Today History is Made as Stormy Daniels Testifies About Her Sexual Encounter with Trump
Even as I use the root form of the word in my own headline, I have to acknowledge that "historic" is one of the most overused words in the English language. Every current event, every sporting event, every awards show you watch, is covered by someone trying to figure out some angle by which they can shoehorn in the history being made to give it a sense of weighty momentousness.
But today, for this blog, no other word will do. For this day, May 7th, in the Year of Our Lord 2024, is a date which, depending on your perspective, will live in fame or infamy. This is a day we will be telling our grandchildren about. We'll be able to regale future generations about how we were there to witness, for the first time in the nearly 250 years of this Great American Experiment, a former porn actress testifying in court about having uninspiring sex with a future President of the United States.
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There's a moment in Apollo 13 where Tom Hanks' Jim Lovell looks up at the moon with his wife after Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldren landed on it and says to her, "From now on, we live in a world where man has walked on the moon." And from now on we live in a world where the star of Deep in Double Ds and Sexbots: Programmed for Pleasure testified under oath about boning the America's Commander in Chief.
What is that if not historic?
I suppose by now I should've issued the usual disclaimer about how this isn't going to be political. This is not taking sides. This moment transcends petty politics. This isn't about where you stand on Capital Gains tax rates, entitlement spending, infrastructure or foreign aid packages. This matter at hand today transcends all that. Whether you want to see Donald J. Trump led away in handcuffs for paying Stormy Daniels to keep quiet about their (alleged) trip to Pound Town, or think this is nothing but a show trial with no legal basis for charges to ever be brought, or if you're somewhere in between, it's still important that we all pull back and look at this is the broad, historic context.
I think if the Founders of this republic who risked their lives of wealth and privilege to revolt against the Crown could've known that two and a half centuries later, news anchors would be struggling to describe how a courtroom packed with citizens waited breathlessly for the star of The Witches of Breastwick to arrive to testify against a former President:
... or how the witness kept trying to crack some pre-rehearsed jokes but the jury apparently wasn't having it:
they'd be proud. One, because everyone of those guys would've gladly hung their powered wigs on the bedpost of a buxom wench like Stormy Daniels. But also because they expected all along that democracy would be a chaotic mess. Hell, it's how they drew it up. This insane nonsense is a feature, not a bug. Somewhere right now Jefferson and Franklin are exchanging stories about their body counts and giving each other the 18th century version of a high-five.
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Where it gets hard today is finding news coverage that isn't slanted one way or the other, and merely dives into the salacious details the judge in the trial reportedly tried to limit. Here's the best I could come up with:
The Hill - Daniels began describing how the alleged sexual encounter with Trump began after she exited the bathroom, where she said she found Trump on the bed wearing boxer shorts and a T-shirt.
She said she thought at one point, “Oh my God. What did I misread to get here?” She said the “intention was pretty clear” when someone is “stripped down to underwear, posing on the bed and waiting for you.”
She said Trump did not approach her in a “threatening manner” and that she did not have any alcohol or drugs that night. …
Daniels is recalling when she spanked Trump with a rolled up magazine before they allegedly had sex at their hotel encounter in 2006.
She testified that Trump would ask her questions only to cut her off and talk more about himself.
“I had had enough of his arrogance and cutting me off and him not giving me dinner,” Daniels said.
Prosecutor Susan Hoffinger later asked, “Where did you swat him?”
“Right on the butt,” Daniels responded.
And there you have it. Presented without editorial, bias, or spin. A former POTUS is in court listening to a porn actress under oath describe to the good people of New York their elaborate mating dance. Filled with polite conversation. Bedroom poses. Come-hither looks. And light spanking with rolled up periodicals. Allegedly.
Life will never be the same. American democracy has finally crossed the "I spanked the guy who later had his finger on the nuclear button" Rubicon. Just 30 some odd years after another President's Resolute Desk blowjibbers were the No. 1 topic of discussion around the globe. So we're making progress.
Let's just hope the country sticks around long enough for us to see this particular history repeat itself.