Trump keeps smearing E. Jean Carroll. Republicans who know better still stick by him | Opinion

The day after he won the Iowa caucuses in dominating fashion, Donald Trump reminded us that he treats women like dirt.

It’s one of his defining characteristics.

We received the reminder from New York, where a jury this week convened to decide how much Trump must pay the writer E. Jean Carroll for defaming her after she revealed that he sexually assaulted her in a department store in 1996.

“I am here because Donald Trump assaulted me, and when I wrote about it he lied and he shattered my reputation,” Carroll told the jury on Wednesday.

The response of Trump and his lawyers was to suggest — perversely, horrifically — that Carroll is enjoying all the attention she has received as a result of being Trump’s victim.

“She has gained more fame, more notoriety than she could have ever dreamed of,” Alina Habba, Trump’s lawyer, said on Tuesday.

The former president meanwhile spent Tuesday on his social media site, Truth Social, posting years-old tweets from Carroll in which she made irreverent comments about sex. Call it the “she had it coming” defense.

Trump denies assaulting Carroll, of course, though a different jury found otherwise last year.

So he’s resorting to age-old tricks: Suggesting — ever-so-carefully of course — that Carroll is a slut. Asserting outright that she has benefited from making the abuse public. Making himself the victim. Again.

It’s ugly, stomach-turning stuff.

Why bring all this up? Because while Trump is smearing Carroll in New York, Republicans across the country are deciding who will represent their party in next November’s presidential election.

They could pick a candidate — Ron DeSantis, Nikki Haley — who hasn’t been credibly accused of sexual assault.

But they’re probably going to stick with Trump instead.

Indeed, many elected Republicans in the Kansas-Missouri region have already hopped on Trump’s bandwagon. Sen. Josh Hawley of Missouri has endorsed the former president — he could hardly do otherwise after his Jan. 6 fist-bump salute — as have Sens. Roger Marshall and Eric Schmitt.

“We are going to make America great again, AGAIN,” Marshall crowed after Trump’s Iowa victory.

To be fair, they’re just doing the will of their constituents. Trump in November will win Kansas and Missouri overwhelmingly. His utter indecency doesn’t seem to matter at all.

Objections to Bill Clinton’s affairs not applicable?

So let’s be clear — again — about who Trump is.

He’s the man who assaulted Carroll, then attacked her reputation. He’s the man who slept with a porn star while his wife was caring for their newborn son. He’s the man who was captured on a microphone bragging about grabbing women by their genitals.

He is a rich man who treats women cheaply.

And Republicans love him.

I am old enough to remember when my conservative friends reviled Bill Clinton for his affairs. “How can you trust a man to be faithful to his oath to the Constitution,” a Christian buddy asked me at the time, “when he can’t even keep his vows to his wife?”

Those were the good old days, apparently.

Listen: Despite my fierce disagreements with Trump and his elected supporters, I have tried — desperately at times, and despite those disagreements — to have a little grace for his voters, to withhold judgment of the relatively powerless.

A lot of them are like the folks I grew up with in central Kansas, whose sincere religious beliefs on issues such as abortion meant they could never vote for a pro-choice Democrat. Or the people who spend their days soaking in misinformation from Fox News. I have even felt a tiny bit of sympathy for the small-town businessmen who simply want a lower tax bill.

Whatever our values, we all make trade-offs in the voting booth. Most of us put up with a lesser evil and move on. Trump voters, I have wanted to believe, are no different.

But Republicans — Hawley, Marshall, and Schmitt and all their supporters — have the chance right now to choose differently. They’re sticking with Trump. Enthusiastically. Even as he puts his very worst behavior on display. Even now, though, it’s not too late for them to choose better.