On Tuesday, a New York jury did the improbable: it sided with a woman over the much more powerful man she’d accused of sexual assault.
Writer E. Jean Carroll was awarded $5 million by the jury—$2 million for sexual abuse and $3 million for defamation at the hands of former president Donald Trump.
Upon defeat, Trump lashed out like a dirty professional wrestler who lost a championship bout at Wrestlemania—monologuing at the camera, making vague threats, issuing all-caps missives.
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“I HAVE ABSOLUTELY NO IDEA WHO THIS WOMAN IS,” Trump wrote on the website that was supposed to be right-wing Twitter before actual Twitter became right-wing Twitter. “THIS VERDICT IS A DISGRACE - A CONTINUATION OF THE GREATEST WITCH HUNT OF ALL TIME!”
The “greatest witch hunt of all time”? He must mean besides the actual witch hunts of European and American history, the ones that resulted in the deaths of around 50,000 people, none of whom were actual witches. But I digress.
Trump can post as hard as his buttery-soft, stubby little fingers allow. This isn’t Wrestlemania; it’s not even Reddit—points are not awarded for dunking or meme-ing after the fact. The above the fold headline here is that once again Trump is a loser, publicly, and bigly. And we have E. Jean Carroll to thank.
During the trial, Carroll was everything Trump lies about being, and then some. She was bold, ballsy, brave, tough, and—most important to the jury—told the truth. Like so many other women, Carroll was on the receiving end of sexual misconduct followed by defamatory statements from the former president. But unlike the others, Carroll had the time and resources to see her case through to its end. She didn’t back down when Trump, as president, attempted to enlist the U.S. Justice Department in his defense. She didn’t back down when his toadies attacked her from every grimy pulpit they had.
Reports from the trial recounted Carroll’s composure on the stand, the consistency of her story, and the pugnacious bullying of Trump’s attorney—how is anybody called to the stand supposed to answer a question like “Why didn’t you scream?” (Carroll’s mic drop answer: “You can’t beat me up for not screaming.”)
But Carroll remained steadfast and undaunted. I felt like I was finally witnessing a true #MeToo victory, after years of slaps on the wrist and generous second acts for male perpetrators.
The names change but the song almost always remains the same. A woman accuses a powerful man of abuse. His supporters claim that she’s making it up for the money and fame, as though false rape accusations were to the A-list what American Idol is to grocery store intercom-friendly pop hits. Or they claim that she’s insane. Sometimes they claim both mutually exclusive things at the same time—she’s a mastermind, she’s unhinged. When the dust settles, his supporters claim his life has been “ruined;” he returns to the very same trajectory that was temporarily interrupted; her legacy is two lines in his Wikipedia entry under the heading “Misconduct allegations.”
It happened to Anita Hill, to Christine Blasey Ford, to Amber Heard, to the women who went on the record about Louis CK (whose names I had to look up). None of them, as far as I could tell, performed to a sold out Madison Square Garden in the months after their “fame-seeking” accusations “ruined a man’s life.” Bill Cosby’s legacy may be forever tarnished, but thanks to sloppy prosecutorial conduct, he’s not in jail, and none of his accusers have springboarded from the New York magazine cover story onto the Hollywood Walk of Fame.
Of course, Trump may still return to the old sex pest trajectory. His supporters actually seem invigorated by the idea that their guy is a bad person. He’s already raising money off the verdict. He’s still considered the leading contender for the Republican presidential nomination in 2024.
But for now (at least until Trump is given 90 minutes of CNN prime time to answer questions before a staged “town hall”) let’s focus on what’s exceptional about this moment and about Carroll herself. Not only has she left an indelible mark on New York media, the sharpness of her advice and the wisdom she so willingly and generously shares with her readers still resonates. She’s never going to be “just” the woman who sued the former president for sexual misconduct and won.
But in addition to all that, this trial showed that, no matter what happens to Trump in the next months and years, she’s left an indelible mark on his legacy too. He will forever be a president who a jury concluded was sexually abusive in court.
