Trump, Weinstein, and America’s battle to reckon with sexual assault allegations

Two highly effective males in America are on trial this week.

One has been accused of sexual harassment or assault by at least 100 women. He has since been charged with sexual assault and rape. 5 girls have taken the stand in current days to testify that he had a sample of manipulation, abuse, and assault. If convicted, he may spend the remainder of his life in jail.

The opposite man has been accused of sexually harassing, assaulting, or in any other case violating more than 20 women. Nonetheless, he has confronted no prison penalties in reference to any of those allegations. His present trial, within the US Senate, considerations the allegation that he pressured a international authorities to analyze his political rival. Due to a vote by Republicans unwilling to problem him, no witnesses will probably be known as. He’s all however sure to be acquitted and can run for reelection in November.

The primary man is producer Harvey Weinstein. The second, in fact, is President Donald Trump.

Because the allegations against Weinstein grew to become public in 2017, a 12 months virtually to the day after Trump was heard on tape bragging about his skill to seize girls “by the pussy,” many have famous the similarities: two highly effective males, each repeatedly accused of utilizing their energy and fame and wealth to prey on girls sexually. One large distinction, although, as a few of Trump’s accusers have pointed out, is that whereas Weinstein has been ousted from his firm and denounced by former buddies, Trump is president of america, and enjoys the continued backing of his celebration and political allies.

That has remained true all through his impeachment inquiry and trial. Though Sen. Kamala Harris has introduced up Trump’s statements about girls on the Access Hollywood tape, the allegations of sexual misconduct have largely fallen by the wayside amid consideration to his dealings with Ukraine. The distinction in how America has responded to the 2 males says lots, not simply concerning the mores of Washington and Hollywood however about partisanship, energy, and accountability.

The allegations in opposition to Weinstein and Trump are strikingly comparable

The tales of Trump and Weinstein have lots in frequent. Each males have been accused of touching girls in opposition to their will, of constructing unsolicited and sexualized feedback about girls’s our bodies, of utilizing their energy to coerce girls into intercourse and to guard themselves within the aftermath.

Each males have been caught on tape. In a recording revealed by the New Yorker, Weinstein seems to confess to groping mannequin Ambra Battilana Gutierrez, and pressures her to come to his room. Within the Access Hollywood tape launched in October 2016, Trump bragged that his superstar standing allowed him to the touch girls: “Whenever you’re a star, they allow you to do it,” he mentioned. “Seize ’em by the pussy. You are able to do something.” After the tape was launched, a number of girls got here ahead to say that Trump had achieved the issues he described, kissing and touching them with out their consent.

Trump additionally boasted to Howard Stern about going backstage on the magnificence pageants he owned and seeing the contestants bare. “I’m allowed to go in, as a result of I’m the proprietor of the pageant and due to this fact I’m inspecting it,” he mentioned. “And also you see these unimaginable wanting girls, and so I kind of get away with issues like that.”

Picture by Dave Kotinsky/Getty Photos

Plenty of former pageant contestants have mentioned that Trump did in reality stroll in on them whereas they have been altering. “Our first introduction to him was once we have been on the gown rehearsal and half bare becoming our bikinis,” Tasha Dixon, who competed within the Miss USA pageant in 2001, instructed CBS Los Angeles final 12 months. “He simply got here strolling proper in. There was no second to place a gown on or any kind of clothes or something. Some ladies have been topless. Different ladies have been bare.”

Weinstein allegedly bragged to girls about actresses with whom he’d had intercourse. Trump made comparable claims, in line with Barbara Res, who labored with Trump for about 18 years. “He used to speak about well-known girls calling him and wanting him, even when he was married,” she mentioned. Nobody believed him, she added, “however he had that tendency to equate his greatness along with his conquering of girls.”

Each males additionally used deep relationships with the gossip press and a strong armada of legal professionals and authorized threats to attempt to bully each alleged victims and reporters into silence. Weinstein’s litigiousness was legendary, and he allegedly silenced victims via settlements with ironclad nondisclosure agreements and intimidated journalists with threats of lawsuits.

Trump, too, has used his authorized sources as a defend. When the Every day Beast reported that Ivana Trump, Donald Trump’s first spouse, accused him of rape in a deposition, Trump’s lawyer Michael Cohen responded ferociously. “I’ll just be sure you and I meet at some point whereas we’re within the courthouse,” he told the reporter. “And I’ll take you for each penny you continue to don’t have. And I’ll come after your Every day Beast and everyone else that you just probably know. So I’m warning you, tread very fucking flippantly, as a result of what I’m going to do to you goes to be fucking disgusting. You perceive me?”

Equally, because the allegations in opposition to Trump mounted in the course of the marketing campaign, Trump issued an ominous risk. “Each lady lied once they got here ahead to harm my marketing campaign,” he mentioned at an October 2016 marketing campaign rally. “Complete fabrication. The occasions by no means occurred. By no means. All of those liars will probably be sued after the election is over.”

Weinstein has confronted penalties for the allegations in opposition to him. Will Trump?

The place the Trump and Weinstein tales drastically diverge, nonetheless, is within the response to the allegations. Within the days after a number of girls publicly accused Weinstein of harassment and assault within the New York Occasions and the New Yorker, Weinstein was fired from the Weinstein Company and kicked out of the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences. His brother Bob (who has been accused of sexual harassment as effectively) called him a predator and mentioned, “I would like him to get the justice that he deserves.”

Picture by Alexander Koerner/Getty Photos

Weinstein was arrested in 2018 and indicted on sex-crimes expenses. At his trial, which started in January, prosecutors purpose to make the case that he raped one lady in 2013 and carried out a forcible intercourse act on one other in 2006. They’ve known as a number of witnesses in an effort to ascertain a sample of sexually abusive habits, and in the course of the trial, many new and disturbing particulars concerning the allegations in opposition to him have come to gentle.

One lady, for instance, mentioned that he trapped her in a lodge room, holding the door closed each time she tried to flee, ABC News reports. When she lastly gave up, she testified, he took her palms, forcibly eliminated her garments, and raped her.

It’s on no account sure that Weinstein will probably be convicted, and his defense attorneys have used a well-known technique — asking the ladies testifying in opposition to him why they didn’t battle again extra or report the crimes straight away. One lady, Jessica Mann, appeared to have a panic attack on Monday whereas being cross-examined by Weinstein’s lawyer, BuzzFeed experiences.

Nonetheless, Weinstein’s firing and his trial are way more extreme and formal in penalties than Trump has confronted in reference to any of the sexual misconduct allegations in opposition to him.

Within the wake of the Entry Hollywood tape’s launch, just a few Republican members of Congress pulled their endorsements of Trump. However the celebration management remained behind him, even when girls got here ahead with particular allegations. The rationale was easy: They wanted him.

“No person was prepared to take him to job as a result of that will’ve meant electing Hillary Clinton,” mentioned Jennifer Lawless, the director of the Girls & Politics Institute at American College. Weinstein may very well be deposed and changed with out severely threatening the ability of these round him, however dropping the election to a Democrat would have had severe penalties for Republicans. “Whenever you behave badly within the political area, it’s potential to endure fewer penalties due to partisanship,” Lawless mentioned.

Whereas an NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll carried out simply after the Entry Hollywood tape’s launch discovered Clinton with an 11-point lead over Trump, a Washington Post/ABC News poll carried out across the similar time gave her only a 4-point lead. In that ballot, virtually 70 % of respondents mentioned Trump had in all probability made undesirable sexual advances on girls. However 64 % of respondents — and 84 % of Republicans — mentioned the tape would make no distinction in how they voted.

“It’s not solely the Republicans in Congress” who have been prepared to offer Trump a move, mentioned Lawless. “It’s additionally the nation. Individuals assume this habits is unacceptable, however when push involves shove, there are circumstances beneath which they’ll tolerate it as a result of there are different issues that matter extra to them.”

These issues certainly assorted, to some extent, from voter to voter. Trump gained 53 % of white girls and 61 % of white girls with out faculty levels. The latter group, as Tara Golshan reported for Vox, has been rising extra conservative in recent times, and tends to have extra conservative views on gender points. In a Washington Post/ABC poll carried out in October 2016, about 4 in 10 girls (and 4 in 10 males) mentioned that Trump’s feedback on the Entry Hollywood tape have been typical “locker room discuss” — his excuse on the time.

Then there’s the unusual function elections play as validators of ethical habits in American politics. If then-FBI Director James Comey had by no means despatched his notorious letter, and Hillary Clinton had held one other 2 or 3 percentage points within the fashionable vote and decisively gained the Electoral School, it’s potential, even perhaps…