The problem with explaining the obvious it that one man's obvious is another man's mine field. The field is obvious, but the mines are not. The standard political metaphor for a dangerous topic is "third rail". The third rail of subway track is pretty obvious and most people know to stay away from them, or risk electrocution.
A political mine field is a very different metaphor. A political mine field is a subject which injures one's cause, but not in an immediate or obvious way. The audience maybe nodding their heads, but there's one or two people who were just lost forever.
The two biggest political mine fields of the past 30 years have been gay rights and abortion rights.
Many years ago, during the short lived crisis in the Episcopal Church, about the ordination of an openly gay Bishop, I sat in a meeting with a group of church people who were trying to decide how it affected them. This was a socially liberal group of people, but they weren't sure what it all meant. Some very nasty quotes had been reported in the news and these people were trying very hard to be polite, but I could tell a few of them found the entire idea disgusting. One woman, who had been quiet the entire evening, tried to fight tears and said, "But what do I tell my gay son?"
I had just seen a landmine explode. Here was a woman, who for all outward appearances was a solid Republican voter, but any candidate who took a position to disparage, diminish, or deny any right to her son, would never get her vote. In any group of 100 people, gathered for any reason, there is going to be at least one gay person and many more with a close relative who is gay. They don't wear a special hat, so there's no way to tell. Whether anyone knows, or not, their vote will hang on this issue. This is especially true for people who do not voice their opinions. They may answer a pollster in the expected way, but in the voting booth, the issue cuts to the heart of their family and the gay-hostile candidate will not get their vote. There is no way to count them.
Abortion rights is the second mine field. This mine field is much larger. No one will argue abortion is a good thing, and it is always a poor choice among a short list of poor options. What's more, it's always a very private and secret thing. There are no bumper stickers or window decals. What there is, however, is the memory of the desperate situation which led to it. The candidate who rails against Roe v. Wade recalls that desperation and thoughts of what would have been, if abortion had not been available, or simply dangerous. Boom, another land mine goes off.
There is a third mine field and in the past week there have been so many mines explode, it sounds like a long crack of distant thunder. Like the first two mine fields, the people who wander across it, have no idea where they are.
Sexual assault is a very wide spectrum of behavior. It is so wide that there are many people don't recognize about half of assaults as being any kind of infringement. Unless there is an injury that requires medical attention, a sexual assault remains the victim's secret, or limited to a few close friends. After all, what can be done, after the fact? The effects range from mild indignation to life long emotional trauma, but there's no real outward appearance. There's no way to know, just by talking to someone, but it's there.
The actual quote is, “Just kiss. I don’t even wait. And when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything. Grab them by the pussy. You can do anything.”
These are the words of a predator. When this now famous video hit the internet and airways, the sound of millions of land mines roared across the country with a great collective shudder. In the time it took to absorb these words, every sexual assault victim's memory boiled to the surface. Perhaps the worst part of this embarrassing incident is how well it illustrates what I said above about people not recognizing half of sexual assaults as a valid offense against another person.
There are people who think this kind of behavior is normal, and are not at all disturbed by it. There are people who think that it should be overlooked because other men have done similar things. We don't see that defense applied to armed robbery. In past centuries, we protected women from this kind of thing by keeping them locked in the house and closely supervised. That became very impractical, so we put them in charge of the sexual brakes. The rules were very complicated, but all a man had to remember was, he could do as much as she would let him do. For most men, this is a reasonable standard. There is always a fringe group that believe "yes" and "you can't stop me," mean the same thing.
If we go back to our room of 100 people, there will be a gay people and someone who had an abortion, at least one of each. Nearly every person in the room has had their life affected by sexual assault, either by being the victim, or being close to a victim. This is one of those, "If you don't see the problem, you are the problem," situations.
From the start of this election season, Donald Trump was a long shot. His odds have steadily improved, almost to the point of real possibility. That's gone now. There's no way out of this mine field.
He has revealed himself to be that worst of the privileged, the man who thinks he can take anything that can't be defended.
This goes far beyond his relationships with women. It explains all the contractors and vendors who supplied his building projects, and then not paid the due amount. It is the pattern of his life. It is pure foolishness to believe this mentality can be harnessed for the public good.
