Please, no!

What is it that makes some men think they’re allowed to act this way?

Please note that I say some men. It’s not all men; if it was, then Larry and Joe and Steve and I would act as atrociously as do Donald and Billy.

I was raised by a mother and older sisters who never, ever would have allowed me to even glance curiously down that path, much less turn and run joyously along it. Who raised these monsters?

Donald seeks to excuse it as normal by referring to ‘locker room humor.’ I admit that the locker rooms I shared during the days of dressing out for gym class did reflect the curiosity and yes, braggadocio of young males not yet competent to control their hormones and frantic to be seen as manly. But even in that setting, the tone was different. It was more like “I wish I could…” or at most “I’d like to…” but never, NEVER “Grab them by the XXXXX. You can do anything.”

Perhaps these guys inhabited different locker rooms than my friends and me. Or perhaps, oh, what the hell… Truth is, I can’t imagine from what suppurating pustule these guys emerged.

Please don’t think this latest revelation changed my thinking about Donald in any way. He had long since shown himself for what he is. I’ve been shocked and horrified by the crowds of people who seem to blithely accept, even celebrate his bigoted, narcissistic excesses. But even if you allow for ignorance – perhaps that guy grinning and waving behind Donald has never known anyone with a disability or has grown up in a mystical town without a racial divide or has never met a person struggling with their gender identity – even if you allow for the fact that each and all of us have some built in centrism that allows us to see others as Other, I’m not sure how you avoid the message this time.

If you are the son of a mother, brother of a sister or father of a daughter, then surely, finally you can see where Donald’s message takes us. His entire approach to life and living begins and ends with ‘Me.’  He believes not only that he can do or say anything, but that his primacy is so obvious, that he is so clearly anointed that the rest of us are somehow irrelevant except as some demented Greek chorus.

I can’t imagine what went wrong in his formative years that allowed him to embrace a world view in which everything and everyone around him is a tool, a toy, a stage prop. And I can’t imagine that this horrific man-child might actually be anointed leader of our land.  

It is no longer about this tax plan or that, or even which jurists should occupy the federal bench. I wish it was. Our deliberations should be about such things. I truly, longingly wish we had a real decision before us. Sadly, we do not. The choice now is binary – we are or we are not who we pretend to be.

“Grab them by the XXXXX. You can do anything.”

If we allow this guy to be elected, we will have to consider that perhaps he can, indeed, do anything. And that we will do nothing to stop him.

Please, no.