EXPERT ADVISORY: May 11 2023 – R0038
Nine jurors deliberated for three hours Tuesday before finding former U.S. president and current presidential candidate Donald Trump responsible for sexually abusing and battering E. Jean Carroll in the 1990s and for defaming her when she spoke publicly about her experience in recent years.
Brock University Associate Professor of Political Science Stefan Dolgert says that both the verdict in the civil case and the ensuing reaction from Republican Trump supporters were predictable.
“It is no surprise that the jury found Trump liable of being a sexual predator,” says Dolgert. “Nor will it be surprising when the GOP, with occasional exceptions, rallies around him as its candidate for the presidency.”
Trump continues to maintain his innocence about the assault, which was detailed in Carroll’s testimony and supported by testimony from two journalists she spoke to at the time, as well as two other women who allege that Trump also sexually assaulted them.
Dolgert notes this is likely a legal strategy for Trump, rather than a question of preserving or restoring his reputation.
“To his followers, Trump’s misogyny, as heard in the Access Hollywood tape, is a feature rather than a bug,” says Dolgert. “They want someone who will violently enforce traditional gender roles, so further revelations that confirm his hatred for ‘feminist’ women only serve to strengthen his appeal.”
Harassment by Trump’s supporters also featured in Carroll’s testimony at the trial, which began in late April and concluded yesterday when she was awarded almost $5 million in damages for defamation, sexual abuse and battery. The jury did not find Trump responsible for rape.
Dolgert says there is “almost no chance” the trial’s revelations or its verdict, which Trump’s team say they plan to appeal, will have any effect on Trump’s support in next year’s U.S. presidential election.
“The Republican party is now in the grip of an authoritarian cult of personality, where the leader-figure can do no wrong because his followers live in a fantasy world of his creation,” he says.
