The communication gap is revealing itself

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For close on half a century, the phenomenon of men bullying women, starting from the egregious physical abuse some men inflicted on their women: wives, daughters, and sometimes mothers, and occasionally, quite unrelated women, to the sneaky innuendos thrown back and forth when men talk about women behind their backs, sexual abuse has gradually come to the forefront of public discussion, thanks to the casually effective methods of Donald Trump.

It's unfortunate that all these actions and activities are classified under the same heading.  To many women, all this is objectionable, and should carry the death penalty if convicted.  I personally believe that some of these behaviors are deplorable, but it would get a lot more deplorable if it is raised to the stature of a felony.  Without embarking on a war-of-the-sexes style diatribe, I suspect that women make fun of men behind their backs, and though this is deplorable, we have to face the fact that some girls will be girls, just as some boys will be boys.  The refusal to bring the level of abuse into the discussion, and the insistence on taking every perceived instance of abuse into equal consideration is threatening the whole concept of abuse.

Many of the antics that have emerged as escapades that Donald Trump reports, (some of which are probably wishful thinking, simply the sort of imaginative bragging that sixth graders indulge in while watching some of their buddies smoking behind the garden shed) can be dismissed as simply fantasies. At one time, he was rich enough for people to believe that perhaps he was able to grope women the way lots of guys imagine themselves groping famous actresses or models.  But now, having listened to Trump describe his fantasies, it becomes increasingly clear that the number of ladies that fell under his spell were fewer than a couple of dozen.  Some of the escapades involving unwilling women, if true, should make anyone think twice of considering Trump's candidacy seriously.  Either way, the machine of the GOP nominating process is clearly and utterly broken.  After several months of the core members of the Republican Party choking on their endorsements of Mr. Trump, the worms have turned, and they seem to think that the Party has suffered enough humiliation.  The candidacy is now supported exclusively by Trump's own campaign machine, and the GOP appears no longer to participate in trying to enable their Presidential candidate to move forward to Election Day.  Being a party which places a premium of matters of "honor", they undoubtedly feel this embarrassment keenly.

In a recent interview with Democracy Now, Noam Chomsky, the legendary linguist and political commentator, explained what has happened to the GOP.  Over the decades since the Sixties, the GOP has gained the support of sufficiently many blue-collar workers to win elections once in a while.  But now they have been unable to get enough support for the main political interests, and so they have gone with a candidate who focuses on peripheral issues of racism and sexism, and white identity politics.  The ideologically fragmented leaders of the GOP have been mixed about their core values; racism, sexism, white identity politics, xenophobia have never been core values of the party leadership, even if they were occasionally taken out for an airing when expedient.

I was surprised to see Donald Trump's apparent softening stance on certain divisive issues, and even more surprised to hear how one of his spin doctors explained it.  He hasn't changed his position, I think she was reported as saying, but rather that he only changed the language he was using.  That was too funny; Trump's somewhat uncritical fans would probably find that amusing!  Trump is learning to use euphemisms.

Asking Trump whether he had abused women is probably not appropriate.  I understand that Anderson Cooper was probably frustrated by Trump's refusal to answer the questions, and his casually insolent attitude on the debate floor, but if we continually put Trump on the spot about things that have little to do with taking on the Presidency (but admittedly, a lot to do with impeachment opportunities in a later year), Trump is going to keep making the debates sound sillier and sillier.  Trump does not want debates; he's terrible at them, and he knows it.

All parties seem to be bent on escalating the circus factor in this election, which unfortunately plays into the hand of the political outsiders, namely Trump and his followers, who view the prospect of destroying Washington with gleeful anticipation.  But it looks very much as if they will not get the opportunity, provided people actually vote against him.  (That is sort of a tautology, but the enormous number of people who do not want Trump in the Presidency is one number, but the number of people who will vote for Hillary Clinton is another number entirely.  A smaller number, unfortunately.)

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