Red Flags: Thoughts on the Presidential Debate

“She does have a very nice fig­ure … if [she] weren’t my daugh­ter, per­haps I’d be dat­ing her.”

~Donald Trump, on his daugh­ter Ivanka

“How do the breasts look?”

~Donald Trump, when asked if he would stay with wife Melanie Trump if she was dis­fig­ured in a car crash

“I’d have no prob­lem.” 

~Donald Trump, on sleep­ing with 24-year-olds. He was 60 at the time.

My daugh­ter Izzie, who is 19, is liv­ing in Nashville and attend­ing a music school. As part of her part-time gig, she often goes to bars to set up or break down music stages. Lower Broadway late at night can be a scary place for an attrac­tive, under­age, and inno­cent girl. You can bet we have lots of con­ver­sa­tions about how to stay safe. 

A parental demand is that some­one walk her back to her car after work. Preferably some­one from the record­ing stu­dio where she stud­ies and prefer­ably a female. But occa­sion­al­ly, she meets some­one she is roman­ti­cal­ly inter­est­ed in. Then, we have deep­er, “red flag” con­ver­sa­tions to decide if this is some­one that she can trust to be alone with late at night. 

I’m think­ing about our red flag con­ver­sa­tions today, the night after the Harris/Trump debate. I’m imag­in­ing the con­ver­sa­tion where my daugh­ter calls me and tells me about Donald Trump, the “great” guy she’s just met.

Her: He only deferred mil­i­tary ser­vice five times. 

Me: Hmmm. Don’t love that; you know your grand­fa­ther is a Vietnam vet right? But bad feet are bad feet, I guess.

Her: He hates immigrants.

Me: We’re all immi­grants to the Native Americans. Our whole nation was found­ed on com­ing from some­place else to a bet­ter life here. Also, isn’t his cur­rent wife an immi­grant? And the wife before that?

Her: He’s only been bank­rupt six times.

Me: Um. What now?

Her: And he has only been accused of sex­u­al assault by 26 women.

Me: Hell. No.

The avalanche of women start­ed to make their sex­u­al mis­con­duct accu­sa­tions against Trump pub­lic fol­low­ing the October 2016 pub­li­ca­tion of the infa­mous 2005 Access Hollywood tape, in which Trump was heard boast­ing about grab­bing women’s gen­i­tals. I am, not sur­pris­ing­ly, a believe the woman sort of gal. But even if you aren’t, how can you ignore the tes­ti­mo­ny of 26 women? Are they all lying about a man who thinks it’s fine to grab them by the p*ssy? A man who said, “If Hillary Clinton can’t sat­is­fy her hus­band, what makes her think she can sat­is­fy America?” — as if a man cheat­ing is always the scorned woman’s fault and not the cheater? 

Barf.

I have female friends who vot­ed for Trump. I have female friends who are plan­ning to vote for Trump in November. I have tried as hard as I can to stay open in the con­ver­sa­tions I have had with them in the last few years, to real­ly lis­ten to their point of view. But I con­tin­ue to be baf­fled by their devo­tion to a man who would strip away their rights and assault them — but only if they were pret­ty and young enough. 

His poli­cies are bar­bar­ic and with­out a shred of empa­thy. But at the end of the day, I sim­ply can­not vote for a man who I would not trust to walk my daugh­ter to her car. Too many red flags. 

I’m vot­ing for the girl in the photo.