Lock Him Up!

When I was in fifth grade, I took up the trumpet. Kids in band had to stay after school for practice. On the way home a gang of bullies from the parochial school would ambush me. To avoid them, I gave up the trumpet so I didn't have to walk home late.

In sixth grade I was a police boy, what they call a crossing guard nowadays. In the 1960s the older kids were given bright orange crossing flags and were responsible for making sure the younger kids crossed busy streets safely. (They don't seem to let kids do this anymore -- adults are crossing guards, in the few locales where they let kids walk to school.)

These duties made me late again and the same bullies went after me. Instead of ratting on them, I quit being a police boy to avoid them.

The next year I went to junior high at a public school, while the bullies went to a parochial school two miles in the other direction. The bullying ended, partly because our paths rarely crossed, but partly because I had grown to almost six feet tall.

I relate these incidents to establish that I know a bully when I see one. Donald Trump is a bully. His every word and action for the last 40 years has established this without question. No one, not even his supporters, tries to deny this: they glory in it.

Now Donald Trump stands accused of sexual assault. At its core, sexual assault is essentially a more aggressive and perverted form of bullying. I've never been molested personally, but I've seen it happen.

One day in eighth grade I was walking home. Across the street a gang of bullies was attacking a girl from my class. Lori was a thin, shy, quiet girl. She was nice. They were grabbing her breasts. She was crying and afraid. I didn't intervene, I just ran home. As far as I know Lori never reported the crime, and neither did I, I'm ashamed to admit. I suppose I didn't want to get in trouble with bullies again.

So Lori suffered in silence, like the vast majority of women and girls who are sexually assaulted.

Why did they go after Lori? She wasn't the prettiest or most curvaceous girl in class. She was very quiet and never bothered anyone.

The bullies chose her because she was available, vulnerable, and powerless against them. If she told on them they would deny it, and no one would believe her. Later, they would go after her and do something even worse...

Today Donald Trump says he wouldn't have sexually assaulted the women who are now accusing him of because they aren't attractive enough. Because I know bullies, I know Trump is lying.

Sexual assault is bullying: it's about establishing dominance, not sexual pleasure. Many of the women Trump attacked had come to him for help. Like any street bully, Trump assaulted them because he wanted to show he had the power. He could count on their silence because he could destroy their lives through crushing lawsuits and social ruination: if they ratted him out he would drag them through the mud, making their husbands and boyfriends think they had somehow invited the attack.

That woman on the airplane that Trump felt up? Today Trump scoffs at the idea that he would do such a thing. But just like the eighth-grade bullies in the street, Trump attacked that woman because she was available, vulnerable and powerless against him (who'd believe a billionaire would do such a thing?). Last Friday we heard Trump admitting that he just can't control himself around women, assaulting random women on planes is completely consistent with that.

And just like the eighth-grade bullies in the street, Trump's gang of thugs rallied and cheered him on. Listen to the comments of Trump's supporters when interviewed by the Daily Show's Jordan Klepper. One said, "You know what? So what if he wants to grab pussy. I wanna grab pussy."

Hey, Republicans: your voters are wanna-be sex offenders!

I am completely baffled by this clown. How is grabbing a woman like that in any way pleasurable for either party? What kind of demented, sick people are these guys? Trump supporters -- even the female ones, incredibly -- think that rich, smelly (Tic Tacs), fat, old, bald men are entitled to molest women and girls. For them sexual assault is completely normal and to be expected, and women must submit without complaint.

The fact is, these are sex crimes.

After the news of Trump bragging about molesting women broke, writer Kelly Oxford shared her story of being sexually assaulted. When she was 12 an old man on a city bus grabbed her pussy and smiled at her. By Saturday evening a million women had responded with stories of their own. The behavior Trump brags about is appallingly common in this country. But that doesn't excuse it: it's a sex crime.

A vote for Donald Trump is a vote for a bully, a vote for a sex offender. Supporting Trump is condoning the violation of women. Trump's election would mean the normalization of molestation and invite a wave of sexual assaults against millions of American girls and women.

America needs to stand up to bullies, molesters and sex criminals like Donald Trump. Trump may not have any regrets, but I do: I regret that the thirteen-year-old me didn't stand up to the bullies who molested Lori.

Donald Trump is a bully and a criminal sex offender. This time around I'm not going to stay quiet and let a molester get away with assaulting women. Donald Trump's repeated molestations of women are sex crimes, plain and simple. The man should go to jail.

Let's get a chant going: Lock him up! Lock him up!