Friday, November 4, 2016

[Special] Donald Trump's Sexual Assault Allegations: November 2016 Edition

The flood of sexual assault claims was coming in at such a rapid rate that I decided to compile them and wait until the tide subsided, so I could then drop them in a single post. Since the American media and public are now obsessed with discussing FBI Director James Comey's unprecedented and unusual announcement about additional emails found on Anthony Weiner's computer which may or may not be classified and may or may not have been to/from Hillary Clinton and may or may not be duplicates of emails they already have, the sexual assault business is now merely the echo of a memory. Except here, of course, where I strive to chronicle all of the insanity of Donald Trump.

This post is not an essay so much as a link dump, so apologies for the lack of prose. Also, as a note, despite this being the "November Edition," there are no articles from November, save towards the end, where an article by Vocativ (linked in the last paragraph) highlights the GOP folks who disavowed Trump and then reaffirmed their support for him like the craven, spineless frauds they are. Below is a list of articles relating to Trump's sexual assaults that came out on or after the October Edition was published.

As Dana Milbank wrote for the Post, we knew this Trump all along: 

Republicans may be dismayed by the super-predator they saw and heard in the video (just as they purported to be stunned by Trump’s racist attack on Judge Gonzalo Curiel despite Trump’s long history of racism), but they have no business being surprised. What’s on that tape is entirely consistent with what we already knew.

Even before this tape emerged, we knew that his wife Ivana accused him at the time of their divorce of raping her (Trump’s lawyer asserted that there is no such thing as spousal rape). We’ve known for months that makeup artist Jill Harth filed a 1997 complaint accusing Trump of attempted rape and of groping her in his daughter Ivanka’s bedroom. We’ve seen complaint after complaint about his lewd behavior on set at “The Apprentice” and at his Miss Universe pageants.

But while people can question the he-said, she-said allegations against Trump, it’s harder to dispute the meaning of his own words.

Here, for the benefit of those Republicans feigning surprise about Trump’s video, is a partial catalogue of reported remarks Trump has made about women — remarks which, by embracing Trump as the GOP presidential nominee, office holders in the party have already condoned[.]

I won't reproduce the large volume of unfortunate quotations here; you can click the link for yourself. Suffice to say, the outrage (which has since subsided, and the opposition mustered by Republican officials has faded as they jump back onto the Trump train) came surprisingly late considering the man that is Donald Trump. As Bill Simmons noted, "But seriously - why did it take today for people to turn on Trump? He's been horrible this whole time."

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