Under the Trump administration, the American public has been forced to “normalize” so many repulsive actions that it has become difficult to keep track of them all. The latest behavior that, in particular, American women are being urged to “normalize,” is rape.
Elaina Plott, writing for The Atlantic, interviewed six current and former Trump administration officials about the charge made by E. Jean Carroll, a prominent journalist for Elle magazine who last week alleged that Donald Trump raped her in a Bergdorf Goodman department store dressing room. Her harrowing account of this incident, published last week in New York Magazine, was met with varying degrees of coverage by an American media seemingly grown numb to the sheer quantity of evil that seems to ooze from Trump himself, and by every single member of his kakistocracy.
The reaction by Trump’s own appointees was, unsurprisingly, equally unconcerned.
“What was she, like, the 28th or something?” one former White House official pondered to me. In a separate conversation, another offered a different guess: “Twenty-two? Twenty-three?”
Because sheer numbers seem to dilute the seriousness of the offense, apparently. Plott found that for the current and former members of this administration she interviewed, Carroll’s credible, documented, and verified accusation of rape by their Dear Leader was met with utter indifference. The same type of indifference that would be meted out to, perhaps, an unfavorable poll number.
Rather, for them, the increase in the number of women seemed to mirror the increase in their indifference. Another accusation, they seemed to say, was like another dollop of numbing cream. “I didn’t read it,” the second former official told me, referring to Carroll’s written account in New York, which was an excerpt from her forthcoming book. “We’re just kind of numb to it all at this point.”
It’s an attitude that seems to be almost a reflexive stance among Republicans when dealing with heinous allegations against one of “their own.” Echoing Donald Rumsfeld’s famous shrug disavowing his disastrous failure to properly equip the troops for the War in Iraq, the people Plott interviewed seemed to take it all it in stride.
“Like, what are you gonna do?” the official said. “This is the guy you got.”
Only one—one—of these unnamed Trump administration "officials" had even bothered to read Carroll’s account of Trump raping her. They. Just. Didn’t. Care.
And as Plott notes, this indifference is doubly instructive for any woman who is beaten, raped, harassed, or discriminated against, as long as this regime remains in power, because it reveals their attitude towards any social policies that may impact women in general. From health care and pay equity to discrimination, bias and harassment in the workplace, Title IX and civil rights enforcement--if a charge of rape merits no interest, then why should anyone expect these issues to remotely register with members of this administration?
Taken together, the officials’ quick willingness to dismiss the allegation, not to mention their disinterest in learning more, reflects several of the defining factors of the Trump administration: an under-siege mentality, distrust in the press, and an unwavering loyalty to the president they’ve aligned themselves with. But there’s another reason their assessment is noteworthy. The private reactions of Trump’s top allies reveal how, inside the president’s orbit, the gravity of words such as sexual assault no longer seems to register. And that attitude—call it a collective shrug—could inform how the government responds to sexual-misconduct claims for, potentially, the next six years.
If the response of these officials is in any way representative of the attitude of the administration as a whole, then women in this country can forget about any consideration by their government towards these types of issues. Again—They. Just. Don’t. Care.
[I]if the media have been muted in their response to Carroll’s allegations because they lack a clear blueprint for how to respond, Trump officials have found themselves motivated by something simpler: They just don’t care that much. “Literally nobody—zero people—have approached me to say that this is an issue,” the current White House official told me. “I haven’t given it one second of my bandwidth.”
Several officials whom Plott interviewed implicitly acknowledged that the charge that Trump is a rapist would not affect the opinions of those voters who support him.
The only instance in which the current and former officials I spoke to suggested wrongdoing on Trump’s part was when several of them noted his response to Carroll’s story. The first former White House official said Trump’s brush-off was emblematic of his ability to elide whatever controversy comes his way. “In a lot of ways, he lives up to the name Teflon Don. I can’t think of one thing that can seriously hurt him at this point,” the person said. “Everyone has thrown everything at him, and nothing has really stuck.”
And it's so much easier to be "Teflon Don" when your administration is made up of craven moral cowards unwilling to call you out.
So this is the new “normal,” as far as these folks are concerned. Rape is really not that big of a deal. And just let Trump be Trump.
The only question that remains is whether women in this country will agree.
