Donald J. Trump is running for president. He has accused Mexican-Americans of being rapists and drug-dealers; he has denounced Muslim-Americans as potential terrorists; he has belittled blacks and gays and disabled people. Most of all, though, throughout the whole campaign, he has ridiculed and demeaned women. Yet oddly, until now, there has been no overwhelming public outcry about DJT's primitive, barnyard view of "acceptable" human behavior.
Then, last Friday, an eleven year-old videotape surfaced. In it, Trump gloats with characteristic swagger of his supposedly irresistible skill in "getting women," even married women--indeed, in actually assaulting them in any way that he wants, including "grabbing them by the pussy."
And that, finally, was too much. Even Donald's GOP pals gulped, backed off, backed down and backed out of the picture. Because that repulsive video made every male in the country squirm--and every woman shudder.
Predictably, a pseudo apology arrived the next night, but it indicated no real change of heart or of fundamental thinking. Instead, it merely pointed out that "all men" (and, notably, Bill Clinton) talk like this sometimes--and that such locker room loutishness "doesn't mean anything."
But it does mean something, doesn't it? Something pretty important, actually. Read on.
Trump is partially right, of course: an awful lot of men (usually sexually insecure and usually a good deal younger than Trump was) have engaged in or sheepishly "gone along with" vulgar, snickering braggadocio of the sort revealed in the aforementioned video. But I find the nearly universal condemnation--by men as well as women--nonetheless heartening. Even though some of the censure is merely "cover your ass" pretense, much of it arises from a recognition that DJT's mindset and demeanor, despite their persistence and our frequent bad-faith complicity, are ultimately
not laudable,
not acceptable, and
not excusable merely because "others do it, too."
Rather, in our disapproval, we acknowledge (often shamefacedly because of things we, ourselves, have said or tolerated) such attitudes are both demeaning and harmful to the
entire human family--to men as well as women. Because as our vaunted self-awareness informs us, human beings are
better than that; our brains and our reason give us the potential to rise above and control stupid, brute urges. Isn't that is what it means to be civilized and "human"? In rejecting DJT's locker room (or barnyard) approach to interpersonal relations, we are demanding that our country, and indeed our species, strive to realize the potential we ourselves have glimpsed above the muck, and which the nobler minds among us have articulated as a moral imperative.
Overall, then, I view Trump's political message--his insincere apology notwithstanding--as little more than a base appeal to return to the animality of barnyard strutting, rutting and gutting. Let us resist pussy-grabbing with all the human dignity we can muster.
Donald J. Trump is running for president. He has accused Mexican-Americans of being rapists and drug-dealers; he has denounced Muslim-Americans as potential terrorists; he has belittled blacks and gays and disabled people. Most of all, though, throughout the whole campaign, he has ridiculed and demeaned women. Yet oddly, until now, there has been no overwhelming public outcry about DJT's primitive, barnyard view of "acceptable" human behavior.
Predictably, a pseudo apology arrived the next night, but it indicated no real change of heart or of fundamental thinking. Instead, it merely pointed out that "all men" (and, notably, Bill Clinton) talk like this sometimes--and that such locker room loutishness "doesn't mean anything."
