The sickening parallels between producer Harvey Weinstein and President Donald Trump are hard to miss.
Both are powerful sexual predators who seem to think that when you’re a star you can do anything, and both have been proven somewhat right up until lately, having gotten away with their behavior due to their wealth and power for far too long. Both have perverse ways of justifying their revolting conduct, be it “locker room talk” or “being a dinosaur.”
But as Seth Meyers pointed on Thursday, they are far from alone. While the president and the producer may be among the worst examples, they belong to a wider culture of systemic misogyny.
The Weinstein ordeal doesn’t reveal anything new, at least if you’ve been paying attention. But it’s a reminder of the sexism, male entitlement, and abuse that exists at all levels of society, especially at the top of the power structure. “In the last year and a half, the most powerful man in news, the most powerful man in politics, and the most powerful man in Hollywood have been accused of serial sexual predation,” Meyers said, placing Ailes, Trump, and Weinstein in a single window to emphasize this horrifying reality.
It’s everywhere, including on both sides of the political aisle, and Meyers is disgusted by the attempts of right-wing pundits to score political points off Weinstein’s behavior simply because he is a Democrat.
“This should not be a partisan issue,” Meyers stressed. “It requires all of us to speak out and ask ourselves what we can do to address it,” and not just when it implicates to someone on the other side of the political aisle.
If we’re ever going to end this culture, we need to stop looking at it through a partisan lens, and we need men to condemn it in the strongest possible terms, as Meyers does.
“This is a problem with systemic misogynist and male entitlement, and men need to speak up and address their complicity in the system that allows these things to happen,” he said.
And if the concerned men of the Republican Party are so disturbed by Harvey Weinstein—if they really care about women—it’s time they said something about serial sexual predator in the Oval Office.
“You wanna argue that Harvey Weinstein is just as bad as Donald Trump? Fine. Harvey Weinstein was, after far too long, found out and fired. Donald Trump has been found out for a year and we’re still waiting.”
