"Others
have come at Mr. Trump with indignation, righteousness and appeals to
decency. Ms. Clifford swatted Mr. Trump with a rolled-up network
newsmagazine.
Speaking
to Anderson Cooper, Ms. Daniels was direct and conversational. She had
playful one-liners. (“You didn’t even buy me breakfast,” she told Mr.
Cooper.) She told a story. (Describing how she said Mr. Trump awaited
her on the edge of a hotel bed — “perched” — she mimed his sitting
position and bearing.)
But most important — most, dare I say it, Trumpian — she was unapologetic.
There’s
a familiar script for discrediting women who accuse powerful men.
They’re attacked as opportunistic and promiscuous, out to make a buck.
If they deny any of that, it still ends up making the moral conversation
about them.
Ms.
Clifford owned her story and her life. Yes, she’s stripped and had sex
on camera for a living, a “legitimate — and legal, I’d like to point out
— career.” Yes, she’s gotten job offers from her publicity: “Tell me
one person who would turn down a job offer making more than they’ve been
making.”
That
should sound familiar. Running for president, Mr. Trump jiu-jitsued
facts that would have ended other candidacies into selling points. Did
he give money to candidates he later attacked? That meant he knew how to
work the system, and thus could fix it. Did he avoid paying income
taxes? “That makes me smart.”
His
brazenness was the brazenness of reality TV, the argument of a finalist
in a “Survivor” tribal council who tells the jury to hate the game, not
the player.
Just
so, Ms. Clifford has used unshamability and quick-draw ripostes as a
force field. When a critic on Twitter told her that “dumb whores go to
hell,” she shot back, “Glad I’m a smart one.”
read the analysis by JAMES PONIEWOZIC