In a healthy society, we would all turn away in protest
The old Chinese curse says, „May you live in interesting times.“ Those words are not a blessing, they are a curse.
The Trumpocene and this fascist fever dream most certainly qualify as those „interesting times.“ Trump and his MAGA movement have cursed the American people and their country by empowering even more racism, white supremacy, bigotry, hatred, death, suffering, sickness, violence, fascism, authoritarianism, conspiracism, greed, anti-intellectualism, misery, loneliness, religious fanaticism, collective unwellness and pathology and other great troubles and problems. Of course, Trump’s MAGA cultists believe such a horrible state of affairs is a type of blessing.
Are we closer to the end of this fascist nightmare than we were before? I doubt it. A new /ABC poll shows President Joe Biden lagging behind Donald Trump.
Whatever the outcome, escape or remaining lost and in limbo, stuck in an interregnum, on Tuesday the traitor former ex-president Donald Trump added one more „distinction“ to his ignominious list of „accomplishments“ and „firsts.“ Trump was the first president to attempt a coup to end American democracy. He was the first former president to be arrested and charged with a felony. Now he is the first president to be deemed liable by a jury in civil court for committing acts of sexual abuse and defamation.
Salon’s Gabriella Ferrigine summarizes:
A Manhattan jury on Tuesday rejected E. Jean Carroll’s rape allegation against former President Donald Trump but found him liable for sexual abuse in the 1996 attack.
The jury reached its verdict after less than three hours of deliberations, finding that Trump sexually abused but did not rape Carroll, according to the Associated Press. The jury awarded Carroll $2 million in damages.
The jury also found that Trump defamed the longtime columnist by calling her allegations a „con job,“ awarding Carroll another $3 million in damages, bringing the total damages to around $5 million.
Carroll walked out of the courthouse smiling.
„We’re very happy,“ Carroll’s attorney Roberta Kaplan told reporters.
Trump raged over the verdict in an all-caps post on Truth Social.
„I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHO THIS WOMAN IS THIS VERDICT IS A DISGRACE – A CONTINUATION OF THE GREATEST WITCH HUNT OF ALL TIME!“ he wrote.
Carroll, who accused Trump of raping her in the dressing room of a Bergdorf Goodman department store in the late 1990s, sued Trump for defamation for dismissing her allegation and later also sued the former president for sexual assault under a new New York law that allows survivors to file civil claims in cases where the statute of limitations has long expired.
Following the jury’s decision in her favor, E. Jean Carrol released this statement: „I filed this lawsuit against Donald Trump to clear my name and to get my life back. Today, the world finally knows the truth. This victory is not just for me but for every woman who has suffered because she was not believed.“
Will the E. Jean Carroll decision negatively impact Donald Trump at the polls and derail his 2024 presidential candidacy? Writing at Just Security, Norm Eisen and Ryan Goodman are hopeful that it may:
The unanimous jury verdict that has turned Donald Trump from an alleged sexual assaulter into a proven one may create political shockwaves if recent history is any guide. As numerous empirical studies have shown, the American public has come to view sexual assault as a form of abusing power that can disqualify a perpetrator from holding public office. Trump may suffer significant political damage from this new majoritarian understanding….
With #MeToo translated into the political arena, many Americans have shown they are not willing to support a candidate for elected office who has committed sexual assault – with the understanding that such a severe abuse of power is simply disqualifying for holding a position of public trust.
