Donald Trump continued his streak of defending accused abusers while simultaneously attacking alleged victims this morning.
Just before 9 a.m., Trump took to Twitter to speak his mind about Christine Blasey Ford’s request that the Federal Bureau of Investigations look into her claims that Judge Brett Kavanaugh sexually assaulted her when they were both high school students.
Never mind that the FBI actually has the word “investigation” in its name and that it is an agency that is tasked with looking into the backgrounds of people up for high-ranking jobs in our government—including Supreme Court justice. Your wackadoodle president thinks this goes against everything ‘Murica stands for.
As Senior Editor Stephen A. Crockett Jr. said to me in Slack, “We all knew it was only a matter of time before President Pussy-Grabber emerged to rear his misogynistic orange-tinted head.”
He reminded me that Trump’s tweets come just days after he showed uncharacteristic restraint and said that he wanted to “see a complete process” play out for Blasey Ford’s allegations against Kavanaugh.
Something must have changed though, because Trump let his inner conspiracy theorist out Friday morning when he tweeted, “Judge Brett Kavanaugh is a fine man, with an impeccable reputation, who is under assault by radical left wing politicians who don’t want to know the answers, they just want to destroy and delay. Facts don’t matter. I go through this with them every single day in D.C.”
Now let me stop you right there, Mr. President. In fact, let me stop everyone who uses this lame ass defense of accused abusers.
Just because you have never been sexually assaulted by your friend doesn’t mean it is impossible for your friend to be a sexual abuser. Just because you have never witnessed a behavior does not mean that behavior doesn’t exist.
I can give you an example.
I know a man who I considered to be a real gentleman. Every interaction I have ever had with him was nice. He was kind, smart and funny. All his friends loved him—male and female alike. He comes from a good family, and his parents are well-respected here in Los Angeles. Everyone liked this dude.
Within the last two years, it was revealed that a number of our mutual female friends have accused him of some form of sexual assault that usually took place at a party where the woman was drunk or otherwise incapacitated. Criminal charges have been pressed against him in Los Angeles County.
I never had that experience with the man in question, but that did not negate the fact that other women had. See how that works?
Trump followed up on his initial tweet with, “I have no doubt that, if the attack on Dr. Ford was as bad as she says, charges would have been immediately filed with local Law Enforcement Authorities by either her or her loving parents. I ask that she bring those filings forward so that we can learn date, time, and place!”
Again, I must stop you, Mr. President.
According to the Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN), out of every 1,000 rapes, only 310 are reported to police. Of those 310 reports, only 57 result in an arrest. Only 11 of those 57 result in a criminal prosecution, and only 7 of those 11 lead to a felony conviction. And even when there is a conviction, only 6 perpetrators actually end up incarcerated. Does anyone remember the case of Brock Turner, the Stanford rapist?
You know the reason why women don’t come forward? Because of people like our president, who paint them as a criminal simply for reporting what happened to them. Women don’t come forward because we live in a society that enables abusers and abuses the victims—as a rule, and not an exception.
Women don’t come forward because why should they when we have a president in office who was recorded on tape saying he thinks it’s OK to just grab women “in the pussy.”
Women don’t come forward because the white men in power don’t make it easy for anyone, but most especially for anyone who is coming for one of their own.
If Brett Kavanaugh has nothing to hide, then an FBI investigation should be something he champions, not fights against. An investigation could clear his name.
Running from it and simultaneously attacking the alleged victim who is asking for it just leads people to believe that he is guilty, and his rich white friends are enabling and protecting him.
Not to mention, if a man is up for a lifetime appointment to the highest court in the land and that same man—who would be in a position to rule on cases involving rape—has been accused of rape himself, an investigation is the least of what should happen.
Which almost kinda seems like what happened over 30 years ago, and may be the reason why Blasey Ford never came forward in the first place.
But don’t take my word for it. Go read the words of the many women who never reported their sexual assaults. They explain to you why they didn’t.
As of the writing of this post, #WhyIDidntReport is the No. 1 trending topic on Twitter.
But please, continue to pretend that men like our president don’t continue to make this an issue.
Continue to pretend that just because a woman didn’t report it right away means that it didn’t happen.