Donald Trump: Hitting a New Low?

This weekend, a video was released revealing presidential candidate Donald Trump asserting that his taking advantage of and sexually assaulting women is acceptable because of his celebrity status. Trump’s words were shocking and captured his lack of morality, his entitled mentality, and his condoning of sexual violence.

According to Democratic vice presidential candidate, Senator Tim Kaine, the best way to gauge a candidate is to look at what they’ve done and exemplified before entering the realm of politics. In some ways, Trump perfectly fits Kaine’s criteria of consistency, but for morally wrong reasons. Throughout his business and brief political career, there have been many documented examples of Trump’s repugnant words and behaviors towards women.

In addition to the comments released from 2005, Trump has inundated women with insults. Trump has even made crude remarks about his own daughter, Ivanka. He admitted that she has “a very nice figure…. if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I would be dating her.”

Perpetuating such blood-boiling and demeaning language towards women, Trump also said, “It really doesn’t matter what [the media] writes as long as you’ve got a young and beautiful piece of ass.”

Even though his language and attitude didn’t come as a total shock given his history of degrading women, nothing could have prepared me emotionally for the lowness displayed in the video. His belief that his wealth entitles him to do as he pleases, while showing no regard for women on the receiving end, is astounding and obscene.

Trump made the flawed justification that his comments were merely “locker-room” talk. The casual setting where these remarks were made exacerbates the impact of them. Unlike speaking publicly, there is no pressure in a casual chitchat to be “presidential.” It’s no surprise this video conversation was not publicly divulged. Furthermore, by Trump and his supporters excusing his behavior with a quick catch phrase, it “normalizes” such rhetoric on a societal level.

And as if his words weren’t bad enough, his despicable actions reflect his attitudes towards women. For example, a woman filed a lawsuit on April 26 against Trump accusing him of rape. The victim was 13 when she suffered the assault, according to the suit. In response, Trump was quoted by several newspapers asserting that “There is absolutely no merit to these allegations. Period.”

Appropriately, Trump lost much support. This included a withdrawal of an endorsement from Senator John McCain, among others. Mike Pence, his running mate, was also astounded by his comments and said that “as a husband and a father, I was offended by the words and actions described by Donald Trump.” Even though Pence claimed to be troubled by Trump’s comments, after the debate, he tweeted he “is proud to stand with [him].”

Trump’s stance on the issue was reiterated by his responses during this weekend’s presidential debate. He tried to dodge a question asking if he had committed acts of sexual violence, which sparked further skepticism. In his game of two truths and one lie (or maybe it’s the other way around), Trump dug himself into a deeper hole. And when he wasn’t busy changing the subject or ignoring the moderators, he appeared to stalk Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton by walking up behind her and looming over her. Clinton is right: “Donald Trump is temperamentally unfit to be president.”