Electile Dysfunction (Current students plz look!)

[G.Irish]

No - I'm legitimately asking the question. He had a TV show on what is pretty well known to be a fairly liberal network. Been in the public sphere for a long long time - I just would have thought you'd at least have heard rumors. It doesn't take running for president to make people want to ruin your reputation. Now, I'm not up on celebrity comings and goings at all, but it does seem like something you'd have at least heard about. Maybe you don't until you do.

If you're someone who has lived in NYC or has family who has lived in NYC you had a much higher chance of hearing about the other stuff. Before the Apprentice I was aware of a couple of questionable statements, and the Central Park 5 thing. I didn't hear about the housing discrimination lawsuits until he started campaigning.

The thing about powerful celebrities is that they have a number of ways they can keep negative stories from breaking out. They can pay people off like Bill Cosby did to some of the women he drugged and assaulted. Or they can make a deal with a media outlet to kill a story, again like Bill Cosby did (Nat'l Enquirer exchanged an interview for killing a story). They can simply deny, deny, deny, and usually people will believe a famous well-liked person over a nobody. They can also threaten legal action like Trump has done against a number of people for defamation. And because of all that, a lot of times people don't want to come forward with their story, especially victims of sexual assault. Look at how long it took for Jerry Sandusky to get caught.

I also wonder where all these women were that came out accusing him of various things. I definitely don't know all the details, but you'd think that victims with allegations against Trump, a public billionaire, would have tried to settle something with him before it became an issue that would for sur ebe broadcast on national TV during a presidential contest.

Sexual assault is always a tough one, even when you're talking about non-famous people. For someone rich and famous like Trump, it's all but a certainty that levying a public accusation would result in the victim having their name dragged through the mud and Trump trying to sue. Even if Trump didn't win, he has the resources to bludgeon a normal person into submission with litigation. Trying to prove someone groped you in court is very difficult unless someone else directly witnessed the act. So these women just kept quiet at the time.

I think the reason these women came forward now, is because he got caught on tape admitting he groped women, but then denied actually doing it during the 2nd debate.