequently has.

[calimary]

30. That would be astounding - if he became such a public joke that he goes into seclusion.

although it'd be nice! I know I personally could seriously stand to take a break from this guy. But his ego and his narcissism both seem to be so strong, vast, and profound, that I don't think he could stand NOT being out in the public arena, stomping and careening wildly around, like a drunk F-5 tornado, sucking up as much attention as possible, and spewing out as much wreckage, ruin, debris, and general negativity as possible. And good attention/bad attention - it doesn't seem to make a difference to him! And he doesn't care!

Besides, he still sounds and behaves as though he's sure he'll win and he's merely angry that there are those who have the nerve to say he isn't, especially if he continues to embrace the bubble world as he seems to. Meanwhile, he's getting angrier, too. Stuff isn't caving to him like he's used to having it do. His "reality" inside that bubble world - where TV audiences adored him, Pox Noise was a wide-open door anytime he felt like ringing them up, he was on the cover of all kinds of magazines, a celebrity in his own right, and everybody wanted some little rub up against that Trump name and gold-plated perceived luster.

This campaign has opened many eyes about The Donald. He'll still have his true believers - because they cling to that bubble world as much as he does. And they WANT, WANT, REEEEEEALLY WANT it to be true. So the faithful will stay faithful, and the true believers will still truly believe.

Besides, nobody wants to admit they were wrong.

Many people are loathe to admit they made a mistake. I mean - look at who their nominee is!

And people REALLY, deeply and dearly don't want to admit they've been HAD.

[spanone]

2. trump is a serial womanizer....the steady drip, drip, drip could turn into a raging river

K&R...

[malaise]

6. Drip...drip...drip

As I wrote yesterday this is Kaieteur in full flow

[JanMichael]

37. "womanizer" maybe. Sexual assaulter? I think he admitted that on film (audio).

Not the same. A cool dude or chick who has some luck with the opposite or same sex is ok. Serially doing than fine. No biggie.

He is most definitely in the "no consent" corner by admission and accusers.

[Thinkingabout]

3. With the same descriptions from different women and he puts his hands on them suddenly it is

More like an attack, something a rapists would do, the element of surprise and by force. A serial rapists.

[malaise]

4. He has publicly stated his modus operandi

and these women have all given similar stories. He'd lose in any court.

[Thinkingabout]

10. If he wasn't Trump he would be in jail for sexual assault.

[malaise]

12. Add tax evasion, fraud

bogus foundation, bogus university, orchestrated by a total and complete racist, greedy classless lout.

[Thinkingabout]

15. He just may go to jail but with criminal charges, not scandals as produced by the

Republicans.

[Hekate]

38. One woman said, "It happened so fast." That bespeaks a lot of practice.

Trump is a vicious sociopath, to whom women are only pieces of meat.

[Thinkingabout]

39. Agree, sick man.

[saltpoint]

7. Here's a guy who plays all his life to the esteem

of other misogynist males, speaking of women as "pigs" and "dogs," and subtracting from their dignity in many other ways, both in speech and action, and at the same time, in a national election, needs a decisive percentage of women voters' support to be elected.

The disconnect here is vast. When the esteem of misogynists, ethnic bigots, and racists means more to you than We The People, you have no leave to ask We The People for support.

No leave at all.

There is a moment in Shakespeare's love story when Romeo, in Juliet's bed, warns of dawn, hearing the lark. Juliet says, No, it is the nightingale who sings, the promise of more hours together, more tenderness. It is one of the most staggeringly beautiful passages in the play. I can't think of any reason why any high school student should not read it.

Close to a certain Republican presidential campaign, the bird one hears is neither the lark nor the nightingale. It is a vulture. And it seems to have orange hair.

[malaise]

8. Nice post

[saltpoint]

9. I'm just hitching a ride on your post,

malaise. You are keeping it real for a lot of us around here. Don't stop for nothin'!

[malaise]

11. You mean the Guardian article??

[saltpoint]

13. If the Messenger has some good stuff to share,

I say invite him inside, get him a cold beer, and have him stay for dinner.

[malaise]

14. Ha n/t

[joshcryer]

16. Well written.

[nomorenomore08]

32. Which begs the question, what the hell is wrong with American men?

I mean, if over 50% of likely male voters are still "Trump or bust" at this stage...

[saltpoint]

34. Hi, nomorenomore08. I wanted to start

with your avatar to reply. U.S. American culture is wired to wonder what the hell is wrong with someone like Lou Reed.

Not that there were very many people like Lou Reed.

His parents evidently thought there was something wrong with him and he suffered for that impression. But if someone had the privilege of being Lou Reed's friend, my guess is that person would find very little to complain about in Lou Reed. Reed never had it very easy. It probably took "a busload of faith" for him to navigate through his life, sometimes even in New York, where he more or less had no natural cultural enemies in sufficient number.

It's a culture that murders John Kennedy and Dr. King, and Matthew Shepard. For decades U.S. Americans held cowboys way up high. Cowboys were in movies, on tv, everywhere. At this hour they are in bars all across the west. Cowboys are reticent, unemotional, and singular. It's a powerful mythos and it is not going to go quietly.

In a concurrent post tonight on DU there is mention made of Jon Voight, who played cowboy Joe Buck in Midnight Cowboy. Pretty bold taunting of the cowboy ethos if ever there was one.

I think boys are raised to be like cowboys -- the John Wayne kind and not the midnight cowboy kind. They got guns, some of them got Jesus, and they vote red.

But the cowboy's range has shrunk. They're still out there, in the bars, driving around, and on WSM in Nashville. But the range is smaller, the rewards are fewer, and the beer is warm. They're obstinate about voting for Republicans but even there, they see the territory grows smaller and smaller each election cycle. Annie Oakley was an ok gal because she acted like a cowboy. Hillary Clinton is the devil because she's done all that book-learnin' and it filled her head up with all them philosophical ideas like women's lib and it takes a village. A lone reticent cowboy don't need no stinkin' village.

But of course they do. And they need at least as much personal-secular-social faith as Lou Reed. They may never hit that mark, but they need to get a lot closer than they are now.

[nomorenomore08]

35. *Excellent* analysis. You should consider reworking this into an OP.

[saltpoint]

36. I remember hearing "Walk on the Wild Side" on

a top-40 AM station many moons back.

Never heard a vocal quite like that before. Never heard such a haunting sax line behind it either. (The sax player is David Bowie's former saxophone teacher!)

And the lyrics. I remember wondering how a song with lyrics like that made it past the censors. They must have been on elephant tranquilizer. Anyway, it slipped through and was playing out of my dashboard.

Wasn't sure what the criteria for genius were, but I felt I was hearing one.

Still think so.

[napkinz]

17. will the law catch up with him?

LOCK HIM UP!

[malaise]

18. Word is that Christie regrets using

very similar words

[napkinz]

19. :)

[malaise]

20. Heheheheh

[japple]

21. Snort!!!!! You owe me a beer for the one I spewed out of my nose!

This is the greatest!

[Mc Mike]

22. Maybe it would be easier for his campaign to just put out a list of the women he

didn't sexually attack.

[malaise]

24. Yah think! He's a self confessed predator

:

[Mc Mike]

25. About a month back, I thought we could list one

nazi connection, one mob connection, and one Putin connection for every day left in the campaign.

I have to amend that to add, "and 10 women he attacked", for every day left in the campaign.

[malaise]

28. Might be more before the dust settles

[Mc Mike]

29. True enough, mal. nt.

[ecstatic]

26. He was so worried about hiding his taxes that his sexist past

never occurred to him.

[malaise]

27. Then he's really disconnected from reality

I often wonder how people with known vile histories are so brazen. Didn't he think this would come out? This is not The Apprentice.

[saltpoint]

31. Agree. He seems to be something of

a control freak, and he just doesn't seem to understand that a tv show has a set and the rest of the world doesn't.

A tv show set is a lot easier to control than everything else. So he hits the real world and within weeks is a babbling psychotic.

[nomorenomore08]

33. This has been a long time coming, but that just makes it all the more glorious.

Never have I seen a candidate self-destruct like this on a national stage.