It has been a pretty rough couple of weeks for Donald Trump, and it doesn’t seem to be getting any better. That’s with good reason, of course; he has been nothing short of shameless on his Twitter feed, and unapologetic in his decisions. Neither of those traits is surprising or new, but what makes it different than usual is that it once again involves Trump supporting his own decision to hire or defend a male abuser of women.
There is definitely a track record here.
In fact, when Trump’s most ardent apologist Sarah Huckabee Sanders went on Good Morning America on Monday, she had an assignment: To make it look like the media and Democrats were attacking his nominee for the Supreme Court, Brett Kavanaugh, and using women to do so. That’s actually a pretty gross tactic, but not completely surprising from the Trump administration. After all, the President himself previewed the strategy on social media:
The Democrats are working hard to destroy a wonderful man, and a man who has the potential to be one of our greatest Supreme Court Justices ever, with an array of False Accusations the likes of which have never been seen before!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) September 25, 2018
But the truth is, Trump has always taken the side of the accused in cases of sexual assault, spousal abuse, or really anything that involved a man mistreating a woman — Roy Moore, Rob Portman, and the litany of disgraced former Fox News stars all enjoyed the full-throated support of Donald Trump as their careers went down the tubes over their appalling behavior.
George Stephanopoulos said just that to Sanders on the show Monday — that Trump appears to have already made up his mind, as in the case of other offenders he’s gone to bat for — and she absolutely refused to even acknowledge the premise.
Donald Trump and his administration may not have many bedrock prinicples, as the author of that anonymous New York Times piece a few weeks ago was happy to point out. But there is one principle Trump seems willing to adhere to no matter the cost: That abusers are innocent even if proven guilty.
One wonders if that has anything to do with the dozens of women that have accused Trump himself.
Featured image via screen capture
