Donald Trump’s latest comments about assaulting women aren’t new, they’re a pattern
On Friday, tapes were released of Donald Trump making lewd and inappropriate comments, where he boasts about sexually assaulting women, sending his campaign and the Republican Party into crisis mode, and prompting some GOP officeholders to both denounce Donald Trump’s rhetoric and actions, and call for him to withdraw his candidacy. Here’s the problem: This is a pattern of behavior from the Republican nominee for president.
The only appropriate response would have been real contrition. Embarrassed because he had been caught, Donald Trump tried Sunday night to cavalierly dismiss his words as “locker room talk” while lurking behind Hillary Clinton, interrupting her, lying and threatening — as only a person running for dictator, not president, would. After all, the man’s vengeance and narcissism have overcome any respect for racial or ethnic minorities. Why would we have thought it would be different for women?
As AFT member and PE teacher Steve Reich described in his recent Medium post this should not even be characterized as locker room talk: “What [Trump] calls ‘locker room banter’ is stuff we work hard to shut down in school.” As educators, “We have been trying to eradicate this type of behavior for a long time. We teach that good men and good women treat those around them with decency and respect.” This is clearly not a lesson Donald Trump ever learned.
Trump’s comments reignite a serious problem within our society — the degradation of women and girls. It’s not just disquieting and disgusting, it’s dangerous and disqualifying. Donald Trump, as a father of daughters, should know better.
For decades, we have been fighting sexual assault — trying to stop behavior like Donald Trump exhibited in the recently revealed tapes, his interviews with Howard Stern and his rhetoric on his own show, “The Apprentice.”
This is not the 1950s. Donald Trump should be condemned for dragging us back to a time when women were silenced, ridiculed or objectified.
This is not the 1950s. Donald Trump should be condemned for dragging us Donald Trump’s latest comments about assaulting women aren’t new, they’re a pattern – Medium: