If experts are correct in saying that Donald Trump needs women voters to win the presidency, the last two weeks have been the worst for any political candidate since the summer of 1984 when Michael Dukakis climbed into a tank and tried on a helmet.
This election has escalated way past PG-13, quickly hurdling both R and NC-17, and leaping into “Hands Over Your Ears Singing the La-La-La-La-La-La-La, I Can’t Hear You” song. Concerned parents are even encouraging their kids to play violent video games rather than watch the news. “Smoke more dope.”
Every time we think this election has sunk to a new low, the aerodynamically coiffed real estate mogul manages to dig another sub-basement. It’s like he’s trying to tunnel his way to China (or as he says it, JI-NA).
The spike that punctured the most recent bag of sleaze spewing down on us was an 11-year-old videotape from Access Hollywood in which the Don with the blonde frond bragged to the unfortunately named Billy Bush about sexual conquest in terms as seamy as stepping barefoot onto a used condom.
The King of White Males relentlessly intones that nobody respects women more than he, but many members of the female population question whether being grabbed by their private parts is really the best way of proving it. Many members.
Before the video surfaced, expectations for Trump in the second presidential debate were so low he could have been declared the winner simply by refraining from throwing his own feces at Anderson Cooper.
But during the face-to-face fracas, Trump shrugged off his profane slurs as mere locker room banter, saying he was guilty of words not actions,then over-elaborated until he seemed to imply the reason he brags about grabbing women by the crotch is because of ISIS. Wow, they really are bad guys.
Trump invited four Bill Clinton accusers to join him in a pre-debate press conference, prompting the Clinton campaign to discover four women who charged Trump with unsolicited advances, egregious groping and all round creepiness. The obvious option was to have the women of Team Trump face off against the women of Team Clinton in a pay-per-view steel cage match. And the winner got Ohio.
Unfortunately the numbers started growing as women come forward daily with further sordid Trumpian escapades. Fifteen separate allegations have been chronicled thus far. It’s gotten to where you can almost hear Bill Cosby turn to Camille and say, “Well hell, they can’t all be lying.”
One woman who got bumped up to first class then groped by Trump voluntarily went back to coach. As any traveler can tell you, that’s nuclear disgust. Hopefully she ate first. Trump’s defense against a couple of the accusations is that the women were too ugly for him to molest, a classic case of defeating your purpose.
One major takeaway from this two-way, slime-slinging fest is that America is destined to place a serial groper and chronic sexual assaulter in the White House. Just depends on where you want him: upstairs puttering around the private residences or behind the desk in the Oval Office.
Will Durst is an award-winning, nationally acclaimed columnist, comedian and former Pizza Hut assistant manager.
