Trump is doomed by actions, not words: Jimmy Farris
I've been in lots of locker rooms and heard crude, disgusting talk. But it was just talk.
Yes, guys do talk like Donald Trump. But do they act like him?
The language Trump used in a recently released video from 2005 was not unfamiliar, unbelievable, or shocking. One only needs to be a fly on the wall of locker rooms all across the country to hear similar talk. The gym, golf course, or sports bars are not excluded. Anywhere guys gather, there is a possibility that they might say crude, jocular, disgusting things. This is a sad fact of life, but it's true. That's part of the reason why many of Trump's supporters have tried to make excuses for him.
In almost 20 years spent in locker rooms from high school to the NFL, I have certainly heard more than my share of the kind of language Trump used trying to impress Billy Bush. It’s macho chatter. It’s the kind of stuff you'd expect to hear from guys in their 20s trying to one-up their buddies and prove their manhood.
But here is the crucial thing we need to understand: This is not the type of language toward women you hear from grown men with any class, decency or daughters of their own. It’s not the language of a man who claims that “nobody has more respect for women than I do.” It is the language of a misogynist, sexist man devoid of respect for women — words that describe Trump perfectly.
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And while Trump’s words are troubling, juvenile and extremely demeaning toward women, they're not the real story. Far more troubling is the fact that he appears to have acted in accordance with his words — even while belatedly denying he did so. “Are you saying that … you did not actually kiss women without consent or grope women without consent?” Anderson Cooper asked Trump in the second debate. “No, I have not,” Trump replied.
Those words triggered a flood of women coming forth with accounts of being groped and stalked by Trump — on an airplane, in his office building, at Mar-a-Lago, during a 2003 concert and at Mar-a-Lago again in 2005 while his pregnant wife was in another room. Who would doubt his boasts to Bush about groping, kissing and grabbing without asking? About needing a Tic Tac in case he just “starts kissing” Arianne Zucker, the Days of Our Lives star awaiting Trump and Bush as they exited that Access Hollywood bus?
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This is pathological behavior.
Trump's words are, unfortunately, far too common and have been passed off by many as “guy talk,” but it's his actions that are disqualifying and possibly criminal. So while there are a few guys who may still talk like Trump, men do not. Men respect women. Men don't tolerate this kind of talk. And they certainly don’t act like him. Not in the locker room or anywhere else.
Trump frequently says politicians should be judged by what they do, not by what they say. I agree, Donald. Your actions are reprehensible.
Jimmy Farris, a six-year NFL veteran who began his career with the San Francisco 49ers, was a Super Bowl champion and a Democratic candidate in Idaho’s First Congressional District in 2012.
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