If you’ve been following the events of the 2016 presidential campaign, you already know one thing: Donald Trump — a candidate with a storied public history of marital infidelity — has not been shy about bringing up Bill Clinton’s past in an effort to discredit Hillary Clinton’s ability to lead the nation. At last night’s debate, after fallout from Friday’s audio leak, he went all-in on the “Bill’s worse” card.
But here’s something that needs to be said before we go sink further into the cesspool Trump’s digging: Bringing up Bill Clinton’s cheating as a way to somehow imply that Hillary Clinton would make a bad president fails on every single logical level. It holds absolutely zero weight.
In a perfect world, we’d end this piece right here, but because there are plenty of people who see Trump’s attack as valid, let’s break down why blaming Hillary Clinton for being cheated on, and using it as a talking point to explain why she doesn’t belong in a leadership role, is completely wrong-headed.
First, this: Lots of people get cheated on. Lots. It’s possible that you have been cheated on or have cheated on someone. That’s because cheating is incredibly common, as sad as that may seem. In fact, according to a 2012 article in The Washington Post, researchers estimate that between 25 and 75 percent of Americans have cheated on their partners. It’s a huge margin for error, but makes a clear case nonetheless. And, as the Ashley Madison hack reminded us, sometimes the people who act holier than thou are a part of that number.
Leaving the stats aside, there’s something else that most people ought to be able to agree on: Infidelity doesn’t prove anything about the individual being cheated on. It’s part of a complicated, private, and mostly unknowable relationship matrix. You’d never tell a friend that “your partner cheated on you, which shows that you’re not capable of selling insurance,” would you? Why would it pertain to the office of president?
Why should Clinton be shamed by the fact that she stood by her husband and tried to get their marriage in order? Statistics reveal that many couples find ways to stay together after infidelity. Fox News has stated that about 50 percent of couples choose to stay together, even after cheating has been discovered. True numbers, of course, like the numbers on how many people cheat, are murky, but it’s safe to say that many couples choose to work their relationships out instead of ending them.
None of this really begins to touch the hypocrisy of Donald Trump, an adulterer himself, teasing this talking point over and over. Trump’s own infidelities are well established. Even the co-author of Trump’s best-selling book, The Art of the Deal, has publicly noted the irony of the former reality show host going after Clinton for being the target of infidelity while engaging in adultery himself:
Trump's plans to bring up Bill Clinton's infidelities reminds me that while I was writing Art of the Deal he was openly cheating on Ivana.
— Tony Schwartz (@tonyschwartz) September 29, 2016
Let’s drill down. Why can Trump attack a woman for being the victim of betrayal? Simple. In his world, the fault of such things lays squarely on the shoulders of women — including those who are too fat, too loud, or too unattractive to even work at his golf course. Clinton surfacing Trump’s mistreatment of Alicia Machado is relevant in a race in which women’s rights are an important issue; Trump’s threats to expose Bill Clinton’s affairs, however — especially in the way Trump has often framed them, as embarrassments — is strictly personal.
On Sunday night, Trump seemed ready to go after Clinton’s marriage in the one way that might prove effective — by targeting the allegations lodged against Bill Clinton for sexual assault, as well as Hillary Clinton’s walking back her comments on “always believing women” after being questioned about her husband’s conduct at a campaign stop, and her choice to scrub that statement from her website. But the point was lost in a giant word jumble and instead we were left with, “I’m creepy, but look at Bill!”
It’s not that Hillary Clinton deserves to be condemned for Bill Clinton’s actions, but in a campaign that’s fully entrenched in feminism, she will need to explain how protecting her husband from such allegations and keeping him in her inner circle will coincide with her push to believe and empower women. That type of nuance, however, doesn’t appear to be something Trump is capable of. And of course, continuing to press the sexual assault charges against Bill Clinton could backfire terribly — considering that Trump has been accused of sexual assault and harassment many times, including accusations that he raped a 13-year-old (a case which has just been ordered to move forward).
If we focus on the cheating, and how Trump seems to think that having been cheated on makes Hilary Clinton less of a leader, a double-standard is revealed. Women who cheat are often deemed sluts and women who are cheated on are shrews while men who cheat on their wives — as Donald Trump has done with great vigor — are somehow more potent and powerful. Would we accept the same accusations of cheating from Hillary Clinton as valid attacks on Trump’s character or would the public see it as desperate and pathetic? After all, powerful men cheat; it’s what they do. And, often, they’re respected and idolized because of it, not despite of it.
Want more proof? Just check Bill Clinton’s approval ratings, which reached an all-time high in 1998, after impeachment proceedings during which it was revealed that not only did he have a relationship with Monica Lewinsky, his subordinate, but that he had lied and misled the American public. When he left office, his approval rating was 65%, making it clear that he was still popular despite his shortcomings and in-office scandals. Hillary Clinton, on the other hand, has continued being condemned for staying.
From The Broad Side:
Somewhat surprisingly, it’s not Bill that could keep Hillary from the White House, but rather the ill will some women feel toward her that comes from an odd mix of views on marriage and feminism. I’ve stopped counting the number of women I know who’ve said they can’t forgive Hillary, let alone vote for her, because she didn’t divorce Bill over “what the meaning of the word is, is.” These friends and colleagues view Hillary’s decision to – yes – stand by her man, as a means to an end for her career rather than one of marital devotion and feel that somehow that makes her a bad fit to be the leader of the free world.
Even Michelle Obama — who typically “goes high” — brought up Hillary Clinton’s not being able to “keep her house in order” during a speech leading up to the 2008 election. It was a baseless accusation then — trust takes two people and Hillary Clinton can no more keep her spouse from cheating than any of us can — but it’s especially cringeworthy now, when you consider that Clinton’s biggest personal failing appears to be being cheated on while her opponent is currently in the throes of defending a video tape in which he refers to women as “bitches” and suggests that the proper way to treat them is to “grab them by the pussy.”
These comments have already sparked an online movement in which women are sharing their own experiences of sexual assault in response to Trump’s “jovial” banter, been labeled as “offensive and unacceptable” by his own wife, unearthed further reports of Trump’s non-consensual groping of women (including an incident in which he allegedly tried to sexually assault a woman in his own daughter’s bedroom), resulted in his being disinvited to an event hosted by his party’s own leaders, and even led to his running mate considering turning in his resignation. And while Sean Hannity trotted out biblical references about King David’s concubines, perhaps, as Bustle points out, we need to talk more about men holding each other accountable.
The fact is that we have much higher expectations of Hillary Clinton as a candidate because she’s a woman. For instance, in a recent Breitbart article, Clinton was condemned by an elementary school classmate because she had hit him while she was trying to protect some rabbits:
Hillary’s combative behavior is nothing new; she’s been that way all her life. For my 2005 book The Truth About Hillary, I interviewed Hillary’s grammar school classmate, Jim Yrigoyen, who told me the story of being ordered by Hillary to guard a warren of baby rabbits, and not give any of them away to neighborhood boys. When he did, recalled Yrigoyen, “Hillary hauled off and punched me in the nose.”
Would even the most leftist outlets on the planet get traction out of that when referring to a male candidate? In another excerpt from the article, the author cites White House staff who have said that Clinton, while First Lady, was difficult to work with. What it all boiled down to was that Hillary Rodham Clinton, a woman with a laundry list of accomplishments that most of us could never dream of, wasn’t “nice.”
At the same time, Donald Trump’s “niceness” isn’t being called into question, with supporters praising his “says what he means” style despite his uninformed and racist statements, his terrifying views on refugees and immigration, his sexist attacks on Megyn Kelly, his mocking of a disabled journalist, or the fact that he made the size of his genitals a talking point during a debate. Would we give Clinton the same kind of pass? Absolutely not. We probably couldn’t even imagine doing so. And some people, like Guardian writer Hadley Freeman, who wrote the following about Trump’s heated and belligerent attitude during the first presidential debate have certainly encouraged us to at least try to imagine if Clinton acted in the same way:
Picture a woman up there on the podium last night shouting over her rival, jabbing her finger in the air, denying she’d said things there was ample evidence of online that she had said. Imagine a completely inexperienced woman insisting she had better political nous than someone who had been at the forefront of politics for decades. And, of course, you can’t: it is, literally, beyond imagination.
Within the context of gender in America, and the state of gender in America when Trump rose to national prominence, it’s easy to see why Trump seems convinced that embarrassing Clinton over her husband’s indiscretions is a power move. But Bill Clinton’s infidelity (within the context of a consenting sexual encounter) is a moot point. Being cheated on simply isn’t a reflection on the cheatee’s character.
What is a reflection on character is how a person handles attacks. After 20 years, and having to answer on this same charge again and again, it’s safe to say that Clinton has handled the whole issue in a way that’s befitting of a leader. We can never know enough to judge people’s private relationships, but we can judge them on how they respond to criticism. In that particular arena, on this particular subject matter, Hillary Rodham Clinton has excelled. And no amount of manufactured ’embarrassment’ could ever change that.
