Although the dress was not used as evidence, nor did Trump provide a sample for analysis, it seems like a very long con if there were not semen from Donald Trump on that dress.
And 25 years later, here we are.
A dress and a DNA sample.
Weird how things worked out, isn't it? The Republican Party - back around the time when the former dress and semen were still...fresh - were insisting that the events that led to the combination of material and material issue were more than enough to remove a sitting President from office. Now, the very same party is insisting that a similar collision of fashion design and discharge is not a barrier to the highest office in the land.
Back in the day, the fact that Clinton
cheated on his wife!!! was enough to dig around in his past and find somewhere where he was less than honest about his extracurricular activities to the point where they'd be able to impeach him.
Now, the fact that Trump cheated on his first wife with his second, his second wife with his third, his third wife with a porn star, and sexually assaulted multiple women along the way is not even remotely relevant to his ability to discharge (there's that word again) the duties of the office of President.
Meanwhile, George Santos has been arrested and indicted on more than a dozen felony counts, and the GOP is like "yeah...but is lying really all that bad? I mean...if it gets us the votes it can't be that bad...right?"
Clinton did more than cheat on his wife with an intern. He certainly cheated on his wife with multiple women and was credibly accused of rape and of groping, fondling various women going back to his college days. These are different times #MeToo and to be frank, this is a different political party. Accusations against Clinton are definitely worse than those against Brent Kavanaugh, for example. Most of these seem quite credible to me. There is a certain kind of person who will try to get away with anything he can and thinks it's all ok because....he got away with it. I think Clinton is that kind of person. I think that Trump is as well, only far worse.
The interesting thing - for me - is the level of both rank hypocrisy and utter tone deafness on the part of the GOP. They rebranded themselves as the "Party of Family Values" during the Clinton years, literally making his infidelity and their stand for "the sanctity of marriage" into one of the pillars of their platform. Privately their leaders (like Newt) were just as philandering, but they banged the "family values" drum so loud that their voters didn't even notice.
Fast forward to the mid 2000s, and the Democrats were looking like they had another winner on their hands. He was young, charismatic, Southern, and was polling well in all the right places. He could easily be a nominee, and maybe even their ticket back into the White House. But John Edwards was found to have been carrying on an affair, and even had a child with his mistress. That was it. He was done. The Democratic Party wanted nothing to do with him. Perhaps not on a sense of true "we're the party of family values, too" sentiment, but more "jeez we can't go through this again." The Republicans had made infidelity a third rail in American politics, and nobody would touch it.
Until they met a train that exclusively used the third rail to get through life. Oh, some of them called out Trump as a sleaze bag, but when he knocked over their milquetoast candidates and stormed off with the GOP base, the party collectively forgot everything they ever said about "restoring integrity to the Oval Office." The Access Hollywood tape? "Locker room talk." The line of women accusing their guy of sexual assault? "Well they're only doing that because he's famous." Some folks even suggested that God chose Trump to be President.
Not long after he took office, the #metoo movement took off. Turns out women lining up to accuse powerful men of sexual harassment and assault was going to finally get some time in the spotlight. It brought down movie producers, A-list actors, a stand-up comic, and when a Democratic Senator got caught up in it, the party went "nope...he's gotta go."
The GOP? "We stand by President Trump 100 percent, and by the way here's a Supreme Court nominee and we're not backing down on him, either." Women who had been assaulted and harassed by powerful men were standing up and saying "no more," and most of the country was behind them, but the GOP basically said "fuck you." Just last night, their front-runner for the nomination steamrolled over a woman host in the ill-conceived CNN town hall, and his supporters and party lapped it up. Did he lie about everything? Of course. But the important part is that his supporters and his party cheered him on because he was talking down to a woman. True to form, he called her "nasty" and bullied her the entire time.
Every single woman who got cornered on a casting couch in Hollywood, a corner office in a corporate tower, a professor's office at a college, etc. etc. etc. was getting listened to when they said "this shit has to stop," but the Republican Party has collectively not only just ignored them, but
leaned into the harassment and abuse even harder. Trump is the poster....man-child for sexual harassment, but he's their guy. It is appalling.
