Welcome to Eat Me, the rage edition. It’s a short one, but I had to write something about what’s going on today.
DON’T @ ME
I don’t know if they’re going to let me write this in my next column, so let me say it here: the president of the United States is a rapist. E. Jean Carroll, the advice columnist who I’ve long adored, has come out in NYMag about Trump attacking her in a department store dressing room years ago. The details are about as harrowing as it gets - and will feel familiar to lots of women.
What’s killing me at the moment is that I feel certain (and god I hope I’m wrong) that this won’t even be a big story. The article has been out an hour as I’m writing this, and I have yet to see it on cable news, the NYT, etc. Are we really so numb to the fact that the president is a sexual abuser that it doesn’t even warrant mentioning? Or is that women’s safety and humanity mean basically nothing in America?
WHAT I’M EATING
My optimism. Sorry, no food stuff today. I literally can’t stomach it.
WHO I’M READING
Lucia Graves, my old Guardian colleague, interviewed Jill Harth in 2016 about an attempted rape by Donald Trump.
The Daily Beast, on the time Trump’s ex-wife Ivana said in a deposition that he raped her.
In fact, here’s a whole list of women who have come forward, not that it will make one fucking bit of difference.
WHAT I’M WRITING
My last column was about the teenage racist who had his admission to Harvard rescinded, and one of the points I made was how conservatives are moving goal posts when it comes to racist: We’ve gone from “the n-word is unacceptable” to “everyone says it at one point and we have to forgive them.”
Thinking about these latest accusations - and sort of the inevitable feeling that more will come up on the road to 2020 - I wonder if we’re going to see a similar sort of move around sexual assault. Conservatives will go from claiming that any sexual assault is bad to making excuses (more than they already have) about all men acting this way. From “locker room talk” to “boys will be boys.” Or presidents will be presidents.
CURRENT OBSESSION
Okay, I lied - I’m going to write about one food thing. I just fully spiraled into an eating rage and ordered two panzerotti (think calzones, but smaller and fried). Highly recommended for eating your feelings.