SUBSCRIBE TO OUR FREE NEWSLETTER
Daily news & progressive opinion—funded by the people, not the corporations—delivered straight to your inbox.
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
5
#000000
#FFFFFF
harvey weinstein
Trump and O.J.: Delusional Psychos in Court Put America on Trial
Just as O.J. became symbolic of the false promise of a color-blind America, so has Trump masqueraded as the champion of Americans underserved by democracy.
May 07, 2024
It was the jokes about former President Donald Trump’s rumored flatulence in the courtroom that pushed me toward despair. And don’t think it was disgust with the subject matter either. After all, I’ve lived with teenagers and I wasn’t all that surprised by yet another Trump-inspired trivialization of a critical civic institution. What appalled me was the possibility that—let’s be clear here—such stories would somehow humanize the monster, that his alleged farting and possible use of adult diapers would win him sympathy. I even wondered whether such rumors could be part of a scheme to win him votes.
So, yes, Trump can make you that crazy.
Or maybe it’s something about important trials, about the slow unspooling of evidence and our hunger for resolution that makes us simultaneously twitchy and increasingly catatonic. I experienced this once before on a national level, just a little less than 30 years ago, when lawyers for another adored psycho tested the American justice system with what could only be called a sleazy brilliance. They put racism on trial. This time around, democracy may be at stake and it’s possible the defense lawyers may win again (as they just did with another monster, Harvey Weinstein).
Last month, for instance, the Los Angeles Times mistakenly inserted Trump for O.J. in an obituary of the former football star, claiming that the former president had served the former football player’s sentence in prison.
Since the first day of Trump’s trial, I’ve been remembering bits of the O.J. Simpson extravaganza, especially the moment when he was declared not guilty of killing his wife, Nicole Brown Simpson, and her friend Ronald Goldman, outside her condominium in Los Angeles. I recall that moment vividly. I was eating lunch in a Boston sports bar on Tuesday, October 3, 1995, when the verdict was suddenly trumpeted on what seemed like a dozen giant TV sets. The diners, predominantly white, froze in shock. As we sat there, silent, we slowly became aware of a presence surrounding us and then raucous sounds filled the dining room. The kitchen and wait staff, mostly Black, were on the perimeters of that room, clapping and shouting. I was stunned. I had never before witnessed, close up, such irreconcilable factions.
Other Divisions
There certainly have been other examples of the cleaving of America. The Revolution and the Civil War come to mind, not to speak of the half-century-old Boston school-busing controversy and, of course, the insurrection of January 6, 2021. Still, the division over the O.J. decision was so simple, focused, and emotional that it remains for me a dangerous symbol of intransigence. O.J. may have been more representational than real as a national influence, but he was enough of a force to make me wonder what his story presaged and what a verdict in the current trial might provoke in this far shakier time of ours, especially from former president and MAGA goon Donald Trump, a man eager to intimidate those trying him as well as everyone else.
Looking for parallels between Orenthal J. Simpson and Donald J. Trump may produce shaky outcomes, but it could also help sharpen our sense of their symbolic meanings. They were born 13 months apart in the post-World War II boom years. Although Trump was a white, rich New Yorker and O.J. a poor, Black Californian, they were both driven throughout their lives by a desperation to be admired. Both of them were also large men, gabby and good-looking. Their social cunning, however, wore distinctly different masks. Trump is crude in an entitled frat boy way, while O.J. was smooth and ingratiating, particularly with white men (though distinctly rough with women).
In my years as a sports reporter for The New York Times, I dealt with both of them. In one-on-one situations, I always felt I was being played but never threatened. With O.J., it was hard not to be overwhelmed by his neediness to be liked, but I must admit that I was flattered by the attention. With Trump, I knew I was being manipulated by his unctuousness, but he was good copy, too. Early on, it was easy to write Trump off as a buffoon and assume O.J. was a harmless, sweet-natured guy (although the broadcaster Howard Cosell dubbed him “the lost boy”). That either of them might go beyond being an entertainer seemed a silly notion at the time.
The division over the O.J. decision was so simple, focused, and emotional that it remains for me a dangerous symbol of intransigence.
In some ways neither did. For all Trump’s power to energize crowds, it’s never been thanks to an overwhelming idea, an inspiring example, or even an alluring promise. He merely gives his followers permission and justification to enjoy the short-term energy of hate. Eventually, it will undoubtedly turn against him, but not soon enough for the rest of us.
O.J., in contrast, made us feel good, reveling in his phenomenal skill on the football field—he was a beautiful player there and anything but a brute—while taking pleasure in his comedic skills. He was genuinely funny and willing to mock himself. With his 11-year Hall of Fame football career behind him, he began carefully crafting a Hollywood career, avoiding quick-buck blaxpolitation movies for lovable supporting roles. As sportswriter Ralph Wiley put it, white people came to consider Simpson a “unifying symbol of all races.”
The Counter-Revolutionary
O.J. was easy to like, a charming, charismatic, talented athlete and actor who conveniently served to offset much of the growing African-American activism in the world of sports.
The 1968 Olympic demonstrations of John Carlos and Tommie Smith, the hard anger of pro football superstar Jim Brown, the political rants of Muhammad Ali, among others, frightened the owners, broadcasters, and corporate executives who had just gotten a handle on making big money out of sports. O.J. was a welcome counterrevolutionary. And unlike most other Black stars, he was sociable and accessible. It was fun to play golf with him and cavort under his testosterone shower.
When O.J. died last month of prostate cancer at 76, the first image that came to my mind was of that divided Boston sports bar, but it was replaced fairly quickly by images of O.J. himself, iconic ones that shaped our notions of him and of America then, most of them offering a false promise of a color-blind country. Even more memorable than O.J. dancing with the football through whatever defensive line opposed him was O.J. clowning adorably on the movie screen or charging through an airport in a Hertz commercial.
His delusion like Trump’s (until the first of his court cases began recently) was nourished by being treated as if he and he alone could get away with anything.
As for me, I’ll never forget him sitting across a table one night in 1969, the self-defined essence of a figure somehow beyond race in this divided country of ours. That night in Joe Namath’s trendy midtown Manhattan bar, Bachelors III, left me with my basic sense of who that delightful and delusional man was. He was then a 22-year-old former college superstar holding out for more money in his rookie pro-football contract. I was a New York Times sports columnist who had been asked to introduce him to Namath, the recently famous New York Jets Super Bowl quarterback. The introductions had originally been Cosell’s night mission, but as the evening stretched on (and on), it simply got too late for him, and the task fell to me. (I’d been tagging along to cover the first meeting of those two football heroes.)
O.J. on O.J.
Well after midnight in that crowded bar, it became clear that Namath was taking his sweet time in some ritual of celebrity one-upmanship. Before he left, Cosell had offered to drag Namath over, but O.J., ever cool, shook his head. “You don’t rush the great ones,” he said. He started telling me stories to pass the time, ever gracious and clearly fearing I might get bored and leave.
One he told me that night I never forgot—and subsequently retold in the Oscar-winning ESPN documentary “O.J.: Made in America,” directed by Ezra Edelman. It took place at a teammate’s wedding. O.J. overheard a white woman at an adjoining table say, “Look, there’s O.J. Simpson and some [N-words].”
I was appalled. O.J. was amused by my reaction. He said, “No, it was great. Don’t you understand? She knew that I wasn’t Black. She saw me as O.J.”
Now, here’s the quantum O.J. leap: Why do so many people think the 2016 election of Donald Trump was an appropriate response to social and economically wounding decisions imposed by “the elites”?
Other stories followed, though I don’t remember them. All I could think about was how clueless poor O.J. was. He didn’t understand that he was traveling under the protection of an honorary white pass, revocable at any moment. While he could delude himself, I thought, maybe even carry others along in his fantasy, there would undoubtedly be a reckoning someday. Soon enough, Joe Namath did indeed arrive and I was able to slip away, pondering what had already become a disturbing memory, even as O.J. got that rookie football money he demanded and later became a successful movie actor.
His delusion like Trump’s (until the first of his court cases began recently) was nourished by being treated as if he and he alone could get away with anything. (No better example of such a belief was Trump’s 2016 comment that “I could stand in the middle of 5th Avenue and shoot somebody and I wouldn’t lose voters.”) Since his time at the University of Southern California, where he won the Heisman Trophy, college football’s highest award, the police, responding to the domestic violence complaints of his various girlfriends, would rarely stay longer than to collect an autograph. His second wife, Nicole Brown, called for help many times during and after their marriage, sometimes bruised and bleeding. O.J. was arrested once, in 1989, convicted of spousal abuse, and let off with a fine.
If any good came from any of this, including her death, it was the attention that domestic violence finally got.
Paybacks
As to her murder, it’s hard to believe that anyone who paid attention to the evidence brought out in the trial could actually have believed O.J. innocent (though, of course, the jury did exactly that). However, it’s easy to believe someone could think that the not-guilty verdict from a mostly Black jury was payback for all the racist police decisions that had killed so many Black men without any justice in sight. Both Americas expressed in that Boston sports bar could understand that—the only difference being that the exulting kitchen staff might think the payback appropriate, a rare win, while the stunned diners found it morally reprehensible and an implicit threat.
Both Americas might, however, agree on this: the verdict proved that the justice system worked—for anyone with the will and the money to take it all the way.
Now, here’s the quantum O.J. leap: Why do so many people think the 2016 election of Donald Trump was an appropriate response to social and economically wounding decisions imposed by “the elites”? Just as O.J. became symbolic of the false promise of a color-blind America, so has Trump masqueraded as the champion of Americans underserved by democracy, left behind by the exclusionary progress of technology, and likely to be replaced (so he claims) by immigrants of color.
And here’s the big question: What impact will that role of his have on the current Trump jury and, in effect, the 2024 election?
Tackling Trump
Is there any possibility that the Donald Trump chapter in American history is finally ending amid a chorus of farts, done in by a paper-chasing trial that couldn’t be more banal in its particulars? Should it be considered the latest form of ironic payback? After all, O.J. was finally brought down not by beating or even possibly murdering his wife, but by an almost comical armed robbery caper in which he tried to steal back some of his own memorabilia. For that, he would end up serving nine years in prison.
The possibility of a future Trump in prison, the very thought that no one is above the law could in any way apply to him, is, of course, the primary draw of this latest trial of a delusional psycho. Admittedly, it has yet to capture our attention as thoroughly as O.J.’s murder trial did, but it’s still early days in a courtroom where, without live camera and audio coverage, we can’t satisfy our digital-age need for that streaming TV experience. Maybe the fart jokes or some higher level of Trumpian comedy will engage our interest, or perhaps one of his future trials (if they ever take place) will do the trick. It’s hard, of course, for a parade of misdemeanors, including a presidential theft of national security documents, to compete with the memory of a violent murder.
Or maybe, as with so much else in American history, everything will simply start to run together. Last month, for instance, the Los Angeles Timesmistakenly inserted Trump for O.J. in an obituary of the former football star, claiming that the former president had served the former football player’s sentence in prison. Republican lawyer and gadfly George Conway commented, “Understandable mistake. It can be hard to keep all these clearly guilty sociopaths straight.”
How true. And now, as we await the first of four possible juries on the former president, hold your nose. Odor in the court.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Joe Biden, Rape Culture, and Living in the Dark
It's hard when someone you like, someone you think is a good man or woman, is accused of rape. Our first instinct is to not believe it. That's normal. But that cannot be the end.
May 27, 2020
Rape culture is defined by Oxford as "a society or environment whose prevailing social attitudes have the effect of normalizing or trivializing sexual assault and abuse". When Judge Aaron Persky sentenced Brock Turner to 6 months in jail (he ended up serving only 3) for raping an unconscious woman, that was an example of rape culture. When the teenage football players who raped a girl in Steubenville, Ohio received more public sympathy than their victim, that was an example of rape culture. When the GOP defended Brett Kavanaugh as he was being accused of sexual assault by Dr. Christine Blasey Ford, that was an example of rape culture, too. And when Nancy Pelosi said "Joe Biden is Joe Biden", despite 8 women having come forward in 2019 with allegations of inappropriate non-consensual touch against him and despite Tara Reade coming forward with a disturbing allegation of digital rape, that, too was an example of rape culture.
Rape culture holds victims to a higher standard than it does abusers. Rape culture allows us to turn a victim's life upside down, looking at every tweet, post, public or private statement, for any inconsistencies, even when it has nothing to do with the crime perpetrated against them. Especially when it has nothing to do with that crime. Rape culture does this while making sure we're never allowed to ask the same things of the alleged perpetrator. We don't turn their lives upside down. We ask them for a denial, they give it, and then we move on. Nancy Pelosi, in a recent CNN interview, said she was done talking about the Tara Reade allegations. Case closed. Nothing to see here. Move along. Rape culture.
"Rape culture thrives in the dark. It hates the light. It tries to tell victims and future victims that the dark is normal. That the dark is the way it's always been, and the way it always will be."
In the case of Tara Reade, Joe Biden's documented history of public lying is never looked at. His fantastic and completely false claim of being arrested in South Africa while visiting Nelson Mandela goes unmentioned by politicians and the media. His years of lies about having been involved in the civil rights movement go unnoticed. We're not allowed to talk about why he had to drop out of a presidential race because he plagiarized and then lied about it multiple times on the campaign trail. We only seem to have permission to deconstruct his victim, Tara Reade. We question the timing of her disclosure. We say she changed her story. We look for inconsistencies in her claims about filing a complaint after she was sexually harassed while working for then-Senator Biden. We share hit pieces on social media that paint her as a "manipulative, deceitful user" because she may have been late on her rent and owed people money. We attempt to look into every nook and cranny of her life, and while doing so, make sure we keep the spotlight off of the man accused of victimizing her. It's hot under those lights, best we keep them turned on the victim.
In rape culture, we say the alleged perpetrator is a "good man". That's what we're saying about Biden now. He passed the Violence Against Women Act. He was Obama's VP. Sure, he gets a little handsy sometimes, but he doesn't mean anything by it. He didn't mean to offend or harm women when he sniffed their hair, planted long kisses on their heads while touching their waists from behind, touched their thighs or caressed them - all without their consent. Joe Biden is Joe Biden. Move along.
Senator Dianne Feinstein waded into the world of rape culture and victim-blaming when she said of Tara Reade, "Where has she been all of these years?". Questioning the timing of a victim's disclosure is the epitome of rape culture. It's what defense attorneys who represent men accused of sexual assault do. All the time. It's an uninformed and ignorant way of looking at rape. It's understandable when it comes from the mouths of lawyers defending rapists, like when it was uttered by Harvey Weinstein's lawyers - that's their job. It is completely unacceptable when it comes from a leading Democrat like Feinstein. The Democrats were supposed to be the party of #MeToo. They were supposed to be the party that didn't defend men credibly accuse of rape. They were supposed to be the opposite of the Republicans, who defended Trump and Kavanaugh. They were supposed to be, but when it comes to rape and sexual assault, they are not.
Rape culture pervades every institution in our society. College campuses are notorious for sweeping rape under the rug. They've been called out on it. A young student from a renowned university walked around campus carrying her mattress to remind people that she was raped by another student and that she felt she wasn't getting justice. She brought her mattress to graduation. Her rapist didn't have to carry a thing.
Most victims don't carry their mattresses around with them. Brock Turner's victim doesn't carry the dumpster around that Turner dragged her behind when he raped her. Anita Hill doesn't carry the Coke can around that Clarence Thomas said someone may have put a pubic hair on. Dr. Blasey Ford doesn't carry the bed around that Brett Kavanaugh held her down on when he assaulted her. And Tara Reade doesn't carry the cold wall around that Joe Biden pinned her against when he groped her, kissed her, and penetrated her with his fingers.
But they do.
I wish I was in the room when Senator Feinstein asked about Tara Reade, "Where has she been all these years?" I would have answered. I would have said:
She's been carrying around that wall. Trying not to think about it. Trying to go to sleep each night and praying she doesn't have nightmares again. She's been swimming in decades of self-blame and self-doubt, like every other victim of rape. She's been trying to raise a daughter in a world steeped with rape culture, praying it will be different for her. She's been painfully going back and forth, for years, about whether to come forward about her rapist. She's been second-guessing her years of silence like so many other victims do. She's been harder on herself than you'll ever be on her. That's what rape does. It leaves a trauma that stays for years, or for a lifetime. It makes you question yourself. It makes you doubt whether you even deserve to have a voice. And it keeps you silent. For years. For decades. For a lifetime. That's where she's been. Where every other rape victim has been. The dark. And your question has one purpose only: to push her back there.
When victims finally come forward, out of the dark, it can be terrifying. Coming into the light feels scary when you've been in the dark for years. It feels unfamiliar. It feels blinding. It feels unsafe.
I was a director of two rape crisis centers in New York. I've seen children and adults who've lived in the dark and kept their secrets for years finally come forward, finally find their voice. I've seen 10-year-olds who were raped by their fathers sit on witness stands while the family members of their rapist sit behind him, supporting him, staring her down. I've seen women in their fifties come forward, after decades of living in the dark, and finally talk about how they were raped when they were nineteen. I've seen men come forward, too, telling their stories of how they were raped in foster homes, or at soccer practice. And I've seen the good people I work with, counselors and advocates and attorneys, stand with these victims when they came into the light. So it was less scary. So it felt safer. So they could get used to being in the light and not crawl back into the dark.
"Victims are still carrying their mattresses, their walls. But we can't see them. We've pushed them back into the dark. It's safer for us when they're there."
Rape culture thrives in the dark. It hates the light. It tries to tell victims and future victims that the dark is normal. That the dark is the way it's always been, and the way it always will be. It succeeds in hiding the sun, keeping the light away and changing the subject. It makes excuses for the dark. Joe Biden is Joe Biden. Boys will be boys. Move along. Leave the room. Turn off the light.
At one rape crisis center where I was a director, there was a thirteen-year-old girl who was repeatedly sexually abused by her mother's boyfriend. He raped her, then he prostituted her out to his friends, other adult men who also raped her. Unlike most child abusers, he was arrested, tried and found guilty. The day he was sentenced, that thirteen-year-old girl stayed home from school and took her own life. She didn't want to spend a lifetime carrying her mattress. She didn't want to spend a lifetime in the dark. She found her voice, but it was silenced. Her mother still loved the man who raped her daughter. She still had pictures of him around the house. She still referred to him as a "good man".
It's hard when someone you like, someone you think is a good man or woman, is accused of rape. Our first instinct is to not believe it. That's normal. But when the evidence starts to pile up, when multiple witnesses come forward, as is the case with Tara Reade, saying she told them decades ago about how Joe Biden raped her, it gets harder to not believe it. When Tara's mother's voice crosses space and time to ask Larry King in 1993 about a serious problem her daughter was having with a prominent senator, it's even harder. That's where rape culture comes in. It gives us an out. Like the mother who said her daughter's rapist was a "good man". It makes it easier to move through this world thinking men we like don't rape, thinking victims are liars. He's a good man, something must be wrong with her.
And all the while we do this, the victims are still carrying their mattresses, their walls. But we can't see them. We've pushed them back into the dark. It's safer for us when they're there. Then we can go back to our denials. Then we can breathe easy.
Joe Biden is Joe Biden.
He passed the Violence Against Women Act. He's just a little handsy. He means well.
Turn off the light.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Why Has the Media Ignored Sexual Assault and Misbehaviour Allegations Against Biden?
Conservatives who didn’t care about the multiple sexual assault allegations against Trump have seized on the accusations while liberals turn a blind eye.
Mar 30, 2020
Why are sexual assault and misbehaviour allegations against Biden being ignored?
Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, has been accused of sexual assault by a former staffer. Tara Reade, who worked with Biden when he was a Delaware senator, alleges he inappropriately touched her and penetrated her with his fingers without consent in 1993.
"It happened all at once, and then ... his hands were on me and underneath my clothes," Reade recalled in an interview with podcast host Katie Halper on Wednesday. "He said 'come on, man, I heard you liked me. For me, it was like, everything shattered ... I wanted to be a senator; I didn't want to sleep with one."
Rightwing news outlets have gleefully seized upon the accusations against Biden; the story has also been discussed by leftwing commentators. However, the mainstream media has largely ignored the allegations. Instead there have been headlines like The top 10 women Joe Biden might pick as VP (CNN) and Joe Biden's inner circle: No longer a boy's club (AP).
It is hugely frustrating to see conservatives, who couldn't give a damn about the multiple sexual assault allegations against Donald Trump, weaponize the accusations against Biden. However, it's also frustrating to see so many liberals turning a blind eye. The accusations against the former vice-president are serious; why aren't they being taken seriously?
One obvious reason is that Reade's accusations are very hard to prove. The incident happened a long time ago and there weren't any witnesses. Reade also gave a slightly different version of events last year; she accused Biden of touching her neck and shoulders in a way that was inappropriate and uncomfortable, but did not say anything sexual took place. This inconsistency obviously doesn't mean she's lying; unfortunately, it is easy to use against her.
Reade's story may be impossible to verify, but this is the case with the vast majority of sexual assault allegations. It is nearly always a case of "he said, she said" - and it is nearly always the "he' that is automatically believed. The #MeToo mantra "Believe Women" doesn't mean that women never lie; it means that our systems of power are biased towards believing men never lie. It means that it takes decades of allegations and scores of women coming forward for powerful men like Harvey Weinstein, Jeffrey Epstein and Bill Cosby to be brought to justice. All the mantra means is that you shouldn't automatically disbelieve women.
You know who has talked publicly about the importance of taking women seriously? Biden. During the Brett Kavanaugh hearings, Biden stood up for Dr Christine Blasey Ford, noting: "For a woman to come forward in the glaring lights of focus, nationally, you've got to start off with the presumption that at least the essence of what she's talking about is real."
Does this presumption not apply when the guy being accused is a Democrat running for president? It would seem that way. In January, according to reporting from the Intercept, Reade asked for help from the Time's Up Legal Defense Fund, which has supported accusers of high-profile people like Weinstein. Reade was reportedly told by the National Women's Law Center, the organization within which the Time's Up fund is housed, that it couldn't assist with accusations against a presidential candidate because it would jeopardize their non-profit status. The Intercept further notes that "the public relations firm that works on behalf of the Time's Up Legal Defense Fund is SKDKnickerbocker, whose managing director, Anita Dunn, is the top adviser to Biden's presidential campaign".
There are some people who will insist that drawing attention to the new allegations against Biden is playing into the Republicans' hands. That it will destroy Biden's campaign and guarantee us four more years of Trump. Not only is that argument hypocritical, it is also hugely unlikely that Reade's accusations will do any damage whatsoever to Biden's ambitions. Allegations of sexual assault certainly haven't posed any hindrance to Trump. The allegations against Kavanaugh didn't stop him from becoming a supreme court justice. The allegations against Louis CK didn't kill his career in comedy. And the multiple women who have accused Biden of touching them inappropriately in the past haven't exactly derailed his career.
Keep ReadingShow Less
Most Popular