Stormy Daniels woke me up.
The zone is flooded with shit
In 2018, Steve Bannon told Michael Lewis that “Democrats don’t matter. The real opposition is the media, and the way to deal with them is to flood the zone with shit.”
The People of the State of New York v. Donald Trump is a legal embodiment of the Bannon philosophy. The zone is flooded with shit in this case. The star witnesses include a lawyer-podcaster-felon, a tabloid emperor, and an adult film star. It all feels too salacious and unseemly, too foreign (I could never live like this) and familiar (We’ve seen this movie so many times) to provoke any curiosity. It’s easiest to sink into a sort of malaise, skimming headlines and humming “Send in the Clowns.” I’ve felt the malaise. Even as I’ve covered major developments and followed the docket, I’ve done it in a “this can’t quite matter, can it?” haze.
Stormy Daniels woke me up.
I’ve heard descriptions of “THE PORN STAR’S SEXUAL ENCOUNTER WITH TRUMP” as the headlines blare. But her unflinching, straightforward description under oath made it real to me for the first time.
As she describes it, Donald Trump requested that she have dinner with him, and she didn’t want to. Her agent said she should go on the off-chance that he could be good for her career. She met him expecting to go to a restaurant. He kept her in his hotel suite. She talked business with him. She went to the bathroom and returned to find him on the bed, expectant and entitled. She described being angry with herself for being in the situation--in this suite with a now undressed millionaire whose bodyguard stood at the door. She did not say no, but she did not say yes, either. She left after. She hated what had happened. She tried to stay friendly so she wouldn’t blow a shot at the Celebrity Apprentice, which he constantly dangled. She got creative in avoiding sex with him again. Once the Celebrity Apprentice came off the table, she stopped taking his calls.
This woman is more than a “porn star.” She is a whole and complete person who has a tough mother and a beloved daughter.
She had dreams. She had bills to pay. She believed for a long time, not unreasonably, that the president of the United States might have her killed. And she sat on the stand and described something that the whole of the #MeToo era struggled to capture: sex that is not criminal, but that is unethical.
Trump exploited power dynamics. He took advantage. His sins inflicted years of punishment on her. Imagine how we’d be talking about this story if Stormy were Stephanie--a marketing intern or a bartender or a golf pro…if she were anything other than a “porn star.”
Trump has not been charged and will not be convicted for this act. It still matters.
As he describes it, Michael Cohen helped Candidate Trump defraud voters by paying to keep the Stormy Daniels story quiet and by concealing the payment. He helped President Trump, from the Oval Office, facilitate that scheme. It’s also easy to slide right past those facts without pausing to imagine the Secretary of Defense or Commerce passing “the fixer” on his way to have the President of the United States sign a check that paid to cover up this whole sordid affair.
I don’t want to be so sick of Trump or so grossed out by the facts of his escapades that I lose the thread. Here, we have a man who used his wealth and power to unethically pressure a woman into having sex with him, and then he used that same wealth and power to lie to voters about it on his way to the White House. All of these actions are entirely consistent with everything else we know about this man, who is currently polling even with or ahead of President Biden. And we just…I just…glaze right over it.
Steve Bannon’s quote sticks with me because of its truth: the volume of shit often obscures its gravity.
But I’ve started to realize that “the media” doesn’t lose in that formulation.
We all do.
Y’all. Sarah said that there was probably a microbiologist in the audience who could answer the question about water bottles, and Lisa answered the call.
Hi friends,
I endorse the rinsing of the kid-only water cups and putting them in a designated drawer. Bacteria are everywhere—and I think of something like a water cup as not terribly different than fruit or greens from the garden. No one is scrubbing any of that down—rinse and dry—sorted!
Water bottles: I like stainless steel. (I don’t have a Stanley Cup situation…ftr) My goal is to wash all water bottles at least once a week—but, if I am honest, it is more like when I think about it, which ends up being every few weeks. Obvi, this won’t work with a clear plastic water bottle. But rando soaks and good rinses with diluted vinegar might help with the weirdo floaties…
A good rule of thumb is that if the water in the bottle tastes off, it's time for a total thorough clean. Otherwise, regular rinses and whatnot tend to keep them good to go.
Hope y’all have the best week available,
Lisa
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When millions of people think character and basic human decency and empathy doesn't matter, I refuse to gloss over, glaze over or whatever you want to call it. I scream it from the rooftops hoping enough people will hear and think about it so that the polls will change dramatically by November.
She is an actual human person. This reminds me of Monica Lewinski's #metoo tweet. Or when Gen Z asks - what the heck did you people do to Amanda and Brittany and Lindsey and...? Money. Status. Power. Always slithering behind the scenes. We get distracted by the constant spectacle and don't notice. We focus too much on the wrong details. Sigh.