President Trump has finally done the unthinkable -- and ??? ?? ????yet it was somehow expected. Friday morning he took to Twitter to attack Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, who has accused Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexual assault.
Dr. Blasey has until now escaped Trump's direct wrath -- to the surprise of many. But by Friday Trump was no longer holding back. He's come out expressing doubt as to the veracity of Ford's claims and is continuing his ongoing defense of Kavanaugh.
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The suggestion that Ford is lying about the attack is bad enough, but this is an unprecedented statement for a president to make -- especially coming from a man who has come under similar scrutiny for his own behavior.
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Besides the infamous Access Hollywoodtape, Trump has been accused by numerous women of sexual harassment and assault.
But perhaps most galling is the way Trump's attack suggests that just because women don't report rapes or assaults, they must not be true. In fact, as Vox noted this week, about two-thirds of rape cases and only one-third of battery or assault cases are reported to police, according to The Rape, Abuse & Incest National Network (RAINN).
And in a vast majority of the cases in which rapes and assaults are reported, the perpetrator never sees jail time.
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That doesn't even touch on the issue of victim shaming that still permeates our culture, even in 2018 in the wake of the #MeToo movement.
As Mashable's Angie Han wrote following the wave of Harvey Weinstein allegations, specifically about the shaming of accuser Ashley Judd:
The shame game is playing out in real time, too. While Ashley Judd, the first to go on the record about Weinstein's harassment, has received praise, the online conversation about her is simultaneously punishing. Comments on our Facebook page at time of writing described her as a "loser" who "needs a paycheck." On Twitter, commenters dismissed her bravery as hollow "now that she's washed up."
Trump's attacks is just the latest not only in this cycle, but in his own behavior of attacking those who make accusations of assault.
Trumps comments follow an unusual period of silence in which even his aides were reportedly shocked at how mild the president's statements on Ford had been.
But it also follows a horrendous meme attacking Ford shared by his son, Don Jr., on Instagram and the president's outburst last week denying the reported death toll from Hurricane Maria.