So Trump’s been caught on video bragging about grabbing unsuspecting women “by the p***y.”
Watch the video in this tweet and throw up in your mouth a little:
Women have the power to stop Trump.https://t.co/tTgeqy51PUhttps://t.co/VH3woeAf9Q pic.twitter.com/NjvbkPsjPR
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) October 7, 2016
Yes, this is horrible Trump revelation number two billion and seven, but this one looks like this could be the straw that breaks the camel’s back, and Republicans are scrambling to condemn his comments and distance themselves from their nominee.
I don’t have much to add here but I think some of you probably do.
Hi folks. I’ve been reading WHTM for a while now but this is my first comment. I’ve read the policy but please let me know if I do anything wrong.
I’ve been wanting to ask if anyone has had a similar experience to me and I figured this might be an appropriate thread. I have recently discovered that a friend of mine is a Trump fan and a Milo fan, based on Facebook likes and comments that I am certain are not sarcasm/a Poe. I was really shocked by this as I used to be quite close to this friend, but in recent years we haven’t seen much of each other as he moved interstate. Now I’m actually not sure if I want to continue to be his friend or not. I feel like if I saw him again I’d just be reminded of Milo and Trump and be sickened by the whole thing.
Has anyone here made the decision to end a friendship because of something like this? I would like to hear your stories.
Thanks in advance. In my time zone it is bedtime so I will read further posts tomorrow.
“At the dining room table” is usually an expression referring to a situation of increased civility. “Not at the dinner table, Billy,” etc. Corey Lewandowski doesn’t just fail to understand how the world works – he also fails to understand the English language.
I think the “dining room table” comment is supposed to counter the shock that people are experiencing due to his using dirty language.
As if that’s what this is all about… I don’t think his head could be any further up his ass.
Awww, Chiomara, those are the cutest kitties in the entire world! I’m glad to see that you offered them your hand as a claw-sharpening device; that’s very selfless of you. I hope it didn’t hurt too much.
That baby/ cat video – totally uncool. Totally wrong.
That is a baby. I love cats, but when you are a parent your first responsibility is to the baby. Cats are just cats and so they don’t always understand when they’ve hurt you. The minute the baby started crying because the cat hurt him/her then the parent needed to put the camera down and step in. The way that cat went for that baby’s face is awful. It could have led to an eye scratch which could have led to permanent injury for that child. I don’t blame the cat, but I definitely do blame the parent – and if that is the cat’s usual behaviour then the cat has to go. Sorry cat, I know it’s not your fault, but babies first.
Bless my cat – she is not a tolerant cat, but she understood that when my son was a baby, he was a baby. She never accidentally hurt him. When he became a toddler and did all the things that toddlers do to mess with cats, she was tolerant. If I’d pulled her tail or rubbed her fur the wrong way, she’d have taken a plug out of me. She never did that to my boy. I have a picture of him waving a toothbrush in her face and her ears back, but she never swatted. If she had ever gone for my son when he was the age of the baby in the video, she would have been gone. Not that I would have sat back and let that happen.
As he became older and I could communicate with him, I taught him how to treat a cat. But sometimes it’s fun to mess with cats a little – as a bigger person, you play the game, you pay the penalty. He was about four before she ever went for him. But by then he was much bigger than her. And he was warned about both messing with the cat and about noticing her body language. She swatted him once and he learned his lesson and I told him straight up it was his own fault. We’ve had no problems since.
I think it’s worth reviewing what Trump actually said that he does. He said you can grab women by the crotch if you are a celebrity. He didn’t say he does it routinely, but he was certainly implying that he’s done it on occasion. The reports of him sexually assaulting women by feeling them up are completely credible. If it seems implausible that he does it all the time in lieu of a handshake, well, he wasn’t claiming that.
But let’s not gloss what he did say that he does do routinely: kissing women without their consent. There are plenty of videos showing him doing that at celebrity events. The women put up with it because they have to put up with it lest they be labeled stuck-up c-nts, so he’s not wrong in what he describes. He’s not alone in this, either – a non-trivial number of famous men greet attractive women by smooching them. This is a national disgrace. That doesn’t meet the legal definition of sexual assault in any place I’ve checked, but it is a type of sexual assault.
Yeah, can we please stop brushing what he says off as hyperbole? This man feels entitled to women’s bodies. He hates immigrants and refugees. We need to stop playing down his actual words as just his quirky personality. It’s not exaggeration. He really believes these things.
Sorry for the OT but I just had a major scare because of my mother’s terrible communication skills.
My dad just went in for surgery (kidney stones). This afternoon, I got a phone call from my dad’s phone. When I picked up, it was my mom on the other end. She said: “I’m at the hospital. The surgery did not go well.”
I was like, WHAT? Wait, what’s up? Then she said, “I’ll let you talk to your dad and he can explain.” She gave the phone to my dad, who sounded exactly like normal. He explained that they failed to remove the kidney stones, so he’s having another attempt at surgery in a few days.
Well, for a few seconds there I thought my dad had died. :/
He’ll still have his dedicated base. This will probably just make them like him even more. He’s definitely losing the support of the rest of the US, thankfully.
http://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/2016-election-forecast/
I’m hoping to see this drop down to single digits.
Can’t wait for this clueless blowhard asshole to lose. He should just drop out now and save us the headache.
In the meantime, here’s some kitties.
http://67.media.tumblr.com/6977f4a3864937bb3653c6ad87940154/tumblr_n70t8z34TL1s3vpooo1_500.jpg
And some talking doggos:
Imaginary Petal: oh dear!
I hope you didn’t have a literal heart attack.
Makroth: my fantasy is that Texas will vote blue this election. Already the fact it’s not dark red on the 538 map brings me comfort.
@Makroth
It was never about his dedicated fans, anyway. Though it’s good that they’re vocal so we can avoid them. It’s more about the swing states and the people who typically vote republican but aren’t willing to vote for a man who brags about sexually assaulting women.
I wonder if Clinton has another October Surprise up her sleeve and if she does whether she’s calling it her Trump card. 😉
@Petal
My mother is also a terrible communicator so I feel you. Though she’s never done anything this bad.
Let’s hope Putin isn’t planning an October surprise of his own, to get his boy back into the race.
@ IP – Ouch!!!
I hope blood pressure and heart beat are back to normal now.
And your Dad’s, and that he’s healing well.
[Not funny story at all: a relative of mine is a retired doctor. As a young man he witnessed a surgeon telling a patient’s husband that the experimental operation they’d carried out had gone wonderfully well. Splendidly – congratulations all around. No, they hadn’t managed to remove the tumour, and she was certainly going to die of it, but the main thing was that the operation had been a great success and they were the first hospital in the country ever to do it… Yeah. My relative is not the world’s best communicator, but he’s better than that.]
On the Trump tapes: is anyone surprised?
This is so entirely of a piece with everything the man says, the way he acts towards women – bullying, entitled, inappropriate…
What is interesting is whether any of the commentators who have been falling over themselves to excuse and enable his loathsome political career find this just one step too far even for them.
Of course, they could always blame Hillary or something – it’s not like they haven’t done that before.
If he drops out the GOP will put their support behind Pence, who is equally vile (though in a American Taliban way) but is capable of passing for a civilized human being. I’m not sure I want that if there’s still enough #NeverHilary types out there.
Oh, I’m sure Roger will be here shortly to tell us how Trump is still the “safer” bet and how Scott Adams is right to still support Trump.
I though Adams was supporting Clinton so he doesn’t get murdered by Her Supporters
No, Lewandowski is right: anyone who has been paying the slightest attention knew at some level that this is exactly how Trump talks about women in private. The difference – and why I think this makes a Trump victory almost impossible – is that no-one can now pretend they don’t know it. Hence, quite a number of prominent Republicans have already de-endorsed Trump andor called for him to withdraw his candidacy. Unless there’s actually a video out there of Clinton torturing kittens or eating a roast baby, I think he’s done for. Hopefully, he’ll pull a lot of the Republican congressional candidates down with him, as they fight over whether to stick with him.
After recently calling several people I know out for their ‘both sides are equally bad’ nonsense, this whole ‘surprise’ feels enormously vindicating. Just the other day, some were trying to tell me how “Hillary doesn’t care about anybody but herself” and that “People who actually work with Trump love him.”
Like, yeah, when you don’t take the concerns of people who aren’t white men seriously, you end up overlooking a lot. Don’t want to say I told them so, but, well, I told them so.
@Fabe
Originally he said that, but recently he came out in support of Trump. His response to this recent video footage was basically that he still supports Trump. We’ve got a troll in another thread about Scott Adams who is defending him on the basis of his feelings alone and who doesn’t care about facts and thinks ignorance is a virtue. No, really.
Trump has issued a statement that sounds exactly the kinda serial abuser he absolutely is. Here’s a breakdown. Just to be safe, TW: employment and subsequent rebuttal of abusive unpologies. Oh, and maybe don’t read the comments on the 1st link
Unrelated: is it an ironic coincidence or a clever subversion that Open Threads are the least open threads? Don’t know why it took so long for that to hit me…
But if this thing does go to trial, it would not be unmitigated good news for the left. Jeffrey Epstein, noted NYC procurer of girls for pedophiles, is involved. And from what I’ve read, Bill Clinton is also a buddy of Epstein’s. I’m not sure what the implications of that are but, you know, the truth could be really bad.
The Trump campaign has already tried on the ‘Bill is a friend of Epstein’s!’ routine. Yes, he was a prominent Democratic donor. I doubt it goes beyond that to a point of criminality as opposed to incredible tastelessness. If it does…well, let justice be done though the fucking heavens fall. I still have some illusions about Bill Clinton, but I can give them up if I have to.
Donald Trump on Epstein, before the charges were brought: “I’ve known Jeff for fifteen years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be with. It is even said that he likes beautiful women as much as I do, and many of them are on the younger side. No doubt about it — Jeffrey enjoys his social life.”
And then he had the nerve to try to use pictures of Bill Clinton with Epstein against the Clinton campaign. Jesus, what is in this man’s closet of skeletons I can’t even imagine.
His head’s so far up his ass that he’s chewed through his tonsils.
As with all the repulsive shit he believes, there are still people who support him. There are the “it’s only bad because he said it out loud” Trumpf supporters, the “he didn’t mean it in a bad way” Trumpf supporters, the “they’re blowing this out of proportion/taking it out of context” Trumpf supporters, and the “F*** ’em, I AGREE with him” Trumpf supporters (which has got to be his largest demographic). If you disbelieve that women, non-whites, non-christians, EXIST ONLY for the benefit of white men, I don’t see how you can even stand him, let alone support him
@Axe
Nauseating. Every one of those tactics were used against me by my abusive ex. I had a dream last night that he and I were still together. We were going to elope but instead realized that we were both miserable and would be better off single, so we split amicably. Way better than the real ending.
Who the fuck talks like that at the dining room table?
@kupo
Huggity hugs <3
@Kupo
Roger was put on a very long propation, so we’ll just have to wait for his sockpuppet to do that for him.
@Oogly
Yeah, I just went and checked up on that thread because I was wondering what he was up to. I’m sure he’ll be back, though.
@Axe
Thanks for the hugs. ^o^
The few surrogates willing to do so say vote for Trump despite what he did 11 yr ago & don’t vote for HC because of what HER HUSBAND did over 20 ys ago?
@kupo
If/when he comes back I expect for him to at least turn his poems from frivolous flowery language to literally anything else. I could also expect him to turn over a new leaf and not be a complete waste of human meat and bone, but sadly I’m not that optimistic.
I need to post something sweet to counter this awfulness.
http://i.imgur.com/yseXxB2l.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/rn8Hyvf.gif
https://mobile.twitter.com/EmrgencyKittens/status/758011322210525185/photo/1
http://67.media.tumblr.com/73dcbe5083a4f03a4ef1bcb72a5a2e97/tumblr_oaxd09XkEY1tlb56zo1_400.gif
http://i.imgur.com/00swmb8.gif
http://i.imgur.com/8mvegYT.jpg
http://i.imgur.com/6oEjpm8.gif
http://i.imgur.com/fCdfZmy.jpg
@Fiona McCool
Been there, done that, you’re probably better off separating. That friend’s most likely too far down that rabbit hole to get out anytime soon.
Trust me, it’s either that or typically alot of arguing with someone who frankly hates all that lives. And no amount of articles you cite or how many points of his you shoot down, he’ll still fervently believe it even if you sort through his entire catalogue of parroted bullsperm talking points.
@Neurite
Never had to do it on my own. Where was the driver?
Trump, we already knew was an entitled asshole. If this looses him the women’s votes, well about damn time.
That said–
Who films a hostile interaction between a baby and a cat? They shouldn’t be allowed either. I hope baby and cat both find homes with decent, empathetic adults.
Yeah I’m more horrified by the video than the confirmation of something I already knew.
Fiona:
I’ve decided several times to end friendships on the basis of someone’s beliefs or behaviour.
I’m not sure how to elaborate, perhaps I can give some examples.
When my wife had cancer, I ended relationships with several people – family and friends – who decided to tell me about the power of prayer and how god, rather than doctors, was in control and how it would be my fault if she died because I wasn’t praying enough.
I have a chronic condition which keeps me in constant pain. I take as few painkillers as I possibly can but I simply could not live without them. That hasn’t prevented some former friends (who do not suffer chronic pain) from lecturing me about how I’m wrong to take painkillers. I haven’t exactly ended those relationships, but I have no intention of ever speaking to those people again.
Former friends who have a very similar background to me have insisted that there’s no problem at all with sexism in academia or science/engineering fields. They are former friends. I’ve explained why but I doubt they understand.
I’ve fallen out with former friends who blame victims for their rapes or muslims for terrorism or immigrants for stealing jobs.
Being in the UK, Trump is slightly less terrifying for me than for you US people. But if a friend seriously supported Trump even after we’d argued extensively about it, yeah, that would be an ex-friend too. Nobody who supported or excused his views could possibly be my friend.
I don’t have many friends left, obviously, but the ones I have are worth having.
@Fiona McCool
I can’t tell you what to definitively do, and since I don’t know the person I can’t tell you what do, but personally I would end this friendship.
Your friend supports some seriously sick things, and this can only be the actions of someone bigoted and not very nice. It is hard, really difficult, to accept but if a friend of mine supported those lowlifes then I would struggle through and accept that they aren’t a person who deserves my friendship.
As someone who is very shy and likes their own company, I don’t lose my temper easily, and hardly ever get visibly angry in words or actions outside home, (so much so that when I do it is apparently scary) but I know how you feel- I’d not be able to contain myself seeing a friend who is that kind of person.
My own personal path would be to end this friendship before the person gets a chance to ruin my enjoyment of the concept of meeting with friends. I can’t tell you what you must do, I can only say that I hope this helps as you work through this problem.
I realise how lucky I am, as a young man just about past teenage-hood, that my male friends were respectful of women and horrified by misogyny and other hatreds, and know that I am privileged in this way- a lot of feminists, of all genders, have very different experiences, like you do. Therefore, I’ll just leave what I would do here and hope it helps.
@Fiona McCool,
Heya! Another longtime lurker here. (Also, a fellow Fiona! We are legion.) I rarely post. About your friend. I’m not gonna say if you should fade or stick with this dude, but both here and at Captain Awkward, we have a saying:
When someone tells you who they are, believe them.
Regardless of how otherwise wonderful this friend might be, on some level he’s 100% OK with business fraud, sexual assault, racism, anti-immigrant hysteria, toxic masculinity, and white rich dudes getting away with shit, because those are Trump’s selling points.
No one in the Trump camp seriously believes he’s going to magically turn out to be a good person after the election despite all the garbage that’s come out of his mouth. Trump’s success is all about a power fantasy for garbage people.
Back to your friend. This dude is telling you who he is. Believe him. This dude is telling you he’s not gonna be there for you if you’re hurt. Believe him.This dude is telling you your life and autonomy aren’t things he cares about. Believe him.This dude is telling you what side of the argument he’s gonna be on when you’re in a crisis. Believe him.
Can you be a friend to this dude? Sure, if you want.
Is this dude a friend to you? Opinions are gonna vary.
Can you trust this dude to have your back? Personally, I’d say no. But, ultimately, it’s up to you how much you wanna trust a/or enable this guy.
But whatever you decide to do, do this: Believe him.
With my friends I tend to try and avood political discussion unless the atmosphere is just right.
Other than that my main issue is connecting and making new ones; the people in my uni halls are hard to connect with and it’s rarely possible to really initiate social contact elsewhere. Autism doesn’t help.
Any tips?
@Policy of Madness
Absolutely. As I said, he is a vile, vile man. And the things he says here just demonstrates that once again.
@kupo
Oh, I’m not brushing it off because it might be hyperbole. Because even if it is, it’s still a disgusting attitude to have. And I’m not even convinced that it was, just that it’s possible that it could have been.
@Fiona McCool
It was a long time ago, but I ended a close relationship with a cousin about 6 months after 9/11. Her husband and a friend of his called me late one night and left a message announcing that they had sentenced me to death for the crime of treason. Because I didn’t support the US military invasion of Afghanistan.
Yes, they were obviously drunk. Husband blamed it all on his friend and cousin turned on me for even saying anything about it. “It was all a joke” “you liberals are so sensitive.” It got much uglier than even that and to this day I try to avoid attending family events when she’s in town.
That doesn’t make the hurt less or the loss easier to tolerate. I wish you all the best.
@Fiona:
I’ve had a similar thing with a colleague. He’s a smug white-STEM-cishet-male type, who is normally very keen to turn anyone’s lived reality into a thought experiment to be debated. Over the years he’s drifted further and further into this role, and has become more open about it as he’s realised that he can get away with doing it. Recently he has been reading and regurgitating a lot of the worst glib libertarian nonsense, in a Scott Adams / Neal Stephenson way.
Two months ago, I had to explain to him that he had crossed too many lines and as a result we were Not Friends Any More. His immediate reaction was “Why? Everything’s been fine up until now!” When told that everything wasn’t fine up until now, his response was “Well, nobody’s said anything to me.” When told that people have said things to him, his response was “Oh, that? But I successfully debated/debunked/dismissed those!”
At this point I gave up talking to him, which he took as me accepting that he was right and that there was no problem.
He is, however, an exceptionally good empirical scientist, and so it has not escaped his notice that I no longer indulge him in his debating. He has therefore drawn the (correct) conclusion that I am not happy with him; but has also drawn the (false) conclusion that this is because I am an irrational SJW whose moods are mysterious and capricious. (Were I not every bit as white and cismale as him, he would probably have explained it to himself in very ugly ways.) As it is he keeps trying to heal the rift by trying to be funny, which is just awkward.
My conclusion from this? If a person is a Yiannopoulos supporter, they’re probably also too much of an asshole to be able to accept the possibility that they are in the wrong. This person will not understand why you want them to stop being an asshole, and may not even understand that what they’re doing is unacceptable.
This is not a friend. The friendship is already over and you need to let them know.
@Fiona McCool : it depend on your character, but for me, cutting ties with that kind of people was not just right : it was actually a good thing for my mental health.
If you ask yourself the question of whether you should cut tie, it’s likely that you should. Don’t burn the bridges, but stop talking to her or him.
@Fiona McCool
NiOg sort of said this already, but you might be interested in what this fellow has to say:
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2016/9/30/1576113/-If-You-Tell-Me-You-Are-Supporting-Trump-I-Already-Know-Seven-Things-About-You
I am waiting for the usual suspects to retaliate as to why Hillary didn’t release the video earlier.
Well, because she’s a schemer. If a man had released it at the exact same moment, he would be smart.
@ POM
Just to do my legal nerd thing, in England unsolicited kissing could amount to sexual assault (or as it’s called here ‘indecent assault’; sexual assault is something else).
It all depends on that tricky concept ‘context’. For something to be indecent as opposed to regular assault there has to be a sexual element. That’s an objective test. Sometimes it can be hard to establish. But for example a boorish person greeting everyone at a party with an annoying kiss probably wouldn’t be deemed to be committing the offence (probably wouldn’t count as assault at all for various reasons) but someone accosting random people in the street for thrills probably would he held so.
It’s rather like how Trump’s molesting is clearly sexual but if you whack me in the nads because I’ve annoyed you then, whilst that could be an assault, it wouldn’t be a sexual assault.
ETA: a guy here was convicted of indecent assault because he kept touching people’s muscles as it turned him on. It wasn’t the place touched that was significant, it was the motive.
@latsot
Exactly. ‘Good for the goose, good for the gander’ does not apply if you’re a trump supporter.
@Alan, PoM : I did not see thoses unsolicited kiss, but of which kind are they ? Both as a description and what they usually mean.
(in France, women are not supposed to handshake, but kiss on the cheek to greet someone – of either sex. There is some social pressure to not handshake a female or as a female, which I actively fight against because I find kiss icky 90% of the time and arousing the remaining 10%, which add up to 100% of situations where I should not kiss someone if we suppose the other people isn’t my significant other)
@Fiona
Everyone else’s advice is great, but I just wanted to add something. Sorry for the pretentious wording. I communicate negative feelings thru overwrought prose. It’s that or sentence fragments and rage 🙂 (Edit: that was a weird emoji…)
*ahem*
She wasn’t too much of a friend, but we were at one point… close. We’d drifted for years, but never too far (her mom went to my granddad’s funeral). She’d gotten mean. Not in an angry way. More ‘laugh at the joke that is Axe’s life’. You learn to put up with things when interpersonal interaction is scarce
Now, I wasn’t surprised when she turned out to be a transphobe. Most people are to some degree or another, right? Including her boyfriend. And my brother, but I knew about him. Blood makes me feel obligated to fix his thinking. It’s a slow process…
Like the rest of her fuckery, she’s not angry with it. It’s hilarious! Apparently. I shut my eyes and let it pass. A week or so later, she adds homophobia to the repertoire. Perhaps cos this one was aimed at me instead of some rando, it finally clicked. I politely, and in a semi jokey way outta nervousness, asked her to shut up. She refused, I walked out, and we’re done now. Had 1 convo since. About a broken washing machine. I just restrained myself from yelling
Here’s the thing. Can’t and won’t tell you what to do, or how to proceed. I will say that Trump and Yianno, for however complexly human they are behind closed doors, exist in the public sphere as avatars for bigotry and harassment. That’s what your ‘friend’ is a fan of. If he hasn’t yet, he’ll turn that on you. Maybe accidentally, maybe it just slips out, but you’ll be on the receiving end eventually. Confront, bail silently, try to make it work, whatever you decide, don’t put that decision off until after you get hurt. Good luck <3