There are a lot of slimy fish in the Republican Party. Think of all the men who have been caught, gutted and decapitated by Donald Trump. There are those bottom-feeders gasping for their last breath of GOP air, like Bob Dole and John Boehner, who support him. And then there's that Suckerfish Chris Christie, who glommed onto Trump like a parasite and just might get the VP nod for his efforts. There's the Blobfish Mitch McConnell, one of the worst defenders of the faith, but a supporter of Trump nonetheless. Don't forget John McCain, the man Trump filleted with his comment, "I like people who weren't captured." McCain's now supporting that same man for president. But worst of all might be the Jellyfish known as Paul Ryan. Despite his near weekly criticisms of the candidate, he still supports him.
You've got to wonder what it would take for these men and their Republican brethren to permanently denounce the poisonous Puffer Fish in our midst. It's certainly going to take more than racism and bigotry: they've all obviously come to terms with his alienation of Latinos, Muslims, women, blacks and Jews. Just in the last month or so, we've endured the Mexican judge travesty and the Hillary Jewish star meme mess. Just this week, Ryan called Trump's Star of David tweet anti-Semitic. In case you missed it, the meme, which apparently originated on a white supremacist's Twitter feed, shows Hillary Clinton next to a Jewish star calling her "Most Corrupt Candidate Ever!" over a pile of money.
"Look, anti-Semitic images, they've got no place in a presidential campaign," Ryan told WTMJ's Charlie Sykes Tuesday.
Oh, you really stung him, Paul Ryan.
There is a blog post circulating this week that could be the whale that swallows all of them whole. It's an op-ed that the Huffington Post and other sites have put out there. Some sites have cast doubt over its validity, and it's notable that most mainstream media outlets haven't touched it, so far. The HuffPost blog is called, "Why the New Child Rape Case Filed Against Donald Trump Should Not be Ignored," by Lisa Bloom.
To summarize, a woman filed a federal lawsuit against Trump for raping her in 1994 when she was just 13 years old. The plaintiff accuses Trump of initiating sex with her four times at the home of convicted pedophile billionaire Jeffrey Epstein, Trump's friend. The fourth time, the woman says Trump tied her to a bed and raped her. She claims he hit her and threatened to harm her and her family if she told anyone.
Here's the twist: there is supposedly a witness who said in court documents that she would find young women for Jeffrey Epstein and bring them back to his house with promises of money and modeling contracts. In this case, the witness said she recruited the plaintiff from Port Authority in New York, and personally saw her being forced to engage in sexual acts with both Trump and Epstein.
Taking a giant step back from the story, of course Trump is innocent until proven guilty. Of course there are going to be opportunists who come out of the woodwork at strategic moments to ruin a controversial candidate, or for financial gain. That could certainly be the case here. But Bloom does make a good case for why the media should watch this lawsuit, and why she thinks it holds water.
I wonder how many of the Paul Ryans, Chris Christies and John McCains - all fathers of girls - have read this post. These middle-aged and older white, Christian men haven't felt the personal sting of Trump's continuous barrage of hateful words, memes and tweets throughout this campaign.
But since this story involves a child, maybe they'll pay closer attention. If it turns out that there is any truth at all to this lawsuit, maybe the men of the Republican Party will stop flailing like fish hauled out of the sea, find their spines and recapture their souls. One would have thought that would have happened long ago, after Trump skewered his first war hero and reporter, after he put groups of people out to sea, wholesale, after his disgusting quotes about women piled up like stacks of fish guts. The list of offenses is so long and vile that the Grand Old Party has become numb to it - much in the same way it's numb to gun violence. And we know where we are on that one.
So what will it take for the Republicans come up from the depths and see the light? Maybe it won't be this latest Trump story, but sadly, it's going to have to be a whale.
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