This evil we contend against
Let’s not forget that Donald Trump has been fighting like hell for years to keep his DNA from being tested in a civil suit alleging rape. Seldom does a legal maneuver assert guilt more definitively than that. In a stroke Trump could terminate a costly rape case by simply agreeing to submit a DNA sample — but only if he were innocent of rape. It would give him bragging rights. It would give him gloating rights. No one loves to brag and gloat and publicly humiliate others more than Trump. He could have it all for the low, low price of a lousy DNA sample that would take all of five minutes.
Why does he refuse? Because he’s guilty. Only a guilty man would refuse. There can be no other explanation, no other rationale, no other conceivable legal justification. Some time in the fall of 1995 or the spring of 1996 in a dressing room in the Bergdorf Goodman department store in New York City, Donald Trump raped E. Jean Carroll.
The dress Carroll was wearing has never since been laundered. It has the DNA of an unidentified male on it. We know that DNA matches Donald Trump’s DNA because Trump refuses to submit his DNA to disqualify himself as the rapist. Instead Trump has lawyered up and used every legal trick in the book to keep his DNA out of the case.
But we already know that Trump is a rapist, he fits the profile. A rapist is a man who has contempt for women. Check. A rapist is a man who would happily trade 30 seconds of his own pleasure for a lifetime of pain, humiliation and torment of another human being. Check. A rapist is a man who has no discernible conscience. Check. A rapist is a man who believes the whole world revolves around him. Check.
A rapist is a man who surrounds himself with other men who think and feel like he does. That’s why we’re never surprised when we learn that someone like Trump sycophant Corey Lewandowski recently sexually harassed a super PAC donor. That’s why we’re never surprised when we learn that Trump used to hang out with the loathsome child rapist Geoffrey Epstein. That’s why we’re never surprised that rapists and sex traffickers like Matt Gaetz support Trump. That’s why we’re not surprised to learn that Trump has been credibly accused of being a child rapist himself.
But not all rapists would cause the deaths of millions of his fellow Americans just to advance his own political agenda. Even some rapists have their limits. Yet Donald Trump would happily allow Americans to die of Covid if confusion about why getting vaccinated remains a good thing. Anything to keep Americans fighting and distracted from the real evil. The real evil is Trump himself, of course. Much of America is being led by a rapist and much of America does so willingly.
There are very few men in the world who are as evil as Donald Trump. When we think of Trump as a pathetic clown, it’s sometimes useful to remind ourselves that he is also, above all, evil. This reminder is brought to you by the sad reality that millions of Americans love this evil man, and we need to make it the mission of our lives to never again hand control of America over to that evil minority. And, as ever, ladies and gentlemen, brothers and sisters, comrades and friends, stay safe.
Robert Harrington is an American expat living in Britain. He is a portrait painter.