Why doesn’t the so-called “Me Too Movement” STOP DONALD TRUMP? Or was/is “Me Too” also used selectively and weaponized by “powerful men” when politically convenient?
The number of women to make sexual misconduct allegations against him has become too many to count. Unlike in most complex cases of “he said, she said,” former U.S. President Donald J. Trump – the accused sexual predator, was recorded on video vulgarly confessing in graphic detail how he habitually sexually assaulted countless women and “can get away with it” because he is a “celebrity.”
Despite his perverted, sickening, and highly televised confession of sexual assaults toward countless women; Trump bragged about how any woman he chooses, he would walk up and “grab them by the p…; kiss them in the mouth…;” during the 2016 presidential election cycle, Trump immediately went on to defeat one of the most formidable and most qualified women candidates of this century and was subsequently given the job as U.S. President, and Commander-In-Chief over the world’s largest employer – the U.S. Defense Department. So his disturbing notion that he “can get away with it” proved to be true despite the rise of “Me Too!”
It is my understanding that the “Me Too Movement’s” purpose in pertinent part was to support, embolden, empower, or encourage women who survived sexual misconduct from powerful men; bring accountability and justice toward the powerful men who engage in such inexpressibly harmful conduct; organize and mobilize supporters together to stand/step up, and assure women there was no longer a need to be afraid of the probability of becoming further victims of retaliatory actions which may include violence, financial deprivation, stigmatization, retaliatory termination, and blockage from certain other professional, political, or workplace advancement.
Trump is the epitome of a dangerously “powerful man,” known beyond “allegations” to use his “celebrity” status to bully, criminally harm, retaliate, and in every way imaginable, “get away with” sexually assaulting woman after woman.
If the intent was also for “Me Too” to restore accountability and proactively prevent the perpetrators from possessing the power to harm women in the future, this “too” has drastically failed to be the case in the case of Trump, although Trump is the worst-case scenario.
For example, Trump has not only maintained his position as a corrupted private business employer, but during his presidency he was promoted to wield power over cabinet holders and their staffs, in addition to over 115,000 employees within the over 40 separate component organizations that make up the Defense Department.
Further, The Cabinet does not have any collective executive powers or functions of its own, and no votes need to be taken. There are 25 members (26 including the vice president): 15 department heads and 10 Cabinet-level members. The members of the Cabinet serve at the pleasure of the president, who can dismiss them at any time without the approval of the Senate or downgrade their Cabinet membership status.
If the “movement” was nonpolitical, and REALLY ABOUT JUSTICE FOR WOMEN, you would think the hellacious profile and perverted confessions of Trump, would have the “Me Too” women camping out on the White House lawn throughout Trump’s tenure; at every Trump rally and Republican presidential debate; and would be holding rallies and fighting with every imaginable form of media and social media anytime Trump received any boost in the polls or possible trend toward being reelected in 2024.
Therefore, my concerns with “Me Too” are TWO fold:
1. Why keep letting Confessed-Sexual-Predator-In-Chief Trump, the 2-headed “Elephant in the Room,” slide by, tell lie after lie, and be dangerously propelled into the world’s most powerful position?
2. While the “Me Too” movement produced much success in accomplishing unseen levels of accountability for certain powerful men accused of sexual misconduct, the movement’s tactics dangerously resembled an ugly era of Black History, where emotionally charged and unvetted allegations of sexual misconduct are thrown into the fire of the media’s court of public opinion rather than vetted through the constitutionality of “presumption of innocence,” fair and impartial due process, equal protection under the laws, or within a fair court of law where both sides argue under oath, with witnesses, with cross-examination, penalties for perjury, and with competent legal representation.
As shown in the Trump case (the worse case scenario) powerful White men can have Teflon skin, but Black men are already being shot or choked by policemen when unarmed; Black men are already packed into the prison-plantations via wrongful convictions and sentencing disparities; Black men are already being demonized and reduced to 3/5 men to be shot and killed at will. And Black men have already hung on ropes as “strange fruit” throughout the South via “sexual allegations” that were blown out of proportion in the media and convicted in the court of public opinion while denied their right to presumption of innocence, due process, and equal protection under the law.
Therefore society must continue working on measures that will ensure any men who sexually violate women and/or young girls, are held accountable; pay for the consequences and harm caused by such misconduct, and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, without regard to one’s power, position, or popularity.
Historically, Black women have suffered like no other beings in terms of being seen as less than human and raped at will by their oppressors. At the same time, Black women have had to contend with sexual misconduct within their race like all other women within their races.
The solution is not simply “believe women” or “believe White men.” The solution is not to go around the courts and constitutional protections to form our opinions from social media and use clicks from the computer mouse to convict. We must stop having “movements” that “move” us from equal protections under the law while the powerful are allowed to abuse their power, violate and dehumanize others, and “get away with it.”
If we once and for all remain focused on “equal protection under the laws” and not be sidetracked by politically-timed gender wars and the political weaponization of sexual allegations, we could come to the understanding that “equal protection” means “equally protecting” women from sexual predators in addition to “equally protecting” others who sexually attack gender nonconformists, LGBTQ, and those who sexually assault men, and sexually attack young boys as well as young girls.
“Equal protection” also means “protecting” men in general and Black men in particular when certain women use false “sexual allegations” as a weapon and with hidden ulterior motives; to retaliate as a disgruntled employee; to entrap and politically destroy innocent men as the women claiming to be “survivors” are being used and rewarded by “powerful men” behind the scene as the men or male youth being lied on may or may not “survive” the false allegations.
Similarly, “equal protection” means prosecuting rich or powerful men such as Donald Trump upon proven guilt, just as you would pack the prisons with any poor man who has no perks, no power, no “secret service” protections, no preference, nor “White privileges.”