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The Different Drummer
Biden Could Secure His Legacy With This One Move
There is particular cruelty in the fact that an adjudicated rapist has twice blocked the glass ceiling from being broken. This can be fixed.
– Donald Trump
On Election Day 2016, I was living alone in a room in East Los Angeles, separated from my family as I prepared for my run against Monica Garcia in the 2017 LAUSD School Board race. As the results trickled in, I fielded many calls from my wife, who became more panicked as the night wore on. I did my best to calm her down by explaining what data was not in yet and what to look for.
Eventually, it became clear that Clinton did not have a path forward. I called up my wife to let her know: “You can panic now.”
The results on that night were shocking and left me numb. A month earlier the Access Hollywood tape had been released, exposing Trump as a misogynist who was bragging about sexually assaulting women. Somehow it had not hurt him and he was about to ascend to the country’s highest office. The glass ceiling had been approached but Hillary Clinton was unable to break it. Male dominance of the presidency was safe for at least another four years.
While Trump excused his words as “locker room talk,” we now know that it was more than empty boasting. A jury found that Trump slammed E. Jean Carroll “into the wall [and] pulled down her tights”. While Carroll also alleged that Trump “penetrated her with his penis”, the jury could only agree that she was violated with a body part. While this does not meet New York’s legal definition of “rape,” Judge Kaplan found that “Trump ‘raped’ [Carroll] as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape.’”
Confirming his status as the Misogynist in Chief, Trump’s blustery defense included the claim that even though, in a photo, he had…
