Rape is not a sexual act. It’s a power play. Almost exclusively male. The rapist thinks he can violate another person’s personal space – their most intimate personal space(s) – at will and with total impunity. That they derive sexual satisfaction from it – that’s icing. Power is always the cake. When rapists finish and go on to the next thing on their agendas, they don’t stop being rapists. They bring that same rapiness to everything they do. Rapists never stop being rapists because they’re rapists at heart!

They’re rapists down to their mitochondria.

Hearing E. Jean Carroll’s heroic testimony – as she took the stand in her civil trial with Donald Trump – drove home how damaging an act of rape can be. Yeah, she may have found ways to “get on with her life”. She found ways to be happy. But, she’s done it aware of a giant hole at her core, aware that Donald Trump’s sexual assault took something vital away from her: trust.

She said she could no longer even look at a man and smile. He might misunderstand her playfulness like Trump did – and use it as an opening to sexually assault her. To impose himself on her because “power”. Wanting and taking because (they think) they can – that’s the rapist’s creed.

For the record, I was sexually assaulted twice when I was 14 – by the religious director at my family’s synagogue. I kept that secret from myself for 45 years. Oh, I knew it had happened. But, I didn’t allow myself to think about it in any way. Confronting it – at last – was damned hard but I am grateful I did. The Truth did set me free! I know what Ms. Carroll meant when she described the isolation that rape imposed on her.

Yeah – it’s an island. You feel emotionally separated from the rest of the world – especially if the assault is a secret. In Ms. Carroll’s case, she told two people contemporaneously what happened, what Trump did to her. Otherwise, it was a secret. A secret that stood between her and having good, successful, satisfying romantic relationships. It kept her from having them, period.

Donald Trump raped E. Jean Carroll and broke an important part of her. That is every rapist’s goal. To break someone – or something.

What will Trump’s supporters do when it becomes a fact that Donald Trump IS a rapist? What will every elected Republican do? Will they stand with Trump despite the fact that he’s officially a rapist? Does that mean they think of themselves as “a rapist’s friend”? That makes them rapists at heart since clearly they don’t object to rapists doing what they do to other people.

But then, being a power play (and only peripherally sexual), rapists (or those who are rapists at heart) regularly approach everything the same way. As hammers perpetually in search of nails.

What was Sam Alito’s Dobbs decision if not an act of rape? It doesn’t matter to him that the majority – women – keep shouting “No – STOP!”. Sam and the conservative majority pushed on (and keep pushing on!) regardless and shoved their will down America’s unwilling throat.

The majority of Americans want gun control! The Republican minority? They’ve put their guns to America’s head and said “Do what we want or else!” How rape-y of them.

What are gerrymandering and voter suppression if not forms of electoral rape? It’s the minority imposing themselves on the unwilling majority. And refusing to take “No, stop!” for an answer.

Hell, what is authoritarianism to begin with? It’s the aggrandizement of power for power’s sake. The end is all that matters. Cheating to win becomes just another way to win (if not THE way to win). Rape is just another way to get what you want. It really is a “whole way of thinking”.

Our news media still insists Democrats have to be bi-partisan. Occasionally – even now – a bit of bi-partisanship pops up. Yesterday Senate Democrats and Republicans put forward a bill to mitigate social media’s grip on kids. But, otherwise? Demanding bi-partisanship from the Democrats is no different from demanding the victim of sexual assault break bread with their attacker. It’s wrong-headed and just plain wrong.

The Republican Party has incorporated rapiness into their brand. It was easy for them because theirs is a rape culture. And it’s a rape culture because they’re rapists at heart.