It can be confusing, tracking the multiple lawsuits journalist E. Jean Carroll filed against Donald Trump, who sexually abused her in the 90s and then lied about it. This is no doubt why U.S. District Court Judge Lewis Kaplan wrote a brief that bluntly laid out the main takeaway: Trump raped Carroll, as the word “rape” is commonly understood.
“The fact that Mr. Trump sexually abused — indeed, raped — Ms. Carroll has been conclusively established,” Kaplan wrote in a court filing. This document allows journalists to use the R-word when discussing what Trump did to Carroll in a department store changing room in New York.
Considering that they back Trump, you’d think Republican women would avoid acting like they think rape is a bad thing.
So considering that they back Trump, you’d think Republican women would avoid acting like they think rape is a bad thing, much less something to get worked up over. Yet Republicans in the MAGA era have embraced total shamelessness as a political weapon. That means Republican women gleefully exploit sexual violence, crying giant crocodile tears over rape and other gendered violence, when in reality, they do everything they can to screw over actual victims.
No, they are not. They say this stuff because they genuinely think there is such a thing as an “undecided” voter with Republicans. They genuinely think they’re being good stewards of a “big tent” party, when all they end up doing is capitulating with dishonest actors which directly helps the country slide further and further right.
If the DNC were a person, they would be, completely and legitimately, the type of person to stare the devil in the face, fail to recognize the evil, and ask, “friend?”.