Donald Trump Talks at Debate, but Many Women Hear Only a 2005 Tape

It was Donald J. Trump’s chance to sound contrite and mature, to explain away the sexually predatory boasts he was caught making on tape and to persuade Americans that — for all his no-apologies braggadocio — he was, in fact, capable of feeling shame.

Maura Cotter, 22, a senior at the University of Notre Dame, was shocked at what Mr. Trump did instead in Sunday’s debate: repeat, over and over, that what he had said on the 2005 recording, about forcing himself on women and grabbing their genitals, was simply “locker-room banter.”

It was, Ms. Cotter said, “not an apology — no reason to believe he’s changed at all.”

A classmate, Abigail Wilson, who is a registered Republican, listened closely to Mr. Trump and was reminded, she said, of the time she was groped by a stranger. The Republican nominee, she said soberly, “may not have physically harmed anyone with his words, but he has the power to do so by example.”

I made a point about women who have spoken crudely in private, who have been to things like bachelorette parties (which in my life experience in the Northeast is pretty much all women under 50) would do all that yet dismiss a man for doing essentially the same ... crude talk ... in favor of a monster. These women are probably going to decide this election, frankly. If you buy the polls, Trump is losing them big time right now and without them he doesn't carry PA, maybe VA, other states. I hope it's not so but it's frustrating to me that the future of our nation could come down to women deciding to support a serial liar who stole millions and lit the middle east on fire because they think Trump is a meanie for using bad words.

But YOU dismissed my comment because you said it didn't apply to conservative women as if they are the only ones that count. When I explained that there are women in America who have done those things and they count too, you gave a sarcastic response about how I'm sooooo clever.

If your point is that he'll lose the conservative women over this because they don't go to bachelorette parties or ever talk crudely in private among themselves, okay, if you say so. I'll concede that such a group of women might decide they never knew such talk existed and decide they could never support Trump because he's a meanie. Then yes, his problems are even worse and maybe they are the true swing voters. I didn't get that from your post, but I'll concede it's possible that's what you meant.

Fine. But don't patronize me because I didn't focus my comment which reflected my frustration of the hypocrisy of one particular slice of the electorate (that most say will be decisive in the election, by the way) instead of another specific slice of the electorate which you think is the only one that matters.

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