Trump apologizes for boasting about groping women, says he'll be talking about Bill Clinton more now

Why is this being brought up here? Is Bill running for office?

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I don’t think that @ChickieD is in anyway excusing Trump by pointing out the problems with Bill Clinton - I do think that they are highlighting a double standard.

And of course, the problem is that far too many people blame Hillary Clinton for Bill Clinton’s sexual assaults/crimes, which is just another form of sexism, that she didn’t “better control” her man and sexual satisfy him, therefore, she’s to blame for this.

They mentioned this upthread, actually and says that it doesn’t fit into their decisions for voting.

We do have room here for complexity in our thoughts and discussions, yeah? Both things can be true.

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What is that double standard?

This isn’t complexity; it’s a distraction.

OK, but I still think framing this as a controversy over Trump “using the P-word” is mischaracterizing where the outrage is coming from. It’s not Trump’s choice of words that are the problem, it’s the actions those words were describing.

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That some on the democratic side give Bill Clinton a pass, because he was so popular. They dismiss women he was accused of assaulting and ignore how he used his position for sexual gratification. NONE of that should really reflect on Hillary Clinton, though.

And given @ChickieD’s initial comment on how none of this reflects on Hillary, I don’t think it is.

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Did I say otherwise? Of course the problem is his clear sexual assaults of women. Neither me nor @ChickieD said otherwise. Please read the comments I’ve made over the course of this discussion.

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This was the original comment I was referring to:

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Fair enough. as I do disagree with that statement. But @ChickieD also noted that this does not change her views on Hillary Clinton. Nor did I argue for that.

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We cool. :+1:

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Excellent! Glad to hear it!

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My wife’s brother’s wife’s mom just defriended me, my wife, and my wife’s sister on Facebook. She is a nice person (to us at least). She is pro-Trump. Posts lots of pro-trump stuff and anti-Hillary stuff. I responded to two of her totally bullshit “shares” with snopes links. No, the pope has not endorsed Trump. No, Hillary did not hire a child actor to ask her a question at a town hall. For that she dropped me. My wife and her sister post lots of pro-Hillary stuff that she didn’t want to see. No big loss but it just shows you… People cannot handle differing opinions even if it’s a different version of FACT that is being presented. “Hoboken is the capital of New Jersey.” “No it’s actually Trenton”. Defriend.

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Easier than saying “my brother-in-law’s mother-in-law”. I saw her a couple times a year max – communions, birthday parties of her grandkids (my nephews). My wife has taken offense. But … to her it’s “my brother’s wife’s mother”.

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I think it’s interesting too. I was actually about to post a long bit about a Canadian example we had of much the same kind of logic and argument (except in this case it was a future PM candidate who libelled a defense attorney for defending a bad person).

But then I realized what was really happening. The problem with being reasonable and interested in stuff is that you become vulnerable to being engaged in reasonable and interesting conversation - which is fine - except when the intention is to distract you from something else.

The internet and internet discussion has been around long enough that the concept of ‘sea lioning’ has evolved into many variations and subtleties. One of the best is to ignore the topic at hand and refocus on some minor tangential detail. Then to engage, endlessly, on that detail. Move the goalposts as necessary to keep us thinking about the ethical nuances of a defense lawyer defending a child rapist, rather than the ethical monstrousness of being an actual self-identified perpetrator of sexual assault.

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The Breitbart line I see repeated quite a bit today is “What Trump said was just silly banter, but what Bill Clinton did was genuinely awful and Hillary verbally attacked the women he slept with in the press! Therefore she’s the real monster!”

Wait, Hillary’s a bad person because she was visibly angry about the women her husband had affairs with?

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Yeah. I’m pretty sure that Bill Clinton wouldn’t get through any primaries in 2016 with his history. But I don’t see why that should make Hillary Clinton unelectable. Some ill-placed faith in her husband and some vigourous defence? Not great, but not terrible either.

With a candidate like Trump, trying to make the sexual politics of the candidates the major election issue seems to be just about the worst idea ever.

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What does that make us?

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What do you think it makes us?

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Aren’t we all cousins of @anon67050589?

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The Trump apologists arguing that Clinton is a bad person because people accused of serious crimes should just be convicted, without the benefit of a defense lawyer… I am not sure that they have thought through all the implications of their argument.

Afterthought: Trump himself is outspoken on his opinion that if someone has confessed to a crime, therefore they’re guilty. OK.

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