The Rise And Rise Of Donald Trump

This story was published as part of Outlook's 11 November, 2024 magazine issue titled 'Whitewash'. To read more stories from the issue, click here

Not so long ago in American politics, if a federal judge stated that a political candidate had raped a woman, it would have been an immediate career-ender.

But in this presidential election campaign, it has barely elicited a shrug.

In May 2023, a New York jury found Former President Donald Trump liable for sexually abusing E. Jean Carroll, a journalist and columnist, in 1996. The jury ordered him to pay $5 million in damages—the first of two multimillion fines he has been ordered to pay Carroll. (He currently owes her in excess of $90 million, which have been accruing in interest as Trump has been continuing his appeals).

Trump’s attorneys had appealed against the first verdict, arguing he had not been found guilty of “rape”. The jury had said that Trump was guilty of penetrating Carroll with his fingers in a dressing room of a departmental store. The judge rejected Trump’s appeal and stated the abuse could be considered rape, as it is commonly understood.

“The finding that Ms. Carroll failed to prove that she was ‘raped’ within the meaning of the New York Penal Law does not mean that she failed to prove that Mr. Trump ‘raped’ her as many people commonly understand the word ‘rape’,” Judge Lewis A. Kaplan wrote in a ruling in July, 2023, rejecting the appeal. “Indeed, as the evidence at trial recounted below makes clear, the jury found that Mr. Trump in fact did exactly that.”

Trump, who has denied all allegations against him, is hardly the first American president who has faced accusations of sexual assault. But he has a public record of sexual violence—backed by a jury judgement—unmatched by any presidential candidate in American history.

Perhaps it’s not surprising that it hasn’t hurt his popularity among men, specifically white men, who hero-worship Trump. They view him as their defender and saviour. The male lawmakers, who voted to impeach Former President and Democrat Bill Clinton over his lies about a sexual relationship with Monica Lewinsky, have had nary a word to say about the jury verdict, judge’s comments and more than two dozen women who have accused Trump of sexual misconduct.

Hypocrisy thrives in politics, after all.

More puzzling are the women who enthusiastically support Trump even as the accusations of sexual misconduct continue to stack up against him. Demographically, these women supporters are predominantly white. In 2016, 47 per cent of white women voted for Trump. Prior to that election, voters had seen Trump bragging in an Access Hollywood tape from 2005 about grabbing women’s genitals against their will.

After initially denying it was him on the tape, Trump dismissed the comments as “locker room” talk.

Enough white women have accepted Trump to propel him to victory. His percentage of white women supporters increased four years later. In 2020, 55 per cent of white women voted for Trump. (In contrast, a large majority of Black, Latina and Asian women has supported Democratic candidates for the entirety of the time period in which data disaggregated by gender and race has been available, according to the Center for American Women in Politics). Trump’s strongest support comes from white Evangelical Christians and white Catholics. The conservative branches of Christianity are strongly patriarchal, in which some followers believe the man is the head and leader of the household and the wife is meant to support and obey.

The women, who continue to support Trump, offer the same justifications heard in rape-excusing cultures around the world: Most men behave this way. The victims should have known better. They must have done something to provoke his behaviour. That happened long ago.

The most common response is to dismiss the 26 women who have accused him for misconduct—ranging from harassment to rape. All those women are lying, his supporters say.

The victim-blaming misogyny prevalent in culture is often internalised by women themselves.

Republican lawmaker Nancy Mace from South Carolina, who has publicly talked about being a sexual assault survivor, remains staunching in Trump’s corner. She appeared on the ABC News programme, This Week, in March and defended her decision to support Trump despite the jury verdicts finding him liable for sexual abuse. Mace said a civil judgement is “very different” than a criminal conviction.

Her argument ignores the fact that Trump already has been criminally convicted of 34 felony charges in a scheme to illegally influence the 2016 election through a hush money payment to a porn actor. The fact that he is the first presidential candidate in American history to be a convicted felon is of little concern to his supporters. It would be just as easy for them to ignore yet another criminal conviction. Trump’s lawyers are now suing ABC News and the programme host for defamation for referring to him “raping” Carroll in the questions to Mace.

The West, which has projected itself as a bastion of women’s rights, has revealed how shallow its concern about women’s rights actually is.

American voters are poised to elect a Predator-in-Chief.

(Views expressed are personal)

Aisha Sultan is a columnist whose work explores social change with an emphasis on education, families and inequality

(This appeared in the print as 'The Anarchist')