Here’s the twist: Look at the man who threatens to pull the trigger on mentioning the Clinton scandals — a serial adulterer who is more removed from twinges of conscience than any figure in American political life. He boasts of his extra-marital affairs. He humiliated the mother of his children. He is the Playboy philosophy made flesh. He even found the time to mock Paula Jones as a “loser” and argue that Bill Clinton’s conduct was “totally unimportant.” His factotums, Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani, are also serial adulterers, though they didn’t boast about it. Still, their boss’s crudeness has now rubbed off.
Donald Trump and the Clinton’s Marriage
Trump interjected, “Heh, heh,” pronouncing each syllable in a way that validated the realism of countless cartoon voiceovers, and removed any doubt that he was talking about sexual, rather than political or financial, loyalty. But it was also a remarkable reminder of the proximity of all of those qualities in the Trumpian mind.
.. If properly executed, that sort of thing might have some resonance, although the ready answer is that, rather than mendaciously engaging in some woman-destroying scheme, she had simply trusted her husband.
.. Trump also told the Times that there was “never a problem” with his own marriages, which makes one wonder what, exactly, his wife at the time, Ivana, and soon-to-be second wife, Marla, were so upset about when they confronted each other at a ski resort in Aspen. (“It was very unladylike,” Ivana later told Barbara Walters.) When the Times pressed him on the Marla question, he said, “I wasn’t President of the United States.”
.. There is a need to speak more thoughtfully about the corrosive effect of money in politics and the uneven costs and benefits of free trade, and, indeed, about political dynasties. But Trump’s not doing that. When his bigotry and his speculations about sex aren’t at the center of his speeches, his narcissism is.
.. After all, the explanation for her wanting to be President couldn’t simply be that she has policy goals of her own. (Trump, at another point in the speech, said of Clinton, “She’s never done anything meaningful.”) In this scenario, there must be something else going on, something involving money and men who were out of sight—foreigners, too.
.. At the rally, Trump called her, effectively, a traitor—disloyalty to country being of a piece with disloyalty to husband.
.. Lester Holt asked both candidates if they would accept the results of the election, and Trump, after some hedging and insinuations about immigrants voting, said yes. (Clinton did so quickly and clearly.) In an interview with the Times, though, he suggested that he was rethinking that position; he should be asked the question at every debate. In Manheim, he was preparing his civil-society-slashing excuses.
Longing for the Male Gaze
My primary difficulty has been with people’s negative reaction, or what disability-studies scholars call the “social construction” of disability. This primarily means that the main challenges disabled people face come from societal prejudice and inaccessible spaces.
.. Strangely, my disability makes me feel as if I have license to play with and deconstruct sexuality in ways I might not have the bravery to do as an able-bodied woman. One of the privileges of being an outsider is that you are not expected to play by the insiders’ rules.
Fox Settles With Gretchen Carlson Over Roger Ailes Sex Harassment Claims
a person briefed on the settlement said that it amounted to $20 million. The person also said that Mr. Ailes was responsible for a portion of the payment, but Susan Estrich, Mr. Ailes’s lawyer, wrote in an email, “Mr. Ailes is not contributing anything.”
.. In its statement, the company apologized for the behavior, saying, “We sincerely regret and apologize for the fact that Gretchen was not treated with the respect and dignity that she and all of our colleagues deserve.”
Mr. Ailes resigned from Fox News on July 21, two weeks after Ms. Carlson filed her suit. He received a $40 million settlement when he left.
.. The evidence that Ms. Carlson had in her sexual harassment case was damning, according to another person with knowledge of the settlement. For a year and a half, she had been recording her meetings with Mr. Ailes on her cellphone (in an interview with The New York Times in July, Ms. Carlson said she had been in “between six and 10” meetings with Mr. Ailes where he made provocative comments).