After the arrest of the suspected assassin, the experts initially said exactly the right thing | Opinion

When I was in college, there was this campaign against what was then becoming known as “slut-shaming.”

I remember seeing leaflets on campus saying that women should be able to wear whatever they want, say whatever they want, and go wherever they want without fear of being attacked at the end of the night.

That was common sense, if a little naive.

I remember thinking at the time that no one deserved to be a victim, but that it was important to be held accountable.

If you've had too much to drink and hung out with guys you just met, you don't deserve to be attacked. But if you're forewarned and completely sober, you're prepared.

But despite the Catholic maxim “Be a good girl and nothing will happen to you,” I instinctively understood that people should not be punished for misjudgments that bear no relation to social faux pas.

In other words, there was no set number of centimeters above the knee at which a skirt could classify a woman as being in the open target group category.

Of course, as I grew older and became more politically aware, I also realized that there were double standards, and they had nothing to do with gender.

When a liberal woman was the focus of salacious public attention, the media usually reacted with outrage. How dare they, as conservative pundits, suggest that a woman who “owns” her sexuality should be subjected to such insults and disrespectful treatment? Such a disgrace!

With the arrival of Sarah Palin, the entire paradigm collapsed.

She was pilloried and vilified for everything she said, did, or didn't say. I don't need to recite the entire list of attacks on the former vice presidential candidate to prove that no one in the history of politics has been more enthusiastically pilloried for slut-shaming than Palin.

And when that was pointed out, commentators and a depressingly large portion of Democrats shrugged and essentially said she deserved it.

Failing to condemn this double standard is wrong. I made that mistake myself when Democrats attacked the admittedly repulsive Laura Loomer, a woman whose views are repugnant to decent people, and accused her of sleeping with Donald Trump after they saw her step off his plane last week.

I didn't defend her. I tweeted that you have to have a good reputation to be defamed. Legally I was right, morally I was wrong. Slut-shaming is as disgusting as Loomer himself.

Which finally brings me to the former president.

Last week, Trump was almost assassinated for a second time.

After the initial, expected comments expressing relief that he was not injured, the experts commented: “He has only himself to blame.”

Many on the left have revived their old “Palin wanted it that way” rhetoric, claiming that if you act like Hitler, you deserve everything that happens to you.

including an assassin's bullet.

After Sunday's attack, David Frum, a commentator for the Never Trumper movement, posted the following on X: “The difference: The disturbing things Trump and Vance say are not true. The disturbing things being said about Trump and Vance are true.”

And?

Does this mean that the attacks on the former president are justified? That he himself is to blame?

And that was just a drop in the ocean of the vile claims that Trump's tongue will dig his own grave. In other words, his skirt is too short.

No victim is to blame for being a victim. The skirt is not too short. The makeup is not too heavy. The relationship is not too familiar. And the words are not too harsh, unless they are used to dehumanize a person.

After the last assassination attempt on Trump – and it is pathetic that I can even write this sentence – I wrote that the ongoing attacks on the former president had the power to ignite a dangerous anger against him that could lead to further incidents.

I have warned Trump's critics to hold back. I am not proud of having acted with foresight.

My critics said words were unimportant.

Then they discovered the power of lies about pet-eating immigrants and concluded that words do matter, as long as they can be used against the right target.

No matter what a woman wears, she does not deserve to be attacked.

No matter what anyone says, they don't deserve to be killed.

©2024 Christine Flowers, distributed exclusively by the Cagle Cartoons newspaper syndicate.

Christine Flowers is an attorney and columnist for the Delaware County Daily Times and can be reached at [email protected].