Accounts of women claiming to have been sexually assaulted by Donald Trump are now dropping like autumn leaves in the wake of the release of a tape in which he was caught boasting about groping women. This has triggered a bit of debate over why the stories are coming out now, and not earlier this year when there could have been a chance for Republicans to deny him the nomination.
Conspiracy-minded folks would say that the media was withholding information to make sure that Hillary Clinton faced the weakest possible GOP opponent, or at least that organizations were withholding the news until it could do the maximum possible harm to Trump.
I’m always reflexibly skeptical about conspiracy theories, but I think such a debate is beside the point. The reality is that, even if the “Access Hollywood” videotape emerged at the heart of the primaries, along with the steady release of accounts of women describing behavior similar to what Trump was boasting about, it would not have made a difference in terms of the end result of the primaries. Either way, Trump would have still been the nominee, because all of the factors that contributed to his victory would have still existed.
Essentially, there were two basic ways that Trump could have been stopped — by voters and by the party establishment. It’s hard to see how the current revelations would have changed any of their calculations.
Trump would have still had a loyal, devoted following that believes in his message and either finds his long record of racism and sexism appealing or non-disqualifying. The campaign he’s waging right now in response to the steady stream of negative coverage — as the man who is out to help working people, who the lying, crooked media and corrupt establishment politicians are trying to stop at all costs — would have galvanized his fan base during the primaries. He would have argued that the media are trying to destroy him because they know he’s the strongest candidate against Clinton.
Throughout the primary, there were ample warnings that this is who Trump was — he had a decades-long record of sexism and mistreatment of women, which he demonstrated over and over again throughout the primary (for instance, in his well-publicized feud with Megyn Kelly). BuzzFeed published a long piece on Trump’s crude, degrading appearances on Howard Stern back in February. One could say many things about the tape that emerged last week, but “surprising” would not be one of them.
Even if there were added uneasiness about Trump in the wake of such revelations if they came out in January, it wouldn’t have changed the dynamic that existed throughout the primaries. It wouldn’t have magically resolved the tensions among supporters of Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz, John Kasich or Jeb Bush and made voters suddenly coalesce around a single candidate.
As for the people who make up the so-called “establishment” — they revealed themselves to be weak, and without a spine, throughout the process. They couldn’t stop Trump and they promptly fell in line behind Trump when it mattered and have spent months trying to make the case for him and defend the indefensible. They would have done so if he “survived” these revelations during the primary season. They cannot be counted on to make a moral choice.
So, people can holler all they want about the timing of the Trump revelations, but the reality is, this is the man who Republican primary voters wanted to represent the party, and who Republican officials spent the last several months covering for — and it wouldn’t have mattered had they come out 10 months earlier.
