>>>Understand that he's been accused of sexual assault multiple times. (There are some overlaps in these articles.)
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>Not an apologist for Trump- but by "multiple" you mean three, correct? Of whom two withdrew their complaint without monetary settlement and the third involves rape of a 13-year-old with a conference hearing scheduled for December, long after the dust settles.
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Well, I think we're seeing just the tip of the iceberg on Trump:
http://www.rawstory.com/2016/10/the-floodgates-open-women-call-gloria-allred-alleging-inappropriate-contact-by-mr-trump/. I suspect this is going to be like Cosby; now that they might be believed, lots of women will come forward.
>As a woman it would be most unlikely for HRC to be accused of sexual assault, but by all accounts she has been fiercely defensive of a husband who truly has "multiple" accusations against him, who has settled at least one for hundreds of thousands of $, and who famously initially denied another but was forced to admit it after a dress with identifiable material was acquired by political opponents. Nevertheless he served out his Presidency and remains a credible figure- e.g. Hilary scores well by quoting improved deficit during his tenure and he was a very popular speaker among both men and women at a healthcare conference I attended a few years back.
Yes, Hillary stood by her husband. However, the claim that she "viciously" attacked the women he was involved with (or allegedly abused) is rated as "mostly false" by Politifact, and as I read it, it's not entirely false because of one interaction that's open to multiple interpretations:
http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2016/oct/10/donald-trump/donald-trump-says-hillary-clinton-viciously-attack/>Stepping back from the vileness of Trump's comments (though actually in 2014 the accidental broadcast of a reporter's crudity led to a meme involving an even coarser variant - NSFW, see
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x7-nzLx4Oa0 ) : IMHO Trump was boasting and bragging to support his larrikin reputation in the days when he was a gung-ho businessman. He knew it was inappropriate at the time and said so in that NZ interview I posted yesterday, but it was part of a larger-than-life persona he projected. Now that he's a presidential candidate, it has come back to bite him. Characteristically, supporters excuse it on these grounds while opponents decry his shocking sexism. In fairness, you only have to look at heroic Democrat politicians like JFK to appreciate that womanizing has been normal in elite circles and probably still is, though these days phone cameras and infinite retention of digital recording means that the convention of turning a blind eye, no longer is automatic.
You're missing a key distinction, that of consent. Note that Trump was able to get to this point despite the fact that it's known he cheated on his first wife with his second. What makes this tape so damning and why women in particular are condemning him is that he claims that he can do whatever he wants, whether the women want it or not. I think it's telling that the group of GOP senators who've disavowed him includes 5 of the 6 women in that group, but a much lower percentage of the men.
The other shocking thing in the video is the treatment of women as objects, not humans. Note the use of the word "it" rather than "she." Women are not amused.
Someone pointed out the other day that the word "privilege" literally means "private law." Trump appears to believe that the law doesn't apply to him, that because he's rich, he's entitled to a private law.
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>Meanwhile if a candidate's past is to be picked through like this, we should not be surprised at the rise of bland men and women- mostly women- who assemble beige histories that are beyond reproach, who see every interaction as a rehearsed debate and whose entire fake personality is planned and scripted to meet expectations to which few humans would subscribe if presented like this.
Again, consent is the key distinction here.
Tamar
