Grab ‘em by the pussy! — Donald Trump.
America’s seventeen months of soul crushing, unintellectual, embarrassing hell ends much like it began. On June 16th, 2015 Donald Trump began his campaign for President of the United States by referring to Mexican Immigrants as rapists. On October 7th, 2016 the pussy-grabbing story, and Donald’s campaign for the presidency, broke. Tapes became public showing Donald Trump bragging to Bill Bush, then of Access Hollywood, about the pride he took in a sexual assault on an unnamed married woman, that will forever be known as “Grab ‘em by the pussy!”
In all likelihood there will be few other phrases more historically associated with the year 2016 than “Grab ‘em by the pussy!” This is wholly embarrassing, and we deserve to be embarrassed.
If the word “pussy” offends you, this isn’t a piece you should continue reading, and Donald Trump is not a candidate you should vote for. I’m addressing this piece to those who are having trouble with friends and family negotiating the end of this sick, twisted, uninspired, and demoralizing election season. I want to help those struggling to talk to loved ones about an affirmative “vote” for Donald Trump, and to do that I (and you) need to be brash and specific.
Donald Trump spoke on a hot mic about grabbing a married woman’s privates without her consent. This is a criminal act, it’s a sexual assault. There is no pivoting from this, no deflecting, and no blaming other candidates or the people related to other candidates.
If you know a woman who’s intending to vote for Donald Trump, ask her if she would want Donald to grab her pussy. Ask her if other wealthy, powerful men can also grab her pussy. Ask her if she accepts reality, that her vote condones pussy-grabbing (by the powerful, by celebrities, with impunity).
If you know a man who’s intending to vote for Donald Trump, ask him if Donald can grab his wife’s pussy, his mother’s pussy, his daughter’s pussy, his granddaughter’s pussy. Ask him if standing for Republican Party values and principles includes pussy-grabbing (by the powerful, by celebrities, with impunity). Ask him if a “smaller government” is one that doesn’t interfere in the grabbing of pussy.
Ask them if the coveted “freedom” America’s central pride is founded on, includes the freedom to grab any pussy (or the freedom to grab any dick). Ask them to watch the unedited tape, uncensored, and unfiltered.
This is all vulgar, but I’m being completely serious. Ask your friends and family if they see the road to “Making America Great” again as traveling through de facto legalized sexual assault. Ask them if they would volunteer themselves to be assaulted, to make their world better.
And inevitably someone will say, “Yes, but Hillary...” Cut them off immediately to assert a fact. Hillary Clinton has never groped a married man. She’s never used her position of power to grab a dick and then brag about it. She isn’t being accused of sexual assault, and there’s no chance of her groping world leaders, grabbing the dick of diplomats, or raping anyone while she’s in office.
I hope you can stop your friends and family from throwing their vote towards the illegal, the unethical, the despicable, and the immoral. There are other candidates on the ballots.
If we don’t move forward from this now, we’re going to repeat this all over again in 2020. That should scare you.
This election has been a mirror by which America has had to stare at itself, revealing a face that disgusts us. Donald Trump is a huge portion of that mirror, but the American government is more than just the presidency, and I’d argue its current incarnation (as a reflection of our votes) led to all of this ethically putrid horror show. Runaway greed, unending misinformation, and purposeful lying on the part our legislators, these things sit at the heart of our collective national rot. The national approval rating for the Congress of the United States floats around 10%, yet history tells us that 90%+ will be reelected on November 8th. That is disgusting.
The mirror of 2016 needs not simply to show us democracy’s decay, it needs to spark some form of recognition that our old ways (all of us, that means me, and that means you reading this) have to change.
If you’re thinking about reelecting your Congressperson, think long and hard about why you’re choosing to do that. They don’t deserve it. If your friends and family are planning on reelecting their Congressperson, ask them why they believe that’s a good idea. If you’re voting a straight party ticket because that’s what you’ve always done, first check to see if that party is condoning pussy-grabbing, then ask yourself how successful all the years of one party voting, us vs. them, duopoly have been for the country.
I would urge everyone in the next month to get real and get honest, with themselves, and those they care about. We’re all the problem, and we’ve all been complicit in this. We voted for the people who represent us (and if you’ve never voted, it’s true what they say, you don’t get to complain). We voted for the Congress with the 10% approval rating. They didn’t arrive through a military coup and weren’t installed by a dictatorship. This is a representative republic. They are our representatives.
2016 has been abusive on all of us. Grabbing a married woman’s genitals is how it ends, but it also needs to be the bottom of how far we’ll sink. An alcoholic, quite often, will not seek help until he or she hits rock bottom. Let pussy-grabbing be our rock bottom. Moving forward we need to dismantle the old ways of thinking, and install new ones, starting now, starting today.
If what I wrote offends you... good. I’m offended too.