The More Things Change
Plus ça change, plus c’est la meme chose….
On July 19, 2019, another Trump associate, George Nader, was indicted on sex trafficking charges. The businessman reportedly brought a 14-year-old boy with him, from Europe, through Dulles airport, for the express purpose of sex. This behavior is not entirely new for Nader, as he had been charged with the possession of child pornography in 2018. He had also been charged with the same crime in 1991.
The news of Nader comes on the heels of the arrest of Trump friend and associate, Jeffery Epstein. He was arrested on July 6, 2019, on charges of trafficking dozens of minors between Florida and New York, for the purposes of sex. Some twelve years earlier, he had received a minor sentence for molesting minor girls in Florida. His light sentence was overseen by Alexander Acosta, then a US Attorney in Florida, later to be Trump’s Labor Secretary. Mind you, as Labor Secretary, Acosta proposed slashing funds to his agency that oversees the fight against the sexual exploitation of women and children. Four days after Epstein’s arrest, Acosta resigned as Labor Secretary.
In late February 2019, Trump’s friend Robert Kraft was arrested for soliciting prostitution in a Jupiter, Florida spa. The police also had evidence of additional visits to the spa by Kraft. While the charge was minor compared to those of Nader and Epstein, the arrest did uncover a vast sex trafficking ring in the Orlando area.
All three of these individuals are connected by a couple of things: sex, human trafficking, and Donald Trump. Trump himself has not, yet, been implicated in trafficking. However, he has demonstrated an obsession with sex. He has a documented history of sexually assaulting and objectifying girls and women. He hangs out with known pedophiles and rapists. And he appoints individuals to Cabinet-level positions who have a history of minimizing sexual trafficking. Under Trump’s watch, federal prosecutions for human and sexual trafficking have dropped by 32% from five years ago.
We think we’ve come a long way. We have not. Trafficking in women, girls, and boys. Objectifying women. Abusing and assaulting them. All still there. All there all along.
Despite MeToo, despite TimesUp, despite Title IX, despite the UN Declaration, despite record-level diversity at all levels of government, despite so many legal, social, and cultural actions that seemed to indicate that we had made gains in the areas of women’s participation in society, in seeing girls and boys and women as humans instead of sexual playthings, in seeing the irreparable harm done by trafficking and exploitation, we have not changed much nearly as much as we would like to think we have, and not nearly as much as we ultimately need to. Particularly in those realms of society in which the players act as though the rules simply do not apply to them.
The fox cannot guard the henhouse. The master’s tools will not dismantle the master’s house. We cannot expect the rich, entitled, and privileged to police themselves, to act in the interest of the unentitled. Thanks to the reporting of Julie Brown, we know more about Epstein and the Epstein case than we ever would have known. More than the prosecutors wanted us to know, for sure. The entitled, these individuals named above and others like them, understand the world to be their playground. The rest of us are mere playthings. They have an ease, a facility, of moving through the world. They have access to networks and facilitators. They have the means to escape detection. And when they are detected, they have the connections and the means to escape punishment. They know people in power. When the President of the United States is on audio tape saying he sexually assaults women, and on video tape actually assaulting one, then we cannot be surprised that deals are made, arrests are down, and regulations are gutted.
Still, we cannot give up hope. We cannot give up. We must be aware of these abuses. We must encourage the journalism that uncovers and reveals it. We must demand accountability via our elected officials (at all levels). We must demand accountability of our elected officials. And we must vote.
Despite the adage, change is possible. With your action.
Ritch Calvin is an Associate Professor of Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at SUNY Stony Brook. He is the author of a book on feminist science fiction and editor of a collection of essays on Gilmore Girls.
