This entire election has been a disaster from the very beginning. We're all aware that on November 8th our nation will be changed forever. We will either come out of it with our first woman president or have a billionaire villain who believes women are objects designed to have sex with him as president.
Personally my political views differ from Hillary Rodham Clinton's, but faced against "The Donald" I don't believe our country has much of a choice. You can, of course, vote third party, but I believe we should be voting strategically this November.
More importantly, I don't believe a man who has an apparent history of sexually assaulting women is fit to be president of the United States of America.
In a video released (originally obtained by The Washington Post) on Friday October 7, Donald Trump can be heard making lewd remarks about his women colleagues, and other women in general. After talking to Billy Bush (host of Access Hollywood at the time) for a few minutes in a conversation about kissing whomever they wanted to and trying to have sex with married women, Trump states, "And when you're a star, they let you do it. You can do anything." Billy Bush replies, "Whatever you want." Trump's reply is what has the nation, and the rest of the world, outraged. He states, "Grab her by the pussy. You can do anything."
The idea of Donald Trump doing that to anyone, consensual or not, has me wanting to vomit.
After the video was released Donald Trump released an apology on his Facebook page. I read his apology, I heard his words. His apology is laced with spite for having to do this at all, for this blowing up. He calls it "a distraction". He says it takes away from what's actually important.
I think this is important.
In the presidential debate held two days after the video was released Donald Trump called his actions of sexual assault "locker room talk."
Let's let that sink in. Locker room talk. His vulgar video of three minutes and two seconds is just locker room talk. It happens everywhere. It certainly did not only occur for Donald Trump in just those three minutes of his life. Ironically, or not, it did not even occur in a locker room.
I'm going to jump ahead here and just say that Donald Trump's "locker room talk" is probably a daily occurrence for him. You don't just talk about women that way once and be done with it. This is how he views women. He says it is with respect. Does a man that respects women say these things? That he can do anything he wants to women, just because he's a star? What does that mean if he's elected president?
Allowing this to happen without repercussion is an endless, dirty, and sometimes deadly cycle. It starts on the playground when you dismiss destructive behavior and name calling as "boys will be boys". It continues throughout middle and high school when girls fear saying no to their boyfriends because they don't want to face the consequences. It happens to girls of all ages as they're forced to hug uncles that hold too tightly in the wrong places, as they walk down the street on a hot summer day or a freezing winter night bundled up being catcalled by men passing by. It happens when a man grabs girl, a teenager, or a woman, and they are blamed because of what they are wearing or what they are drinking.
It happens all throughout our lives when men, when people of power, when Donald Trump, views a woman as a sexual object instead of a human being.
They get away with it. They continue to get away with it. It needs to stop.
Allowing this to happen, allowing him to simply apologize for this and continue on with this election speaks volumes for the ways women are treated in this country. This is rape culture appropriation, and it is wrong.
There have been many facts laid before us about each candidate. Please vote your conscience on November 8.
