Post 15 of 100: Is talking about Patriarchal Misogyny a sign of Trump Derangement Syndrome?
The title of this post is tongue in cheek click bait, as the answer, up front, is clearly, “NO,” but the irony of one the sponsors of a bill defining Trump Derangement Syndrome getting arrested for trying to solicit sex from a minor, is just too much of a moment to let pass. I think there is a justifiable urge to “whataboutism” any single story about a politician soliciting sex from a minor, as abusing the position of political authority for access to “sexual taboos” is certainly something that is not limited to just republicans, but Trumpism’s embrace of defending sexual predators from the consequences of their actions was inevitably going to draw more predators into its tent, as well as serve as a wink and a nod to the republican rank and file that “her body my choice” is going to be acceptable behavior moving forward.
For now, the Minneapolis Republican Party seems intent on pushing this predator out of the party and encourage him to resign, but I am going to try to keep an eye on the story, because I would not be surprised at all to see him double down, call the whole thing a witch hunt and try to draw Trump’s attention as true loyalist being persecuted by the media. I am hopeful that this guy is so far down the rung that none of that BS sticks and his career is crushed if not his personal life as well, but we were dangerously close to letting a much bigger predator serve as the Attorney General, so I would not count any chickens or eggs just yet. This isn’t the first case like this we have seen in the last half a year, and it isn’t going to be the last, because the thing serial predators look for even more than potential victims is for groups and positions of power that will protect them from discovery or consequence. Like this was seriously a thing I used to talk about all the time when doing my outreach for sexual violence prevention. Back in the early 2000s when I was paying very close attention to these statistics, the average sexual predator victimized 12 people before getting caught. This is because they seek target the most vulnerable people they can (including, as we have seen, children) and they congregate in patriarchal misogynistic environments where people tend question survivor narratives and victim blame them as well. This is exactly what Trumpism has made of the Republican Party.
So while calling out Trumpism as cesspit of patriarchal misogyny might one day qualify me as someone to attack as being misled by Trump Derangement Syndrome, I hope all the other republicans sitting in that Trumpism tent with Justin Eichorn, Matt Gaetz, Elon Musk, Donald Trump, Linda McMahon, Pete Hegseth and who knows how many more predators or their direct enablers, are still comfortable with the company they are keeping. That was a bitterly barbed comment, because I find the idea of protecting abusers abhorrent, but in reality, we do know that there are some folks in the Republican Party that were uncomfortable with how much of a predatory sleaze Matt Gaetz was that it stopped them from supporting his nomination for AG, so maybe, hopefully, some of those same people will see how many of these predators are dropping into the ranks around them and realize how close they are to unmistakably becoming the party of sexual predation. Maybe it is too late for that, but the Minnesota state party clearly doesn’t want that association to stick, so there has to be some folks there that see where this road leads.