# GropeGate is the worst thing that could have happened to this election. **URL:** \ **Category:** Politics & Elections\ **Created:** [October 15, 2016, 12:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gropegate-is-the-worst-thing-that-could-have-happened-to-this-election/768568 "2016-10-15T00:18:08Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2016, 2:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gropegate-is-the-worst-thing-that-could-have-happened-to-this-election/768568/21 "2016-10-15T02:14:52Z")
I agree with the sentiment. I’m sorry that this is the way we win the election. It would have been better and healthier if we’d rejected Trump on the merits of his platform. But we’ve been shown the nasty underside of his character, and that’s something valid to judge him by. If he actually had presented a platform of ideas, rich with reforms, promising in their innovation, celebrated by experts in various fields, then this collapse over his character defects would be a tragedy. But since his platform was nothing but “I’ll listen to myself, I have the best ideas” – not only no cattle, but not hat either! – this is only low comedy. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2016, 2:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gropegate-is-the-worst-thing-that-could-have-happened-to-this-election/768568/22 "2016-10-15T02:50:18Z")
> [@Dr.Strangelove](#): > > Gropghazi. Gropaquiddick. Gropot Dome. Gropenator 2: Electric Boogaloo ---
**Author:** ![Peanut\_Gallery](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/838e76/32.png) [@Peanut\_Gallery](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peanut_Gallery)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2016, 3:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gropegate-is-the-worst-thing-that-could-have-happened-to-this-election/768568/23 "2016-10-15T03:23:51Z")
Grab-'em-by-the-Gate ---
**Author:** ![Tangent](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tangent/32/3098_2.png) [@Tangent](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tangent)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2016, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gropegate-is-the-worst-thing-that-could-have-happened-to-this-election/768568/24 "2016-10-15T03:26:06Z")
Donald is the Obergropenführer. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2016, 3:26am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gropegate-is-the-worst-thing-that-could-have-happened-to-this-election/768568/25 "2016-10-15T03:26:07Z")
> [@CairoCarol](#): > > There is certainly something to be said for wishing that there was more of a focus on how abysmal Trump’s policies are, not just how abysmal his character is. Trump has policies? 😕 I thought he was just saying what he thought people wanted to hear (more so than most politicians, that is). ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2016, 3:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gropegate-is-the-worst-thing-that-could-have-happened-to-this-election/768568/26 "2016-10-15T03:27:42Z")
> [@suranyi](#): > > I don’t care why he loses, as long as he loses. The worse he loses, the better. Amen. ---
**Author:** ![nearwildheaven](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/90db22/32.png) [@nearwildheaven](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nearwildheaven)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2016, 3:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gropegate-is-the-worst-thing-that-could-have-happened-to-this-election/768568/27 "2016-10-15T03:29:14Z")
> [@romansperson](#): > > Why anyone sticks with him is a mystery for the ages. He’s running as a Republican. For a sizable percentage of the population, that is the sole qualifier. ---
**Author:** ![romansperson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/romansperson/32/17100_2.png) [@romansperson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/romansperson)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2016, 3:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gropegate-is-the-worst-thing-that-could-have-happened-to-this-election/768568/28 "2016-10-15T03:33:59Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > He’s running as a Republican. For a sizable percentage of the population, that is the sole qualifier. I was actually referring to the people who actually know him personally and work directly with him. He’s humiliated quite a few of them (see Christie reference above for just one example), and yet … I just don’t get it. I don’t see how it could possibly be worth it. ---
**Author:** ![arseNal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecae2f/32.png) [@arseNal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/arseNal)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2016, 3:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gropegate-is-the-worst-thing-that-could-have-happened-to-this-election/768568/29 "2016-10-15T03:54:26Z")
> [@Derleth](#): > > They wouldn’t have faced that regardless. They’re locked into the White America trip, and nothing is going to wake them up to the fact changing demographics aren’t a Commie Plot meant to sap and impurify our precious bodily fluids. They can’t see an America beyond the end of the Passing Race; they might as well be _Tyrannosaurus_ species trying to imagine a world after the Great Comet. > > In short, they’ll keep on keeping on until their safe districts have taco trucks on every corner and they’re voted into oblivion. That may be. But the way I see it, WE are facing our own uncomfortable truth that some 40 to 48% of the country can still support this guy. Well, for fucks’ sake, on Nov 9., THEY should have to wake up to the fact that some 52 to 60% of the country think they’re wrong. Granted, it’s not much, but it’s a far sight better than what ShortFingeredPussy has wrought – they’re going to say if it weren’t for one unfortunate locker room tape from over a decade ago, their version of the truth would have been reality. And the media, between its overzealous efforts to appear balanced and simply being unable to resist the sensationalist plotlines that sell, will be complicit. ---
**Author:** ![drad\_dog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/aeb1de/32.png) [@drad\_dog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drad_dog)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2016, 4:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gropegate-is-the-worst-thing-that-could-have-happened-to-this-election/768568/30 "2016-10-15T04:44:58Z")
Nothing to complain about. He will lose, and bigger because of the scandal. His followers will have a lot of tough decisions, and cognitive dissonance in the future, figuring out why it happened like it did. And why they were part of it, I would guess. The scandals are not bad. They affect his popular vote and we need him to lose big. His claims of rigging have to be made completely ridiculous by the numbers. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2016, 4:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gropegate-is-the-worst-thing-that-could-have-happened-to-this-election/768568/31 "2016-10-15T04:53:52Z")
Does everybody already know about the bombshell evidence that Pence and Andrew Douche Clay were touting, gonna prove him innocent? Big, big stuff, gonna release it at the appropriate time, and its hugelike. Our friends over at _ThinkProgress_ are on the case:[https://thinkprogress.org/trump-promised-proof-he-s-innocent-of-sexual-assault-ca9c96d0afef#.3789qa40t](https://thinkprogress.org/trump-promised-proof-he-s-innocent-of-sexual-assault-ca9c96d0afef#.3789qa40t) **Trump promised ‘proof’ he’s innocent of sexual assault. He delivered an insult to our intelligence.** Its testimony from a fabulist, guy who keeps trying to make himself famous by making shit up. > [@](#): > > …Gilberthorpe is, by all accounts, a serial fableist. > > In 1987, for example, he told newspapers in England that he was engaged to fashion designer in California named Miss Leah Bergdorf-Hunt. “Both our families are delighted,” he told The Gloucester Express. It was later revealed that he was not engaged. Also there was no Miss Bergdorf-Hunt. He invented the whole thing… and so forth. ---
**Author:** ![TreacherousCretin](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/treacherouscretin/32/476_2.png) [@TreacherousCretin](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TreacherousCretin)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2016, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gropegate-is-the-worst-thing-that-could-have-happened-to-this-election/768568/32 "2016-10-15T04:59:32Z")
> [@dtilque](#): > > Gropenator 2: Electric Boogaloo **Scumdog Billionaire** ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2016, 5:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gropegate-is-the-worst-thing-that-could-have-happened-to-this-election/768568/33 "2016-10-15T05:34:56Z")
meh well it couldn’t have happened to a scummier guy. He could have got past it if he’d made a real apology, some thing along the lines of “It’s true that I was a bad boy in the past but I’ve made the decision to devote myself to serving the country now… yada yada yada”. What the actually did was the worst possible response. Karma may take many years but it usually catches up with you. ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2016, 5:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gropegate-is-the-worst-thing-that-could-have-happened-to-this-election/768568/34 "2016-10-15T05:35:12Z")
> [@elucidator](#): > > Does everybody already know about the bombshell evidence that Pence and Andrew Douche Clay were touting, gonna prove him innocent? Big, big stuff, gonna release it at the appropriate time, and its hugelike. > > Our friends over at _ThinkProgress_ are on the case:[https://thinkprogress.org/trump-promised-proof-he-s-innocent-of-sexual-assault-ca9c96d0afef#.3789qa40t](https://thinkprogress.org/trump-promised-proof-he-s-innocent-of-sexual-assault-ca9c96d0afef#.3789qa40t) > > **Trump promised ‘proof’ he’s innocent of sexual assault. He delivered an insult to our intelligence.** > > Its testimony from a fabulist, guy who keeps trying to make himself famous by making shit up. **THAT** is the best they came come up with? That’s just sad. I mean completely pitiful. The dude would have been 18 years old. Has no evidence whatsoever other than his “great memory”. And he is a well known liar and BS artist from way back. At long last, has this campaign no sense of shame whatsoever? None? Do they really think this is going to cover the fact that FIVE women have now reported that Trump [wandered into the Miss Teen dressing room to leer at girls bodies?](https://www.buzzfeed.com/kendalltaggart/teen-beauty-queens-say-trump-walked-in-on-them-changing?utm_term=.kjvNDG77g#.aav28J99g) Girls from 15 - 19 years old. Trump is a fucking sick, sick pervert. … Do they have no sense of embarrassment at all? ---
**Author:** ![Euphonious\_Polemic](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/euphonious_polemic/32/3002_2.png) [@Euphonious\_Polemic](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Euphonious_Polemic)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2016, 5:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gropegate-is-the-worst-thing-that-could-have-happened-to-this-election/768568/35 "2016-10-15T05:37:23Z")
> [@coremelt](#): > > meh well it couldn’t have happened to a scummier guy. He could have got past it if he’d made a real apology, some thing along the lines of “It’s true that I was a bad boy in the past but I’ve made the decision to devote myself to serving the country now… yada yada yada”. What the actually did was the worst possible response. > > Karma may take many years but it usually catches up with you. He did not apologize because he’s a fundamentally damaged individual, who does not even know right from wrong. He truly, actually thinks there is nothing whatsoever wrong with him sticking his hands up strangers skirts to grab at them. Because why? Because he’s Trump, that’s why. He is mentally deranged. ---
**Author:** ![coremelt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/4491bb/32.png) [@coremelt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/coremelt)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2016, 5:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gropegate-is-the-worst-thing-that-could-have-happened-to-this-election/768568/36 "2016-10-15T05:48:37Z")
> [@Euphonious\_Polemic](#): > > Because why? Because he’s Trump, that’s why. He is mentally deranged. I agree, I’m just trying to point out that the reason he is being taken down by this is not solely because it’s what the media and Clinton campaign chose to take him down. He’s being taken down by it because if his own ego and narcissism. ---
**Author:** ![Junior\_Spaceman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/eb8c5e/32.png) [@Junior\_Spaceman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Junior_Spaceman)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2016, 6:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gropegate-is-the-worst-thing-that-could-have-happened-to-this-election/768568/37 "2016-10-15T06:10:31Z")
This is a guy who, numerous times in the past, has lied before, during and after the publication of video/audio/written proof of his lie. His first instinct is that of a gaslighter - to deny vigorously any accusation until he badgers his accuser into giving up - and that’s the only way he knows how to deal with this. In this case, his accusers aren’t stepping down, and his history of lies is adding to the feeling among media, public and politicians that even the worst accusations have to be true. Add to that, there is a belief among certain people (mostly men, but also some women) that women who make accusations of sexual assault are doing it for kicks, or for publicity or for money. Now this belief is enshrined into the Republican Party’s unofficial charter, and that’s a stain that’s not going to wash away in a hurry. ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2016, 9:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gropegate-is-the-worst-thing-that-could-have-happened-to-this-election/768568/38 "2016-10-15T09:03:08Z")
> [@nearwildheaven](#): > > Trump has policies? 😕 > > I thought he was just saying what he thought people wanted to hear (more so than most politicians, that is). You’re right, I left out the words “the lack of” in my post. Shame on me! ---
**Author:** ![Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/try2b_comprehensive/32/65_2.png) [@Try2B\_Comprehensive](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Try2B_Comprehensive)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2016, 9:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gropegate-is-the-worst-thing-that-could-have-happened-to-this-election/768568/39 "2016-10-15T09:54:32Z")
> [@arseNal](#): > > If/when Trump loses (god help us if he doesn’t), he and his supporters will point to this scandal as the one and only reason he lost the election. And the media will basically play along and focus on it as well for years It is more than that. If history were somehow reversed and the Romans were studying us, when they get to this chapter they are usually all like, “Egad! I would never perform nonesuch actions.” This is going to be gross for decades, probably centuries. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2016, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gropegate-is-the-worst-thing-that-could-have-happened-to-this-election/768568/40 "2016-10-15T10:40:06Z")
My brother is just back from a training course he ran. On the course were two Americans. Both were Republican. Both said that Trump would win. But then Gropegate broke and they then both said that this could sink him. Many Americans don’t know a Mexican or Canadian or whoever, so he can insult those with impunity, but every American knows a woman, and here he’s stepped through the ice. However, they also said that the reason why Trump was winning in the first place is the media. They say that the media is nothing but Trump, Trump, and more Trump and they - the media - are not addressing the issues of why people are voting for him. Trump is the protest vote, and the media are basically circling the wagons and denying that anything is wrong and eventually the mob will storm the gates. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gropegate-is-the-worst-thing-that-could-have-happened-to-this-election/768568.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/gropegate-is-the-worst-thing-that-could-have-happened-to-this-election/768568.md?page=3)