IN DEFENSE OF DONALD TRUMP

Deyan Ranko Brashich,      Photo courtesy Getty Images – E! Entertainment Television

“I would rather have sex with Bill Cosby than Donald Trump” “With Bill Cosby, you could sleep through it” Tina Fey

After calling for Donald Trump’s indictment several weeks ago you would think that I would be the last person to come to his defense. Yet here I am doing just that. His detractors are only now calling for his head. Where were they months ago, or for that matter years ago?

As an equal opportunity detractor I remind that I wanted Hillary Clinton indicted as well. He is not that bad; there are many far worse. I still stand behind both demands notwithstanding my lukewarm, less than enthusiastic defense of Trump. My defense is not meant to exonerate him but to just paint him in a less damning light.

There are hundreds of elected officials who have waged war on women who are far worse. I now call for their indictment.

Trump is a pig, a serial liar, a xenophobe, a racist, a misogynist, a narcissist, a delusional fool with an alternate reality, a psychopath and a sociopath, a crude, illiterate, ill-mannered sleaze, a cheat, a charlatan, a flimflam artist, a hustler, a bait and switch bunco impresario. That said, he ain’t all that bad.

Much of what he is accused of is socially acceptable. For “crude, illiterate and ill-mannered sleaze” I point to Blanc Chyna, Kim Kardashian and Kanye West. For “delusional fool with an alternate reality” I point to Mitt Romney and his “magic underwear” and the Church of the Latter-day Saints founded Elmira, New York in 1830.

As for “serial liar” I point to any number of politicians and world leaders still in power. There is a big difference between bragging that a condo project in Tampa, Florida was a success and claiming that a positive regime change in Iraq, Afghanistan and Libya was achieved.

For misogyny I nominate any Roman Catholic Pope or bishop of the last century, today’s reigning Grand Imam, Grand Ayatollah and any Grand Mufti. Donald Trump grabbed Nancy O’Dell’s private parts while trying to bed her; the clerics have grabbed all women believers by the privates in propagating their faith.

For sexual assault and battery my candidate is Bill Cosby. The Donald has only been accused of marital rape by Ivana so far.

For cheats, bait and switch artists and bunco impresarios I mention in one breath Wells Fargo, Citigroup, Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan Chase, BNP Paribas, HSBC, Credit Suisse, ING, Deutsche Bank, UBS, Barclay’s and Royal Bank of Scotland with combined fines and penalties exceeding $30 billion dollars in fines, deferred prosecutions and restitutions. The Donald is small potatoes in comparison – Trump University was at best a $10 million-dollar-scam while for-profit ITT Educational Services and Corinthian Colleges bankruptcies have cost the taxpayer in excess of $1 billion.

The Donald J Trump Foundation paid a $2,500 fine to the IRS for an illegal political contribution of $25,000. Mylan, the EpiPen drug manufacturer with a Senator’s daughter as CEO, just agreed to pay $465 million fine for illegal Medicaid billing. The Donald is small potatoes.

For domestic “racists” and “xenophobes” I mention Trent Lott, Haley Barbour and David Duke as overt practitioners with covert believers in the millions. But for vile racial rhetoric nobody beats Paul LePage, Main’s sitting Governor: “Let me tell you something: black people come up the highway and they kill Mainers” “These are guys with the name of D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty – these types of guys – they come from Connecticut and New York … [to] sell their heroin” and “[i]ncidentally, half the time they impregnate a young white girl before they leave”.

The Access Hollywood tape has The Donald admitting to sexual battery, assault, groping and gross behavior. That unfortunately is what many women encounter just walking down the street to the cat calls of construction workers, while doing their jobs, reporting the news on Roger Ailes’ Fox News, trading stock at Bridgewater, a large hedge fund, or just slinging hash at the local diner.

Don’t you dare invoke the love and respect for your mothers and daughters as an excuse to condemn Trump. You should condemn Trump irrespective of family, as a matter of principle. Likewise you should condemn and indict the elected officials that you have allowed to wage war on women.

You have allowed Todd Akin, a six term Representative for Missouri, to publicly claim from the floor of the State Capitol that pregnancy rarely occurs from a “legitimate rape” because a woman’s body just shuts down. Richard Mourdock, the Indiana State Treasurer and candidate for Senate, was allowed to oppose abortion even in the case of a rape because “life is a gift of God” and that is “something that God intended to happen.” Terri Proud a Texas Republican claims that “the abortion industry [has] placed selling abortions above the health and safety of women” and Virginia legislator concurred that women should not complain of being penetrated by an ultrasound wand because “they had no problem having similar to a trans-vaginal procedure when they engaged in the act that resulted in their pregnancy”.

861 elected representatives and senators from six states [Texas, Ohio, Arkansas, North Dakota, South Dakota and Kansas] continue to wage war against women by restricting their right to govern their lives and bodies. Oklahoma state legislature [149 elected officials] passed a law that criminalized abortion procedure “aimed at protecting the safety and well-being of Oklahoma women”. Add to that the legislatures of Indiana [150 strong], Virginia [180] and North Carolina [170] and you have at least 700 elected officials who have voted to deny or restrict a woman’s constitutionally guaranteed rights.

You can’t lump Donald Trump with this bunch of losers. They were elected to represent a constituency that is 52% female and they have let that constituency down. You should not give them or Donald a pass.

Deyan Ranko Brashich is a contributor writing from New York. He is the author of Letters from America, Contrary Views and Dispatches. His contact and blog “Contrary Views” is at www.deyanbrashich.com