CSotD: Is it a “revelation” when you already knew?
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There is only one topic happening today, but Trump's latest revelation (if you want to call it that) surfaced late enough yesterday that most cartoonists are still scrambling to respond. There may be more articulate responses coming, but speed matters in this business and, while there are cartoonists who will wait until their schedule says it's time to post another cartoon, that's not how it works.
Here are the first two responses I've seen, and they're not bad.
Both cartoonists raise the issue of how Trump's supporters will respond, with Luckovich simply extending the brand: We've always known Trump was crude, and so why all the shock (if any)?
Jones goes out on a limb and assumes that defenders and apologists will step forward, and I think he's on thinner ice, since some of the usual suspects have, in fact, declined to explain the mess, but there are always a few and, as backyard farmers know, when the pigs have turned up their noses at something, you can simply let the chickens in to clean it up.
We'll see it all put in perspective, I'm sure.
But a point Jones makes in his commentary bears quoting:
I’ve engaged in “locker room” talk. Every guy has. We have all said jokes that are inappropriate. But I have never said, or been friends with anyone, who said the sort of stuff Trump did. I have heard plenty of guys talk like Trump and I assure you, most men find it distasteful and try to distance themselves from that person. It’s boorish. At a certain age guys don’t give details of their sex life and they don’t want to hear their friends’ either.
I don't recall at what age I walked away from that sort of talk, but it was well before I had anything to talk about.
At nine or ten, little boys would tell stories of amazing things they'd done with cherry bombs, astonishing pranks they'd pulled in schools you didn't go to, and athletic feats it's doubtful Jackie Chan could pull off, and we believed them because we were nine or 10, too.
Not sure when you realize it's all a chest-beating display of nonsense, but about the time you are old enough to have a sex life to talk about, you're old enough to recognize the sound of an empty wagon and shame on you if you don't.
Which is not to say that Trump was lying about his own conquests or near conquests or random gropings. I'd assume that he was lying some of the time and imposing his power the others. He and his pal Roger Ailes did have the power to make their adolescent dreams come true, after all.
But the notion that there's something normal and okay about "lockerroom banter" — whether the talk is true or not — is as offensive as the banter itself, and most men have been in positions where they had to choose: Laugh and go along, remain silent and hope that your lack of response speaks for itself, or actively challenge boorishness.
For that matter, most women know the drill: You don't have to submit to boorish behavior, but you don't always challenge it, either, and it often depends on a combination of factors you can't necessarily put into focus on the moment but that include who controls your paycheck and how often things get to that point.
We have, as a society, come to a point where it is not has hard to challenge bad behavior as it once was, but we've hardly wiped it out, as the candidacy of Donald Trump makes all too clear.
But we can't just sit back and wait for society to become perfect.
Moreover, there comes a point where it is no longer an issue of his character, but of your own.
As Corey Lewandowski said, "I think the American people know exactly who Donald Trump is."
The question now is, who are we?
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