‘The Guiltiest’ by Christopher Weyant, May 29, 2024. Cagle Cartoons.
The wonderful news of Donald Trump’s conviction in New York on all thirty-four counts was followed immediately by opinion pieces saying this historic event will have no influence on all those people who apparently don’t care that they are ready to vote for a criminal in the White House.
I don’t know if this is true. We are deluged with opinion pieces parading as news that seem to reflect the biases of the writer rather than any known facts.
But I wonder: the U.S. public like any group of people couldn’t get through the challenges of daily life without a bedrock common sense, and common sense tells us that a man as compromised in all areas as Donald Trump is will not be able to govern effectively.
I have to admit that there is a factor at play with the U.S. public that may be unique: we love our bad boys. Women especially are prone to not only forgive and forget but to feel an unlikely attraction to boys and men who act out, say despicable things, act in violently destructive ways.
The bad boys all share a certain set of characteristics, which I think of every time I see women’s enchanted faces turned up toward Donald Trump as he speaks.
Bad boys never try to hide their shameful acts; they parade them. Women who protest may be asked to “lighten up… Don’t take it personally… Where’s your sense of humor?” There is no way to shame a man who is shameless. Nothing his critics can say is as damaging as what he says about himself.
Having spent a fair number of years arguing—fruitlessly—with adolescent boys, I know how easily disarmed I am. “Come on, stop being so serious…” Etc., etc., etc.
A smile would creep over my face, a secret admission that maybe I was too serious, that maybe taking it all as a joke would make things go so much more smoothly.
We women still can be separated from our sense of agency rather easily, especially by these expert manipulators, like Stormy Daniels, staring at the ceiling while Donald Trump was on top of her and wondering, “How did I get here?”
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