‘Nevertheless She Persisted’ – THANK YOU E. Jean Carroll

E. Jean Carroll summoned reserves I suspect even she at times wasn’t sure she had to a noble purpose. After years of effort, and with an incalculable amount of resolve and perseverance, toughness and class she forced Trump into something he has never had the ability to handle, much less win. A fair fight. And E. Jean kicked Trump’s fat orange butt! I reveled in the verdict when it was announced, and since. I think in time history will mark what Carroll accomplished as the detonator of the device that results in the implosion of Trump and Trumpism. That’s only now really sinking in. We all owe E. Jean Carroll our most heartfelt thanks.

Personally, last night I experienced a feeling I couldn’t quite identify for some time. I was writing as I watched E. Jean Carroll on Rachel Maddow’s show last night. I was struck enough by it all that despite being bone tired at midnight (I live out east) I watched again at midnight when the show repeated. E. Jean Carroll is ten kinds of awesome. Rachel’s set-up of just who we were about to see, and then Carroll herself made me experience a feeling I’d forgotten. Something wonderful I hadn’t felt in years.

It was pride. True, unabashed pride.

Yes, it was wonderful when news broke that Biden had beaten Trump. A mix of relief, hope and satisfaction that Trump was getting tossed out. Hope even. Still, it was tempered by the sickening fact that not only had Trump’s vote total not dropped like a rock the way it should have, he got millions (ten million as it turned out) more votes in 2020 than he did in 2016. Those who’ve followed me back in the old days on DK and then here on Politizoom know the morning after the 2016 election I withdrew into myself. Didn’t leave my apartment even for a few days. When I did, I ran into the manager of my apartment complex, a terrific gal who comes from a Marine family and she (it’s a jarhead thing) wished me (belated) “Happy BirthdayI” (for the 10th) and in honor of Veteran’s Day thanked me for my service. I blurted out (with lots of people around0 “It didn’t mean a goddamned thing. Not in a country where over sixty million people would vote for someone like Trump.”

I meant it then and that feeling didn’t go away. Since then I’ve seen no reason to mark the Marine Corps’ birthday, and Memorial Day drives me to despair. I think of the scars, both physical and psychological my dad bore from serving on bombers in WWII, others in my small hometown one of whom survived the Bataan Death March and somehow lived to be liberated. Gravestones of those who died who’s relatives I knew and eventually those of people I knew who died serving this country.  And after four years of him SEVENTY million plus voted for Trump. My own service wasn’t anything special but I often weep for those who gave so much, including in so many cases their very lives. And not just those in uniform I should add.

A country in which a Donald Trump could rise to the Presidency, abuse the office the way he did and GAIN support isn’t worthy of all that sacrifice. Much as I love President Joe Biden he’s only been cancelling out the Trump years and repairing the wounds and damage. Trump has continued to thrive politically and stay one step ahead of actual consequences because too many have propped him up.  The reasons why I won’t delve into  here, but the fact is one of his few skills is manipulating and abusing the legal process to continue on with his lifelong con. With apologies to cats (sorry cat lovers) Trump has seemed to have not “9 lives”, but 9 to the 9th power, to the 9th power. Effing Voldemort didn’t even have nine!

We have been waiting, hoping for a moment when Trump would find himself in a courtroom facing someone who wouldn’t back down, with a judge who would rein in his antics and swiftly move a trial along and have an actual jury look at him and the evidence, look at the case against him and those presenting charges and that evidence and call the orange sack of human excrement known as Donald Trump guilty. It’s seemed like the day would never come and since late last summer it seemed the only chance to get at Trump in an actual trial would be the federal case in DC. Then the DC Circuit decided to hem and haw and in the process give Trump just what he wants – a delay of his March trial and the way things are unfolding he might be able to push it past the election.

Enter E. Jean Carroll. She won her first case in civil court against Trump. A judgement for five million bucks and a ruling that he’d committed sexual assault/rape. Trump didn’t bother to show up. Not that he would have helped  himself by doing so. He appealed of course but had to put up the 5 million and when he loses the appeal (sometime this year) Carroll will collect. That could have been pretty much the end of it but Trump wouldn’t STFU and move on. He continued to defame Carroll so she sat down with her attorneys. They had a good case so she filed against Trump AGAIN!

This time around, they were in federal court with a judge presiding who runs a tight ship. With the existing judgement already registered against Trump, this time the trial would be only about how much more Trump owed for continuing to defame Carroll. Almost every day he dragged her name through the mud, and in the process the threats to her safety and even life grew.  Many a person facing that from Trump has coldly looked at the equation and said “that’s it – I’m done with this” and let things go.

Not E. Jean Carroll. She stayed the course to get Trump into the last place (other than prison) he wants to be – in a courtroom where he didn’t get to make the rules and with a federal judge with some guts that would make him behave. Slap him down and do so in front of the jury and enforce the rules like a sports referee.  As the trial approached Trump, who’s spent a lifetime slipping out of legal peril like a greased pig knew this time, with this judge he was in trouble. Sure, he tried to bluster and bully. And like so many criminals and especially those who commit sex crimes he made sure to be there to stare down his accuser. To try and intimidate her into falling apart on the stand. Or chickening out entirely.

As explained in this article by The Independent Trump’s threats (which for once he carried through on) to attend the trial did affect Carroll. For all that’s gone on in the years since Trump brutalized her and even four years of court proceedings she’s never had to be in the same room with him. Like so many who’ve been sexually violated having to sit on the witness stand and see the attacker a few feet away glaring was almost too much for her.

As the linked article makes clear had her bad moments right up to the recent trial where she nailed Trump’s fat orange ass to the wall:

More than two weeks ago, and 25 years after being assaulted by Mr Trump, Ms Carroll braced herself to share the same space as the former president in a New York City federal courthouse.

“I was terrified,” Ms Carroll told Rachel Maddow on Monday night. “Four days before trial, I had an actual breakdown. I lost my ability to speak, I lost my words, I couldn’t talk, I couldn’t go on. That’s how frightened I was.”

THAT is exactly what Trump was counting on. Being able to bully Carroll at least. Even if the jury didn’t like it he could walk away (he thought) with his despicably smug satisfaction in having beaten her down into if not silence then a quivering mess on the stand. But something else happened instead.  Before introducing Carroll and her attorneys for that live interview last night Rachel Maddow gave viewers a profile of E. Jean Carroll prior to that fateful day when Trump assaulted her. She was a successful, thriving author with numerous book and magazine credits. The latter including in well known national publications. Smart, talented, funny in what was described as a quirky way and well like. Loved among her peers. Especially in New York City where Donald Trump had tried for so many years to become admired and respected among NYC’s elites. Carroll was all Trump wanted to be but was not.

Trump did immeasurable damage to E. Jean Carroll that day. While she would continue to work it’s clear she would have been so much more accomplished and well known had it not been for Donald Trump. It’s also worth bearing in mind their respective ages – both being part of a generation where accusing a well known rich and/or powerful man was believe it or not far more fraught than it is now. For over two decades Carroll suffered in silence because that’s what damned near any woman of her generation facing similar circumstances did. But she finally spoke up in a chapter of a book she wrote.

Trump of course was furious at Carroll for not accepting the old norms of their generations and used the bully pulpit of the Presidency to be an actual bully. A lesser person, especially of Carroll’s generation would have given in and worked to gain some anonymity during their remaining years. But Carroll decided to fight back. With good representation she decided she might use the same justice system Trump has abused his whole life the way it’s meant to be used. All of which lead us to the moment when, as she admitted to Maddow she was literally shaking while taking the stand.

Then something wonderful happened and the E. Jean Carroll that was there all along before she had that awful encounter with Trump returned:

“I looked out, and he was nothing,” Ms Carroll told The Rachel Maddow Show. “He was a phantom. It was the people around him who were giving him power, he himself was nothing.”

For all her fears ahead of that moment Carroll realized she had Trump exactly where she wanted him, and where he least wanted or could afford (literally) to be. Not just on neutral ground with rules and NOT rules of Trump’s making. A setting where the contest would play out with a “referee” who would enforce those rules. Call penalties for infractions and make sure consequences ensued. I don’t know that all that flashed through Carroll’s mind in that moment but she instinctively knew it. And that Trump was NO match for her. He never had been. And, just as in the first trial jurors knew it too. This time instead of depositions and transcripts they had Trump there in person and could take the measure of both.

Our system of justice sometimes fails us. With Trump it’s failing us as I write this because of gutless and/or too filled up with self-importance appellate judges giving him the delays he wants. Not to mention a corrupt and unqualified federal judge in Florida doing all she can to throw the case and get Trump off the hook. However sometimes the system works. Just like it’s designed to do.  It shouldn’t be as hard as it is to do what Carroll has just done. However the fact this is it is is proof of how extraordinary Carroll (and her attorneys) is and the level of gratitude owed her by us all.

E. Jean Carroll has I believe delivered what will turn out to be the mortal blow to Trump. She got him into a setting where he couldn’t grab control, and took him on one-one. Stared him right down and then gutted him like a fish. Last night there was commentary that what Carroll did will be the stuff of history. I agree.

And that’s how so much of my faith in America was suddenly restored, and I could feel true pride again. That a piece of sh*t like Donald Trump could be taken down, ruined (and the verdict was the legal slash across his belly that will start the spilling out of his intestines – judge Engoron can easily reach in and pulled out rest the way I’ve field-dressed a deer when hunting) but it’s Carroll who did the real damage. It wasn’t someone with the power of the DOJ or a State AG’s office that tore Trump open. No, it was just a gusty, determined woman who wouldn’t give up. Who fought through her worst fears, took on Trump directly and whipped his ass.

The five million bucks stung Trump a bit, but $83.3 million is another matter entirely. If he wants to appeal rather than pay (it questionable if he could in fact pay up right away) he’s still got to cough up a decent chunk of it and/or post bond while an appeal plays out. Even better he can’t simply shift money from his legal PAC. If he wants to use donor money he has to solicit and collect it saying specifically it’s going to pay off what he owes Carroll! It will be interesting to see how MAGAs would react to that. And with the feds watching Trump won’t get away with playing game. Sounds great doesn’t it? But it gets even better. Probably tomorrow we’ll get judge Engoron’s ruling in the New York state civil fraud trial. Trump might have to come up with $370 million, not to mention other sanctions that will shut down both him and his evil spawn from doing business in New York. Bye Bye Trump Org and hello bankruptcy court. But before bankruptcy Trump will have the problem of covering the judgement to the state! Even if Engoron doesn’t award the asked for amount it’s likely to be at least a quarter-BILLION dollars. 250-300 million and with Trump already on the hook to Carrol good luck Donald getting someone to post bond for what’s coming tomorrow.

Carroll has done the equivalent of kicking Trump in the balls, and with him doubled over in pain Leticia James can bring the states’ knee up into his face and knock him flat on his back. Then EVERYONE gets to start pummeling him. (Popcorn anyone?) The time will come, and soon but especially in the history books when Carroll is credited with being the one who ended Trump. I truly believe that. We still live in a country where a regular citizen who’s been badly, horrifically wronged by a a powerful person with enormous resources can fight back and win. It’s not easy to even the odds, to maneuver them into a fair fight but Carroll has just proved it IS possible!

Like I said, it shouldn’t be so hard but we still live in a place where an institution designed to ensure justice can still work to do just that. And a country that produces not just evil people like Trump and dumbass MAGAs but also quiet, capable and courageous people too. People who find the courage and the means, in this case the civil court system to tell someone like Trump “NO! I’m not taking your bullshit and I’M taking YOU down!”

It may be a strange reason to many that I find myself once again feeling pride about America but I went to be thinking about how as news of the verdict, and excepts of Carroll on Maddow’s show makes its way around the world people in other places who’ve wondered just how it all went wrong here and how long it will be before the final collapse will say: “Look at that. Some regular American took Trump on and beat him. Beat him bad. Used the court system to do it! It looks like things there aren’t as bad as we thought. If one woman can do that to Trump, imagine what’s going to happen when state or federal courts do using the criminal system?”

With that I’ll end how I began. Thank you E. Jean Carroll. I wish I had your talent, even just a small portion to express how grateful I am to you.  Be well. Be safe. And if as we all expect the time comes when Trump can no longer contain himself and defames you again do what you said last night you’d do – take him back to court and kick his fat ass again!