Predators All the Way Down

Normalizing violence against women

Hegseth, the next to go?

Matt Gaetz was the most obviously awful of Donald’s unfit nominees—a hard-partying, drug-abusing, alleged sex trafficker of girls and young women who was very possibly the worst candidate for Attorney General ever put forward. Sadly, but not surprisingly, he is not the only sexual assaulter of women among Donald’s picks; he’s not even the only accused rapist. But because Donald himself is an adjudicated rapist, the choice of these unqualified and violent misogynists is two-fold—it’s a way to throw it in our faces that Donald is above the law, and it’s an attempt to normalize the kinds of behavior that would have been unequivocally disqualifying in any sane, decent society.

Which is why we still have to deal with Pete Hegseth.

Last Wednesday, Mediaite obtained the police report from the rape case against Hegseth, Donald’s nominee to be the Secretary of Defense. It’s worse than we were initially led to believe. Hegseth, who also sports a white nationalist tattoo and came to Donald’s attention when he became an advocating for the pardoning of convicted war criminals, has denied the rape charges even as he admitted to paying off the alleged victim. 

As for the victim, after her encounter with Hegseth, she went to the hospital and asked for a rape kit. The woman remembered saying “no” a lot. She reported that Hegseth took her phone and refused to let her leave the hotel room, and she believed that he had slipped drugs into her drink. A nurse, not the alleged victim, filed the police report.

Hegseth was never charged, and he insists the encounter was consensual, but his settlement with his accuser included a monetary payment and a non-disclosure agreement.

That police report came out not long after USA Today shared an interview with the former babysitter of Robert Kennedy’s children, who accused him of groping her and other sexual harassment. 

Around the same time, we learned that Linda McMahon, Donald’s pick to be Education Secretary, has been “sued for allegedly enabling sexual abuse of children.”

As I wrote last week, Rep. Nancy Mace, in a bid for attention and to cause as much cruelty as possible that is taken right out of Donald’s playbook, has spent the last several days tormenting Representative-elect Sarah McBride, the first trans member of Congress. In 72 hours, Mace posted about bathrooms 326 times, attacked McBride and the trans community, all while basking in the outrage of those who believe in equality and compassion.

Mace claims her unhinged assaults against one incoming member of Congress have to do with protecting women and girls and their “spaces.” This is, of course, complete and utter bullshit made all the more disingenuous when you consider that Mace has said not one negative word against the people Donald has nominated who’ve actually commit acts of violence—or who have looked the other way while such acts are committed—against vulnerable people, including women and girls.

Sarah McBride was elected by her constituents to represent them in Congress. Gaetz, Hegseth, and McMahon were nominated by a rapist to normalize sexual violence. It’s extremely telling that Mace has chosen to attack the former, while remaining completely silent about the latter. It speaks volumes that, faced with incontrovertible evidence of his nominees’ unfitness, Donald has chosen to double down on his support of them.