Week Two of Roy Moore Scandal: Misogynist-in-Chief Weighs In

November 20, 2017 | Revolution Newspaper | revcom.us

The basic idea: While the accused sexual predator and Christian fascist religious fanatic Roy Moore continues his campaign for Senate, Trump effectively throws him his support. The upsurge against the perpetrators of sexual abuse and assault must continue, and as part of this Trump must not be allowed to continue to get away with the abuse he has already bragged about and the legal attacks against women’s rights that he is spearheading.

The controversy over the Republican nomination of Roy Moore to be senator from Alabama has gone further since we wrote last week.

Roy Moore is a religious fanatic. He has twice been removed from the Alabama Supreme Court for rulings that placed the Christian Bible over U.S. law. First, he refused to move a massive monument to the Ten Commandments that he had placed in front of a courthouse. Then, after being re-elected to the Alabama court despite this, he defied the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that gay people have the right to marry. In addition, he has been  a long-time vicious fighter against the rights of women, including especially the rights to abortion and birth control.

All of this should have been enough to disqualify this Christian fascist in the first place. But then it came to light two weeks ago that Moore had made a specialty of stalking teenage girls while he was a district attorney in his 30s. Some of his victims, no doubt encouraged by the actions of women all over the country in naming predators and abusers, had come forward to accuse Moore of actual sexual assault. As the week wore on, it came out that the mall where he carried out his stalking took special measures to prevent it from happening there (though it seems as if nobody ever tried to actually STOP him from this criminal behavior by calling him to account for it).

While Moore himself still denies everything, most of his defenders have now taken a new tack. The fascist David Horowitz, for instance, says that while he believes that Moore actually did this sick and criminal shit, he should nevertheless be elected because, in short, Horowitz thinks this would be better than having a non-sexual predator from the Democrats get the seat.¹ While some Republican senators still oppose Moore and say he should step down, at this point the dominant section of the Republicans—the outright Trumpian fascists—have rallied around this vicious and blatant oppressor.

This is concentrated in the actions of Trump. Trump says that “if the allegations are true” Moore should stand down, but he also says that so long as Moore denies them he will leave it to the people of Alabama to decide. At a time when some key Republicans are saying that there is enough evidence from what we DO know to demand that Moore step down and, if elected, not be seated, Trump has effectively endorsed Moore by not joining this chorus.

Instead, Trump went after a different target, Democratic Senator Al Franken. Franken had admitted to a gross and oppressive sexual act against a woman several years before becoming senator. Just to be clear, Franken’s action was oppressive and should NOT be tolerated. But Franken had admitted this and apologized and—thus far, at least—this seems to be a single instance. Nonetheless, Trump attacked Franken for it on Twitter, twice. Meanwhile, here is Moore with a whole history of predatory stalking of teenage girls and accusations by some of these girls that Moore committed actual felonies against them, punishable by as much as ten years in prison. And Moore also supports an entire program of overturning and eviscerating basic legal and constitutional rights of women and putting them back in religious chains. Yet who does Trump attack? And who, through his thundering silence, does he support?

Even more to the point: Trump himself has not just admitted but boasted on tape of ugly and criminal assaults against women and has also been accused by over a dozen women, and sued for defamation by a former participant on his TV show whom he labeled a liar. Yet Trump himself continues in office and has the nerve to attack a political opponent’s accused actions which, while clearly wrong, are less serious than Trump’s admitted actions by an order of magnitude.

When this was pointed out to Trump’s spokesperson, Sarah Sanders, she justified Trump’s previous admissions by saying that since he got elected after they came out, “the voters had spoken.” Well, whether they “spoke” or not, a crime is a crime is a crime—and even were this Trump’s only crime, and it is not, it should be enough for people to continue to raise hell and demand that he and his whole rotten regime be thrown out.

In fact, people like Trump and Moore are doubly guilty. First, for their unapologetic oppressive behavior against women. Second, for their support of a whole program that would slam women back into a qualitatively more subjugated position in society and for their enforcement of that program through law (and here they are joined by the pious predator-enablers and predator-apologists like Pence).

The current upsurge against sexual assault and harassment is extremely important. It needs to go forward and it needs to spread much further. It has shone a much needed light on a horrendous daily crime that weighs as a heavy chain on tens of millions of women, in every walk of life, day after day after day. It has raised critical questions about many spheres of society, and it needs to get into many more. As a crucial part of this, the outcry against Trump himself and his whole regime must be renewed with real determination and drive.

1. In a November 10 tweet, Horowitz said, “In my view Moore is guilty as accused. But 1) it happened 30 years ago, & 2) he can't be removed from the ballot, & 3) electing a Dem strengthens a party that defends these criminals: Obama, the Clintons, Holder, Lynch, Abedin, Cheryl Mills etc. & their crimes are far, far worse.” [back]

Volunteers Needed... for revcom.us and Revolution

Send us your comments.

If you like this article, subscribe, donate to and sustain Revolution newspaper.