{"id":3938,"date":"2018-10-18T18:40:55","date_gmt":"2018-10-18T18:40:55","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/sites.centre.edu\/cento\/?p=3938"},"modified":"2018-10-18T18:40:55","modified_gmt":"2018-10-18T18:40:55","slug":"when-winning-loses","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/2018\/10\/18\/when-winning-loses\/","title":{"rendered":"When Winning Loses"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

BY HANNAH HOOPER – STAFF WRITER<\/strong><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter. We won.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

This is what our president had to say when CBS correspondent Lesley Stahl recently prompted him to comment on the veracity of Dr. Ford\u2019s statement.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

These words tell us that to our president, partisan politics matters more than human dignity. These words turn what should be an uncomplicated conversation of basic ethics into a politicized battleground. These words turn Republican subtext into text, telling us outright, regardless of the truth, Dr. Ford\u2019s story doesn\u2019t matter to our president. Her experience, her courage, her pain\u2014none of it matters.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

These words tell us what we have known all along\u2014to Trump, the truth doesn\u2019t matter. Just \u201cwinning.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Okay, let\u2019s indulge Trump for a moment and use language he\u2019ll understand. If this is indeed a \u201cbattleground,\u201d then it\u2019s the creeps and the rapists versus the rest of us\u2014the victims, the believers, the supporters, the families and friends. Is that a \u201cwin\u201d you really want to tout, Mr. President?<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I\u2019m almost tempted to say that Trump\u2019s flippancy isn\u2019t worth our chagrin. I\u2019m almost tempted to say \u201cAh, but we already knew he has the mindset and composure of a bratty five-year-old. This isn\u2019t new.\u201d But then I think of Dr. Ford.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

I think of her bravery\u2014coming forward despite the peril she knew it placed her in, despite the legacy of doubt and contempt towards survivors she knew she was up against. I think of her selflessness\u2014willingly parsing through every last detail of her deepest personal trauma with a panel of powerful people, most of whom were men, many of whom were skeptical, and then having that broadcast to the world\u2014certainly not because she wanted to, but because she felt it was the right thing to do. Dr. Ford had nothing to gain and everything to lose, and yet she chose to stare her trauma in the face and (rather than lashing out like her attacker) to tell her story with candor and poise.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

When I think of all of this, I\u2019m filled with gratitude for Dr. Ford, and I\u2019m compelled to stay angry and stay active for her. It is precisely because our commander in chief and his henchmen were so characteristically dismissive of a woman\u2019s trauma that we have to double down. We have to listen to survivors and elevate their voices. We have to keep calling our senators and letting them know what we want. We have to vote. And we have to not let the dismissiveness and amorality of our leaders dishearten us, but to instead let Dr. Ford\u2019s bravery and selflessness empower us.<\/span><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Because when we let power and party politics supersede truth and fairness, nobody wins.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

BY HANNAH HOOPER – STAFF WRITER \u201cIt doesn\u2019t matter. We won.\u201d This is what our president had to say when CBS correspondent Lesley Stahl recently prompted him to comment on the veracity of Dr. Ford\u2019s statement. These words tell us that to our president, partisan politics matters more than human dignity. These words turn what […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":3948,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3938","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinions"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3948"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cento.centre.edu\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}