Nobody can deny the ground has shifted in America. Formerly invincible men are tumbling one by one as victims come out with their stories of sexual assault.
Some, like Harvey Weinstein, were already fading from power, but others, like Louis CK, were still at the height of it.
Yet one man continues to defy America’s new moral norm: its president. Seventeen women have accused Donald Trump of sexual harassment. Their claims are more numerous and no less credible than those against Roy Moore, the Republican candidate for senator in Alabama.
Senate leader Mitch McConnell said this week, “I believe the women” who accused Moore, and that he “should step aside.” But asked if he believes the women who accused Trump, McConnell refused to answer. (Trump’s position: Every one of those 17 women is lying.)
So yes, the ground has shifted, but some still stand high enough on it to escape the cold, swirling waters of justice. In other words, it’s still, in the end, about power. Trump’s power is that the party still needs him (or believes it does). That means it will blatantly ignore accusations that would put any other man on the street, if not in jail.
Still, if you have to be president to achieve that sort of immunity, things aren’t so bad, right? Wrong. What Trump proves is not that you have to be president, just that you have to have leverage. How many predatory local politicians or minor business magnates are safe because, like Trump, someone needs them? How many more men are safe because they’re so obscure that nobody cares but their victims? And what happens when the #MeToo movement starts to lose steam, as it inevitably will?
Yes, the ground has shifted. But it’s still the ground. All that’s changed is the slope.
