With the $5 million verdict against Donald Trump for sexual assault and defamation in the lawsuit filed by E. Jean Carroll, the #MeToo movement comes full circle.
Trump’s election in 2016, after he was overheard boasting of sexual assault during the taping of “Access Hollywood” and accused of sexual assault for more than a dozen womenunleashed a tsunami of female fury.
That fury prompted the women’s march. It inspired countless women, some of them hitherto apolitical from the suburbs, to put their lives on hold and jump into activism or run themselves.
And that fury, that intolerable feeling of incredulous disgust and civic rape, was the spark that ignited the #MeToo movement, as women, unable to stop the aggressor who was ruling the country, turned their energy towards those in their own institutions, including the entertainment industry.
I have long been convinced that Trump was the reason the Harvey Weinstein revelations caused a national frenzy.
The #MeToo movement is why E. Jean Carroll wrote the memoirs revealing this Trump raped her in a locker room by Bergdorf Goodman in the mid-1990s.
“As tumultuous and sickening #MeToo stories exploded across the country, I, like many women, couldn’t help but be reminded of a few men from my own life,” Carroll wrote.
a new law
Movement is why in 2022, New York passed the Adult Survivors Actwhich created a window during which sexual assault survivors could sue their perpetrators even after the statute of limitations has expired. (The move is also the reason the bill was signed by Governor Kathy Hochul and not the disgraced Andrew Cuomo.)
Carroll’s claim was one of the first filed under the Adult Survivors Act. And thanks to the perseverance of this woman, Trump for the first time will be held responsible legally for his treatment of women. Thanks to the #MeToo movement, the man who started it all he gets what he deserves To some extent.
The trial itself was a test of the extent to which #MeToo the culture has changed. Carroll’s attorneys asked a jury to six men and three women to understand why someone who has been sexually abused may remain silent for decades, why they may not remember the date the assault occurred, and why their trauma may not manifest itself in predictable and easily readable ways.
Trump’s attorney, Joseph Tacopina, for his part, took up the case as if #MeToo didn’t exist.
asked Carroll because he hadn’t screamedWhy hadn’t she called the police, why hadn’t she gone to the hospital? She asked Jessica Leeds, who testified that Trump groped her on a plane, if she ever remembered “telling the guy to stop or say no or something like that.”
I spent a few days in the classroom and was honestly worried about it this retro course Might work with a couple of jurors.
One of them, a 31-year-old security guard, said he got his information mostly from podcasts like that of far-right figure Tim Pool, whom Trump invited to the White House in 2019. But it’s clear that team members defense of the Trump jury it was not convincinghow he got them himself a few hours decide against you.
Yes, it is strange that the jury found Trump responsible for sexual assault but not rape, which is what Carroll accused him of, and Trump’s defenders can cling to that as an exemption fig leaf.
A misogynist and a predator
But what matters is that, for the first time, a court affirms what the women who reacted with stunned horror to Trump’s election have always understood. He’s not just a misogynist. He’s a predator.
I’m not naïve enough to think that Republicans will now bolt precipitously from Trump.
“I’d rather have a president not held accountable for the assault,” Republican Senator Kevin Cramer told reporters, but “that’s not a disqualifying factor.”
However, if the case had gone differently, would have been of great help to Trump, enhancing their reputation for going unpunished.
Instead, it’s a reminder that a legal assault is coming your way, and it can’t be deflected with lies, bravado, and wishful thinking. Trump’s election made the allegations of so many women seem irrelevant. Carroll made everything count. I just wish the other antagonists of him are just as brave.
c.2023 The New York Times Society
Translation: Elisa Carnelli
Source: Clarin
Mary Ortiz is a seasoned journalist with a passion for world events. As a writer for News Rebeat, she brings a fresh perspective to the latest global happenings and provides in-depth coverage that offers a deeper understanding of the world around us.