The Billy Bush thing is locker room talk
In his first extensive interview since leaving the Trump administration, former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon tells “60 Minutes” about the fallout after the leaked “Access Hollywood” tape.
…
Steve Bannon: And – and Trump went around the room and asked people the percentages he thought of – of still winning and what the recommendation. And Reince started off and Reince said, “You have – you have two choices. You either drop out right now, or you lose by the biggest landslide in American political history.” And Trump, with his humor goes, “That’s a great way – that’s a great way to start our – start our conversation.” We went around the room. And you could tell – I could tell from the incoming of politicians and I could tell from some of the politicians that were there, is that the natural inclination of politicians are – are – are to be so overwhelmingly stunned and shocked by how the media comes on you. But Trump wasn’t that. And I told him as he went around, I was the last guy to speak, and I said, “It’s 100 percent. You have 100 percent probability of winning.” And that’s the first time –
Rose: But you seem to have done that at every point in the campaign. When he was in trouble, asking him to double down on his rhetoric, double down in terms of appealing to his base.
Bannon: Appealing to the American people and to the working class people in this country, absolutely. You know why? ‘Cause – it was a winner. That’s why I told him “double down” every time. And on that day, that’s the first time and only time he ever got upset with me. He goes, “Come on, it’s not 100 percent.” I go, “It’s absolutely 100 percent.” And I told him why. “They don’t care.”
Rose: But they… they do care about respect for women. They do –
Bannon: They do, they do, but they –
Rose: I do know that.
Bannon: But they – but –
Rose: And it’s not just locker room talk. I mean –
Bannon: That’s locker room talk. The Billy Bush thing is locker room talk.
Fine, it’s “locker room talk.” Meaning what? That that’s just what men do when they’re alone together? All men, without exception, no matter what? They all drop the mask and talk about women as if women were objects, like rocks or apples or chairs, except that in the case of women they’re objects that are useful for providing men with sex? Is that the claim?
If so, one consequence is that all women should mistrust all men, without exception, because objects can be discarded and destroyed without compunction, since objects have no feelings.
Another consequence is that men should mistrust all men too, because the reality is that women are not objects and they do have feelings, so people who think otherwise are fucked in the head.
It’s psychopathic to claim that males in general see women as just objects with pussies that men are entitled to grab and brag about grabbing. It’s psychopathic to claim that Trump’s brutal vulgar contempt for women is just normal, just “locker room talk.”
Charlie Rose apparently dropped the whole thing and changed the subject at that point. So much for his “respect.”
And yet, an accusation of sexual assault by a male college student on a female college student is so terribly unlikely to be true that a criminal standard of proof for even a mere dismissal is judged appropriate by DeVos. If we can’t believe that – if we’re so much as paying attention – we’ve got to suppose that the real reason DeVos is soft on rape is that it’s no big thing – locker room behavior, boys will be rapists, whatcha gonna do….
I think the chilling thing there is when Bannon said “they don’t care”, and he was right. “They” (Trump’s base) don’t care. In fact, they probably do care, but it’s in the other direction. It makes him cool. It makes him manly. It makes him someone you can trust to be a schoolyard bully in international negotiations and to push the nuke button when some other country (full of foreigners, of course, including foreign women who insist on having foreign babies) makes you a bit annoyed.
In short, it showed them that he was a “manly man” and wasn’t afraid to say what “they all think”. In spite of that, I do not believe that ALL men think this way, or talk this way, or act this way. If I did, I might not be able to go into that classroom every day and face a room full of young men staring me in the face hoping to learn something. I would not be able to walk into the office next to mine and hold a pleasant conversation with the young male colleague who inhabits that office – or the office on the other side with the older male colleague who inhabits that office.
They act like it’s the feminists claiming all men are rapists, when in reality, that attitude is more prevalent elsewhere. It’s just they don’t call it rape; it’s just “grabbing by the pussy” and “locker room talk”.
@Jeff Engel
Well, it would be a big thing, if it happened to virginal modestly-dressed Christian girls. But I’m sure Bets would tell us it only happens to ungodly sluts.
/sarcasm, in case anyone can’t tell
I admit, my ‘locker room’ experience is very limited. But I’ve never heard anyone talk the way Donnie did on that tape. The opera dressing room was a bit sleazier than the college gym. But in both, it only took one toxic creep to skew the atmosphere.
I’ve been in locker rooms for almost 35 years and have never heard people talk like this. I even knew two people who later date raped women and I never heard them talk like this.
That talk is not normal. This needs to be repeated forever.