Charlie Sykes had a good column today about the astonishing fact that the GOP front runner is on trail for rape and there is a legion of other women who have credibly accused him of assault:
By the latest count, 26 (!) women have accused Trump of sexual assault or misconduct. Here’s the full list.
[…]
Now we hear that Trump plans to skip the Carroll trial, passing up a chance to testify, or to deny the charges under oath.
When prompted by Kaplan, Tacopina confirmed his client would not appear.
“So Mr. Trump will not be coming?” Kaplan asked.
“That’s right, your honor,” Tacopina replied.
Let’s try to put this into some context:
It is
hardimpossible to imagine that someone with more than two dozen accusations of sexual assault would be able to survive in any other realm of American society: business, entertainment, sports, the military, even politics.We save our lowest standards for the presidency.
As we now know, the charges of assault — and rape — are not disqualifying for the GOP; since the release of the Access Hollywood tape, the charges have barely been a factor. Now, they hardly even register.
In the right-wing media, the women have been thoroughly memory-holed. Philip Bump notes:
When Carroll’s allegation first emerged in June 2019, CNN mentioned it on-air more than 130 times…. MSNBC mentioned it more than 110 times. Fox News mentioned it less than 10 times.
This year, the pattern has been similar. CNN has mentioned Carroll more than 230 times and MSNBC more than 440. Fox News has mentioned her seven times.
Seven times.
But, to be fair, it’s not just Fox News. Out of the hundreds (thousands?) of articles written about Donald Trump in the last two years, how many have mentioned the women?
Imagine writing a story about Harvey Weinstein . . . without once mentioning the #MeToo allegations. And yet, when is the last time Trump was even asked about the allegations? Outside of the E. Jean Carroll trial, how many news stories about his surging presidential campaign even mention them?
Will Trump even be asked about it at next week’s CNN’s townhall?
What’s the over/under on the number of women whose names will even be uttered? (My guess is one, but I wouldn’t be surprised if it’s zero.)
I can’t imagine CNN r=bringing it up. And the Republicans voters at the townhall are unlikely to do it either. Nobody cares about this, not really. It’s baked into Trump’s reputation and I suspect many of his voters like it about him.