Trumping The Hideous Man (The Naked City)

‘Trumping the Hideous Man’, about the campaign of President-elect Donald Trump and E. Jean Carroll, is the latest column (November 11, 2024) from Coffin Ed‘s The Naked City column – featured exclusively on City Hub.

There are moments in history which in hindsight may well have changed the world – had they gone in a certain direction. When Donald Trump sexually assaulted respected journalist E. Jean Carroll in the dressing room of a New York department store in 1996 she felt fearful and intimidated and decided not to report the matter to police. Had she done so Trump could well have been charged with rape, at the very least for sexual assault, and never entered the political landscape. 

In June of 2019, Carroll, whilst acknowledging that she slept with a loaded gun by her bedside, published an article in a New York magazine recalling the department store rape. She further detailed the episode in a bestselling 2019 book ‘What Do We Need Men For: A Modest Proposal’ in which she wrote of the ‘most hideous men of my life. Trump reacted with his usual denial and bluster, making all kinds of outrageous statements against Carroll. 

That led to her 2023 civil action against Trump for both defamation and a claim of battery under the Adult Survivors Act. The jury in the trial found Trump guilty of sexual assault but were apparently reluctant to call it an actual rape. The presiding judge Lewis Kaplan, in later dismissing a countersuit, ruled that Carroll’s accusation of rape was ‘substantially true’. Trump now faces a payout for punitive damages totalling $83.3 million and is currently contesting the decision. If the ruling is upheld perhaps he can ask good buddy Elon Musk to pick up the tab. 

Apart from a few lesser debates like women’s reproductive rights Trump really only campaigned on two issues – the state of the economy and illegal immigration. It followed what the Nazis in WWII prescribed as the most successful formula for propaganda – short uncomplicated statements repeated over and over again.

Nothing too sophisticated – just ‘Make America Great Again’. He also employed the populist ‘us against them’ approach, a favourite of dictators and tyrants throughout history. Hitler villainized the Jews, Pol Pot took on the educated and Putin called out the rebellious Ukraine. For Trump it was illegal immigrants, those already in the US ‘eating the cats and dogs’ and those streaming across the border. Xenophobia is a winner! 

Whilst he hurled every manner of personal abuse at Kamala Harris, the Democrats chose not to highlight Trump’s 2023 trial and the fact that a judge in the American justice system had declared him a rapist. If only the notorious paedophile and long-time Trump buddy, Jeffrey Epstein were still alive to spill the beans. 

Our own Australian history shows us that politicians and other public figures who are accused or convicted of any sexual offence are quickly severed from their political party or organisation. In most cases they resign before they are pushed and you could say that a good moral code applies in these circumstances. 

It’s a moral standard wholly endorsed by the population at large. You have to ask whether somebody with a history of sexual misconduct like Trump’s would ever be endorsed for any kind of political office here – let alone the leader of the country. 

Nevertheless, there will be many politicians, media commentators and Trump sycophants like Gina Rinehart prepared to overlook the soon to be president’s decades of sexual battery and misogyny, for what they see as the greater ideological good. Whether Anthony Albanese or Peter Dutton is running the country next year, their reaction to questions regarding Trump’s sordid rap sheet is predictable – an evasive ‘no comment’ style of response, all in the name of Australian/US diplomacy. 

Maybe a few revealing Netflix documentaries, some good investigative journalism and the bravery of abused women coming forward will reveal to Australians the true moral character of Trump. The 73 odd million Americans who voted for him are either blissfully ignorant or prepared to entirely dismiss his sleazy rap sheet. Some might even see his ‘conquest’ of women in the past as the sign of a real man.

Despite their evangelical posturing it says a lot about current Republican moral values and the diehards who embrace the cult like ‘orange Jesus’. Hopefully we are a lot better than the US in this country and will treat their perverted showbiz politics with all the contempt, disdain and loathing that it deserves.