You Don’t Need a Daughter to be Sickened by Donald Trump

President Barack Obama and Frank Bruni’s opinion piece in The New York Times remind us that we don’t need to be parents of girls or have a wife to know what’s not acceptable — what pulls all of us down.  Bruni raises the question: Why do our “leaders” need daughters or wives to know what behaviors around and toward them are wrong? What about all those people with sons? Do they care less?

I have two sons and a daughter. But if I didn’t have children, I’d still know that what Donald Trump has said about women is despicable. Yes, I am a woman. But my husband can’t recall “locker room” conversations like the one Trump had with Billy Bush. And neither can male athletes who refuse to be used as an excuse for the inexcusable.

Perhaps I should be saying, “I have two sons and that makes me worry about Donald Trump becoming a role model as a U.S. president.” But it doesn’t take a daughter, mother, sister, son, father, spouse or any other relative for a person with moral fiber to know that Donald Trump’s insults and demeaning behaviors are beneath us. They lower all boats.  As President Obama summed it up, “You just have to be a decent human being to say ‘that’s not right’.”