Search Wikipedia for “Trump’s Access Hollywood tapes” and you’ll find the following entry: “On October 7, 2016, during the 2016 United States presidential election, The Washington Post published a video and accompanying article about then-presidential candidate Donald Trump and television host Billy Bush having ‘an extremely lewd conversation about women’ in 2005. Trump and Bush were in a bus on their way to film an episode of Access Hollywood, a show owned by NBC Universal. In the video, Trump described his attempt to seduce a married woman and indicated he might start kissing a woman that he and Bush were about to meet. He added, ‘I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the *****. You can do anything.’”
That’s about as clear-cut an admission of sexual assault as you’ll find.
Since then, Trump has assumed the office of president and has been charged with various types of sexual molestation by at least 16 different women. The most recent allegation, made by writer E. Jean Carroll, claims that Trump sexually assaulted her — in an act that meets the definition of rape — in the mid-1990s and she only now found the courage to make it known. Her account was recently published by New York Magazine in an excerpt from her forthcoming book “What Do We Need Men For?” Since then, Carroll’s accusation has been corroborated by two friends who came forward to say that she told them of the abuse immediately after it occurred. As he has done with every such allegation, Trump has denied it and attacked his accuser. And as usual, his Republican supporters — especially those in the U.S. Senate — have been quick to accept his denial as fact and simply disregard the allegation.
What is even more appalling to this writer is that neither the major daily newspapers nor the political leaders of our own state — Democrats and Republicans alike — have seen fit to lift their voices in outrage over behavior that, had it involved any other previous U.S. president, would have been the number one topic of conversation on editorial pages and in political circles for days after it became publicly known. Our less than courageous U.S. Sen. Susan Collins reportedly managed to say that Trump’s assertion that Carroll is not his type seemed “extremely bizarre.” But that was it. Apparently, when it comes to Trump, his formulaic denials of every accusation of sexual assault are now so common place that they’re no longer a significant matter of public concern. Since nothing ever comes of it, let’s all just ignore it.
Here’s the reality, and it’s a sad one.
Democratic candidates have decided that condemning the president’s alleged sexual crimes is not a winning political issue, so why bother. TIME magazine reports that it “reached out to four prominent presidential campaigns for further insight into internal deliberations, and none wanted to comment on the record. Staffers for three of them described a calculus that was at once practical and defeatist: at this point in the race, they’re running against each other, not Trump.”
Collins could set an example of sound conscience and statesmanship if she had the will to do so. But like most Maine Republicans, she apparently couldn’t care less about Trump’s predatory sexual behavior, or his daily assortment of outright lies, his steadfast opposition to any sort of constitutionally mandated congressional oversight, or even his total lack of a cohesive foreign policy, which could easily result in an outright war with Iran before the summer’s over.
Over the past few weeks, Trump has frequently behaved in a manner that would have been cause for outrage and censure, were he any other president. On his recent trip to Japan and Korea, he served up a litany of complaints about our allies while praising some of the world’s most autocratic and cruel leaders. He refused yet again to acknowledge Saudi Arabia Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman’s responsibility for the murder and dismemberment of journalist Jamal Kashoggi, choosing instead to call him a good friend and admirable leader. He joked with Russia’s Vladimir Putin about Putin’s meddling in the 2016 United States election and publicly shared his negative comments about the news media. The president showed no interest at all in protecting our country from one of its most committed enemies. And he turned the annual Fourth of July celebration in the nation’s capital into a full scale political rally, making illegal use of taxpayer money and misusing government resources in the process.
Through all of that, Collins has uttered nary a word of condemnation. Like all of her gutless Republican Senate colleagues, she’ll simply go along to get along. Maine how has several candidates seeking the Democratic nomination to challenge Collins in her re-election bid. One hopes that, in addition to taking strong stands on such issues as health care, income inequality and gun control, those candidates will challenge Collins head on for her willingness to march largely in lockstep with other Senate Republicans in their loyal support for Trump, despite his misguided executive orders, his total lack of ethics and morals and his treasonous behavior in the nation’s highest office.
It’s not too soon for that battle to begin.
The preceding originally appeared on mainebeacon.com, a website and podcast created by progressive group the Maine People’s Alliance.