PussyGate: An Observation

Over the last several days the nation has been caught mouths gaped and speechless if not worse at the fact that 11 years ago Donald Trump said the now famous words “Grab them by the pussy.” The thing with this is that once you look at the case of pussy-gate and use any kind of comprehensive thought on it whatsoever a certain conclusion must be reached. That conclusion is that Donald Trump is not going around the country publicly talking about grabbing women by the pussy. In fact I don’t know that he has ever said that to a public audience. While what he said 11 years ago in a private conversation is reprehensible it was still said in a private conversation.

Those that Live in Glass Houses

I can say with almost certainty that all of us have said something to someone at some point that even our current selves would look back at with something of a cringe. Certainly if some disinterested party were to obtain a clip of your conversation in which you said some kind of repugnantly insensitive comment you could potentially offend a large group of people with it. If somebody tells you that they have never said anything at any point that would be considered offensive by at least a large handful of people that person is lying to your face; whether they understand it or not. While Trump’s statement is terrible we should be able to see the handling of this for what it is; a political knee capping of Donald Trump (which he may rightfully deserve).

The Messenger

So in order to more fully understand the forces at work here it is important for us to acknowledge who is in fact delivering this message? Is it Donald Trump that unwittingly had a candid vulgar conversation with another person? Or, is it more rightly so the mainstream media in addition to Hillary Clinton and her campaign? I think with little more than a precursory examination we can see that those pushing this story and rubbing every man, woman, and child’s nose in “grab them by the pussy” and the locker room banter, rape culture world we live in is none other than the media and Clinton herself.

The discussion that has followed has done little to nothing as far as educating the public to the terribleness of objectifying women, nor has it done anything to heal the nations misogynistic wounds. This has served one purpose and one purpose only- to publicly humiliate Hillary Clinton’s presidential opponent. This has little to do with righteous indignation nor does this have anything to do with the country climbing to a moral high-ground. It is well established that Bill Clinton has had his fair share of transgressions against women all the way up to an alleged rape of which the accuser has steadfastly for over 30 years stood by her account of. Yet Bill Clinton suffers no public humiliation, the media is not spending entire media cycles on his transgressions nor those of his wife’s alleged bullying of Bill’s victims. Why do we think that is?

Leaving all Stones Unturned

I don't think that it behooves anybody to focus so strongly on this one conjured up issue especially in light of the fact that Hillary Clinton has broken real verifiable laws and committed real verifiable crimes of which nobody, not least of which the media, talks about. Nobody wants to talk about real issues such as bodies continually and perpetually piling up in the Middle East. Nobody wants to talk about the drone program, Clinton’s cheating of her own party in the primaries, continually escalating saber rattling with Russia, or even what right they as a government have to be intervening in what is happening in Syria. Alleged humanitarian reasoning for being in Syria should be rejected on it’s face as trust in the Federal Government making moralistic decisions has been eroded beyond all reason.

Pavlovian Armies

Somehow however everyone, even people with alleged intelligence, hear the bell and goes over to the box on the wall and licks that little metal ball delivering that tiny little bit of sweet sugary hate that they crave. Once it’s on their tongue Pavlov’s first responders can once again feel their righteous indignation about something that happens all the time all around them. From the films they watch to the music they listen to the news that they form their opinions from and yet not an eye is batted. But once that bell is rung you can’t unring it and they come out in droves defending the moral high-ground that they weren’t even standing on before that bell rang.

Somehow the socially liberal left has become so regressive that for all intents and purposes they are at least if not more socially restrictive than a mid-century moralistic conservative crusader. The paths taken to arrive there were different but they have become the moral equivalent of their exact opposite. I don’t know how it was possible but it would seem that some kind of social alchemy was utilized to cause the liberal left to embrace with an iron fist the moral conservatism that we had thought was left in the past.