The day after polls opened across America, Vice President Kamala Harris conceded the 2024 presidential election to 34-time felon Donald Trump. Unlike his first victory over a woman for the presidency, he won the election convincingly, sweeping the seven swing states and securing the popular vote — the first time a Republican candidate has done so since George W. Bush in 2004. The political right’s reaction to the victory has been loud, and its implications go far beyond immigration and economic policy, which Gallup reports were among the most important issues to Republican voters in this election.
In my opinion, the celebration of this political victory signals a cultural apathy, and in some cases aggression, toward women and children who are victims of physical, sexual and emotional abuse. This win makes clear that concerns of public policy, broader conservative principles and individual economic status hold more weight to the average voter than the protection of victims.
In 2023, our president-elect was found liable for the sexual abuse of E. Jean Carroll by a New York federal jury. The fact that he was elected president in a resounding victory — despite endorsement from and collaboration with Elon Musk, who faces several sexual misconduct allegations in recent lawsuits, the Access Hollywood tape that caught Trump bragging that he grabs women “by the pussy,” and his close relationship with convicted sex offender Jeffrey Epstein — shows that, as it stands, the majority of Americans are willing to take the side of an abusive man over abused women and children.
Further, many of the social media superstars of the political right who helped Trump win this election often promote a dehumanizing view of women. Nick Fuentes’ comments that for women it is “your body, our choice” in celebration of Trump’s victory went viral. The recent prominence of Andrew Tate, who is currently facing charges of human trafficking and sex with a minor in Romania, has been noted by many commentators. The behavior of Elon Musk and the words and actions of Trump himself — including the selection of alleged sex trafficker Matt Gaetz as his Attorney General — have been making headlines. All together, they reveal the nation’s apathy towards the degradation and mistreatment of women by our Republican legislative majority and their supporters.
The apathy toward allegations of violence like those of Caroll is no new phenomenon. The need for something like the Violence Against Women Act and its recent reauthorization shows the battle to protect women like Trump’s victims has been ongoing. There has been an intense fight in American divorce courts for decades for judges to believe allegations of domestic violence and child abuse. A study published in 2020 by Joan S. Meier on national child custody outcomes found that it is not uncommon for courts to award fathers who they believed to be abusers physical custody of children. These facts helped spur the creation of Kayden’s Law, a part of the 2022 Violence Against Women Act reauthorization, which gives financial incentives for states to create laws that protect victims of domestic violence in family court; most often women and children who are victims of abuse at the hands of men. I do not have faith, however, that these kinds of laws will be created or well-enforced in the future. The conservative growth in legislatures will influence our nation’s institutions and laws, including in this context, and the consequence of this rightward shift will be allegations of domestic violence and child abuse falling upon deaf ears in our courts. We can already see this happening with the promotion of the end of no-fault divorces, which would undeniably cause harm to women and children.
It did not have to be Trump on the ballot this year. The Republican primaries had a plethora of other candidates to choose from. Nikki Haley, Ron DeSantis, Chris Christie and even Mike Pence were options for the Republican party. The winner, though, was Trump, with the indifference toward the constant mistreatment of women by Trump and those in his sphere of influence playing an important role in his return to the White House. Sure, another candidate might not have done much differently, but if his flagrant maltreatment of women mattered, I would imagine that he would have been removed from contention in the Republican primary.
I find this reality disgusting but by no means surprising. These attitudes have been and will continue to be detrimental to the believability of allegations of domestic violence and child abuse. My family’s story is marred by domestic abuse, and for years the courts failed to recognize the violence that my mother, brother and I were enduring. It took my brother and I telling our stories to a judge for the court to finally believe what my mother — a woman — was saying. If the truth a woman speaks can’t even stop someone from becoming the most powerful person in the world, how can we expect it to stop someone in a rural Pennsylvania courthouse? The election has been a reminder that for a majority of people, physical, sexual and emotional violence against women and children is not a dealbreaker. I fear for the people in the future who will stand in the shoes that my mother, my brother and myself once stood.