The Sexual Harassment Conversation Needs to Move to the Next Level

The Sexual Harassment Conversation Needs to Move to the Next Level

The Sexual Harassment Conversation Needs to Move to the Next Level

What’s needed are real structural and legal changes to support the victims and curb the predators.

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EDITOR’S NOTE: Each week we cross-post an excerpt from Katrina vanden Heuvel’s column at the WashingtonPost.com. Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.

Women are forcing a long-overdue reckoning on sexual harassment. The list of ousted executives and politicians keeps growing. The thousands of reports of sexual harassment on #MeToo keep coming. More women are emboldened to talk, and more are being heard. The risks for abusers—particularly public figures—are rising. We know the roots of this extraordinary moment; where the moment leads remains to be seen.

The reckoning is part of the fierce reaction to Donald Trump’s election victory in 2016. Trump won in spite of the ultimate “October surprise,” when the Access Hollywood tape confirmed what more than a dozen women had alleged: Trump is a serial sexual predator, admitting on tape that, “when you’re a star, they let you do it. You can do anything…. Grab them by the p—-y. You can do anything.”

A president is the nation’s great teacher. Women were not about to allow him to teach that lesson.

Read the full text of Katrina’s column here.

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Even before February 28, the reasons for Donald Trump’s imploding approval rating were abundantly clear: untrammeled corruption and personal enrichment to the tune of billions of dollars during an affordability crisis, a foreign policy guided only by his own derelict sense of morality, and the deployment of a murderous campaign of occupation, detention, and deportation on American streets. 

Now an undeclared, unauthorized, unpopular, and unconstitutional war of aggression against Iran has spread like wildfire through the region and into Europe. A new “forever war”—with an ever-increasing likelihood of American troops on the ground—may very well be upon us.  

As we’ve seen over and over, this administration uses lies, misdirection, and attempts to flood the zone to justify its abuses of power at home and abroad. Just as Trump, Marco Rubio, and Pete Hegseth offer erratic and contradictory rationales for the attacks on Iran, the administration is also spreading the lie that the upcoming midterm elections are under threat from noncitizens on voter rolls. When these lies go unchecked, they become the basis for further authoritarian encroachment and war. 

In these dark times, independent journalism is uniquely able to uncover the falsehoods that threaten our republic—and civilians around the world—and shine a bright light on the truth. 

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