"Grab them by the p****. You can do anything."
If you're unaware, Trump said this in 2005, shown in a video that recently surfaced. It's being played off as "locker room banter." I don't know about you, but this doesn't sound like harmless locker room talk to me. It sounds like the diminishment of the severity of sexual assault.
Trump recently issued an apology video regarding these comments. I've seen people commenting on Facebook, saying it's time for us to "move on" since this happened over a decade ago. They claim Trump is a changed man; after all, he openly apologized about the incident.
But I can't "move on." I can't move on because I, like many others, believe this is who Trump is and will always be.
I understand that politicians want to give a positive spin when issuing public apologies for the sake of their campaigns, but this video felt different. It felt like I was being forced to disregard the comments. It felt like Trump did not actually understand the weight of what he said back in 2005.
He said these comments were a distraction from the "important" issues. Sorry, Trump, but sexual assault is an important issue, even if you don't believe it is.
Let's also not forget how he made this about the Clinton campaign. Trump essentially said: "Hey, I did make those nasty comments, but look at Bill Clinton! He's worse than me!" This isn't a game of "Who has a worse attitude towards women?" This is about you. This is about what you said.
These comments are not an isolated incident, of course. Clips from Howard Stern's radio show highlight some more of his demeaning comments over the course of several years. He talks about seeing pageant contestants naked. He lets Howard Stern call his daughter a "piece of a**."
Oh, can we also take a moment to remember when he said Megyn Kelly had "blood coming out of her wherever?"
So, no, I will not move past this video. I do believe people can grow and change. I just don't believe Trump has done that. Though many of his degrading comments took place in the past, the frequency of them is alarming. The insincerity of his apology is pretty alarming, too. This is not the man I want to represent my country. This is not the man I want to represent American women, either.
It's time we start treating incidents like these as real issues, because they are. This is not just a video meant to bring about scandal. This is insight into the man Trump is behind closed doors -- and public ones.
