All the words fit to print
And maybe some that aren't
All. 34. Counts.
That surprising nugget of information was everywhere last night. Even on the lips of friends watching our annual freak flag reclamation ritual, The Ithaca Festival Parade, last night. Between the circus kids and the schools and the non-profits and the derby girls there were spontaneous, excited exclamations of, “All 34 counts!!”
For many of us, this extremely delayed bit of comeuppance for our former president, Donald Trump, is reason for celebration. I will confess to feeling a mix of schadenfreude and, at best, cautious optimism rather than outright glee.
Still, it’s front of mind for most of us, regardless of our degree of jubilation. And it’s not totally outside the realm of our topic here, so I’m just gonna offer some thoughts to add to the swirling in your brain pan.
STORMY!!
The darkly comic irony of our overly Puritanical and patriarchal republic potentially being saved by a unrepentant, female former sex worker is perhaps the most delicious turn of history that I have ever witnessed. All praise to Stormy Daniels!
If you don’t feel that Stormy Daniels is deserving of praise because she is a former sex worker then we will just have to agree to disagree. If integrity is about wholeness (and it is), then sex is an essential, natural part of our lives as human beings. So is having to pay your bills (the essential part, anyway). And for some of us, so is the skill and impetus to make use of sex to pay those bills. There is no shame in it.
I had friends in my twenties who put themselves through art school dancing at the peep show downtown 2-3 nights per week. Where else could they make that kind of money as young women with no college degree in such a short amount of time? And they enjoyed it. God bless anyone who enjoys their job.
The first sex worker I ever knew, I didn’t actually know. She was a Black woman who worked at the bath house around the corner that I walked past when I got sent to the corner store by my mom to get milk. The one time I ever saw her she was standing in the door staring down some White guy she’d tossed out the door onto the sidewalk. It was the seventies, so she stood there, ten feet tall in my 7-year old mind, in a form-fitting, pink sateen dress with diagonal stripes and I thought, She’s so fancy.
She was also swearing up a blue streak, informing the decidedly less fancy dude laying on the sidewalk that he better not come up in there ever again. I had to walk between them, so kept my eyes on the ground because I didn’t want to catch her attention and have her righteous fury directed at me. But all I wanted to do was gaze at her. She was like Kali incarnate, totally awesome in the original meaning of that word.
Around the same time my family made a pilgrimage to Quaker country in England. My parents wanted us all to stand on the hill where George Fox had his vision. It was very green. There was a lot of sheep poop and cow patties. But the thing that really stuck with me, though, was the little museum in the valley that had been converted from a small, round, stone jail where many Quakers were imprisoned back in the day. Particularly, Quaker women for daring to speak for God in public.
In a Lucite box on a plinth they had the most horrific contraption. An iron cage that fit over a prisoner’s head with a bar that inserted into their mouth to hold their tongue down so they couldn’t speak or eat or barely swallow. It’s called a scold’s bridle and my mom told me they would leave the Quaker women in them for days on end in the hopes of silencing them, but it never worked.
I felt a related admiration to what I felt for that woman at the bathhouse for those long dead women, my religious ancestors, for daring to stand on the proverbial street corner and speak the truth. How fierce they all were!
I also grokked for the first time what lengths the powers that be have always gone to to silence fierce, truth-telling women. But it never works. Not in the long arc. If they silence one woman another arises. Stormy Daniels is just the latest in a long line stretching very far back in history, and that will stretch forward as long as it needs to. We owe every single woman in that line a debt.
Over in his newsletter this week, Father Nathan Monk published an excellent ode to Stormy Daniels, a personal friend, that is worth reading. He talks about who she is as a person— an equestrian, writer, director, wife, mother, activist, and former porn star. He wishes for a world in which she can be free to live without being an avatar for our shame and judgment. I wish that, too.
There’s no integrity without accountability
That’s the whole point, really. The complete sentence. Or, to put a few more words to it, as I did way back in January 2021 on the heels of the insurrection of January 6:
Integrity cannot exist in the absence of accountability. If there are no consequences when we step out of our integrity then our families, community, and society are constantly vulnerable to the whims of ego, abuse, and authoritarian power.
Sh*t To Help You Show Up January 15, 2021
“If people in the position of power are not made to be accountable, then, ungodliness, injustice and oppression will continue to be the order of the day in the society.” ― Sunday Adelaja, The Mountain of Ignorance When I first conceived of this Friday round-up of resources I planned on it being a light-hearted, low-investm…
I could leave it at that, just being glad that Donald Trump is finally being subjected to some necessary accountability. But why not take full advantage of the chance to say that all my life I have felt that our system here in the United States, “founded on the backs of genocide and slavery while proclaiming the equality of ‘man’” has always suffered from a lack of integrity.
I don’t think this verdict, as emotionally satisfying as it may be for some of us, is going to change that inherent reality. All it can do, really, is provide an opportunity for each of us to step forward and do our part to demand greater integrity in our system for the good of everyone.
Which brings me to my final thoughts…
There’s an old Zen Buddhist parable that’s apropos to this moment, I think. Have you heard it?
A farmer has a horse for many years; it helps him earn his livelihood and raise his son. One day, the horse runs away. His neighbor says sympathetically, “Such bad luck.”
The farmer replies, “Maybe. Who knows?”
The next day, the horse makes its way back home bringing with it another horse. The neighbor says with a smile, “Such good luck.”
The farmer replies, “Maybe. Who knows?”
The following day, the farmer’s son rides the new horse and seeks to tame it. In the process, he breaks his leg. The neighbor says sympathetically, “Such bad luck.”
The farmer replies, “Maybe. Who knows?”
The last day of the story, the military comes to the village to draft all able-bodied young men to fight in a war. The son is exempt from the draft due to his broken leg. The neighbor insists, “Such good luck.”
The farmer replies, “Maybe. Who knows?”
The reality is that Donald Trump can still run for president as a felon. Even if he is imprisoned before the election, he can run for president from his prison cell. Though he wouldn’t be able to vote for himself, he could still be voted for.
If elected, he can’t pardon himself on these charges (since they were brought by New York State), but, per the The NY Times, “he could sue for his release, arguing that his imprisonment prevented him from fulfilling his constitutional duties as president.”
In other words, this all might feel like such good luck. But the reality is maybe. Who knows?
I don’t write that to suggest all of us who hope to never see Donald Trump in the White House ever again should cross our fingers and pray if we are the praying sort. But we do need to stop the gleeful jumping about like the house just fell on the Witch (Okay, tomorrow. Stop tomorrow.) and get back to work to make sure he is not re-elected.
Canvas door-to-door. Table at public events. Talk to everyone you know and implore them to vote. Drive people to the polls on Election Day. Make sure you vote, too.
Call in the luck you want. Operationalize your hope. Per the great Rebecca Solnit in Hope in the Dark: “Hope just means another world might be possible, not promised, not guaranteed. Hope calls for action; action is impossible without hope.”
“I also grokked for the first time what lengths the powers that be have always gone to to silence fierce, truth-telling women. But it never works. Not in the long arc. If they silence one woman another arises. Stormy Daniels is just the latest in a long line stretching very far back in history, and that will stretch forward as long as it needs to. We owe every single woman in that line a debt.”
AMEN!
Asha, I wrote this yesterday:
A Titan's Fall: The Women Who Brought Down Donald Trump
Good evening, Buttercups, this a story of power, abuse, and the relentless pursuit of justice. In a turn of events that has shocked the nation, Donald Trump, the former President of the United States and a once-formidable business mogul, has been brought to his knees by the bravery and determination of two extraordinary women: E. Jean Carroll and Stormy Daniels.
E. Jean Carroll, a journalist and advice columnist known for her wit and wisdom, had built a career on empowering women through her words. But for decades, she carried a painful secret: a traumatic encounter with Donald Trump in a Bergdorf Goodman dressing room in the mid-1990s. Fear of retribution and public scrutiny kept her silent for years, but in 2019, she courageously decided to share her story in a book, hoping to inspire others to speak their truth. Trump's response was swift and vicious - he denied ever meeting Carroll and insulted her appearance. But Carroll refused to be intimidated. She filed a defamation lawsuit, determined to hold him accountable.
Stormy Daniels, an adult film actress and director, had also crossed paths with Trump in 2006, just months after the birth of his son with wife Melania. What began as a consensual encounter turned into a years-long battle for justice when Trump's then-lawyer Michael Cohen arranged a $130,000 hush money payment to keep Daniels quiet during the 2016 presidential campaign. Daniels, a fiercely independent single mother, refused to be silenced. She spoke out, risking her career and her personal safety to expose the truth behind the payment and Trump's alleged involvement.
These two women, from vastly different walks of life, found themselves united in a shared struggle against a powerful man who had long seemed untouchable. In May 2023, E. Jean Carroll's defamation lawsuit culminated in a historic verdict: a jury found Trump liable for sexually abusing her and for defaming her when he denied her allegations. It was the first time Trump faced legal consequences for sexual misconduct allegations, a watershed moment for survivors everywhere.
Just a year later, in May 2024, Trump stood trial in New York City on 34 felony counts of falsifying business records related to the hush money payment to Stormy Daniels. For six grueling weeks, Daniels and other witnesses testified, painting a damning picture of corruption and deceit at the highest levels of power. When the jury delivered their verdict - guilty on all counts - it sent shockwaves through the nation. The man who had once commanded the Oval Office was now a convicted felon.
The cases of E. Jean Carroll and Stormy Daniels raise a disturbing question: why, in a society that prides itself on equality and justice, do women still face such daunting barriers when speaking out against sexual misconduct? Too often, survivors are met with skepticism, victim-blaming, and character assassination. They are questioned about their clothing, their behavior, and their motives, as though they are the ones on trial. This pervasive culture of doubt and shame has silenced countless women, allowing predators to operate with impunity.
The fact that a man as powerful as Donald Trump could face such serious allegations and still ascend to the presidency speaks volumes about the deeply entrenched biases that permeate our society. It is a stark reminder that, even in the 21st century, women's voices are too often marginalized and their experiences dismissed.
But the bravery of E. Jean Carroll and Stormy Daniels has shown that change is possible. By speaking their truth and persevering in the face of unimaginable pressure, they have inspired countless others to come forward and demand justice. Their victories in court are not just personal triumphs, but powerful blows against a system that has long protected abusers and silenced survivors.
The cases of E. Jean Carroll and Stormy Daniels have forever changed the landscape of American justice, and their stories will inspire generations of women to come. But their bravery must also serve as a call to action - a reminder that we all have a role to play in creating a more just and equitable society. This is a defining moment in our nation's history, and a battle that is far from over.