I can understand why Conservative men support a serial predator like Donald Trump.

He embodies the fragile masculinity that so many are afflicted with. He validates their misogyny, giving voice to the antiquated, knuckle-dragging sexist garbage they save for mindless locker room monologues and man-cave hangs with other neighborhood Neanderthals.

Trump is the unsurprising idol of teen and college-aged young men whose distorted view of manhood has been shaped in Conservative churches, incel message boards, and dudebro podcast episodes.

They are predatory birds of a feather, and their advocacy, though sickening, almost makes sense. It is an act of self-preservation, a propping up of one of their own. He is a monstrous avatar who can represent them in the places of power they can never hope to enter.

And it’s completely expected that Republican men in Congress would fiercely obstruct the release of the Epstein files, as many of them risk exposure themselves, as well as the crumbling of the brutal empire they sit atop and benefit from.

All in all, knowing that over eighty percent of women have experienced sexual assault or harassment in their lifetimes, it’s understandable that tens of millions of men in this country would be among the rabid, cultic base of a serial scumbag like the sitting President.

As pathetic and sad as that is, there is still a perverse logic to it.

What I can’t fathom are women who have seen all they have seen over the last decade: the “genitalia-grabbing” bravado, the incestuous remarks about his daughter, his extensive adultery, his porn star affairs, and his ubiquitous presence in the Jeffrey Epstein files, and who remain unwavering.

It’s impossible to make sense of mothers with daughters who’ve witnessed him being found liable in court for sexual assault, watched him gleefully take away women’s body autonomy under the law, and work tirelessly to prevent the release of evidence that would expose decades of his pedophilia, rape, and child trafficking—and who’ve chosen to double down.

But perhaps most stomach-turning of all are women like Karoline Leavitt, Pam Bondi, Kristi Noem, Megyn Kelly, Tulsi Gabbard, Maria Bartiromo, and Laura Ingraham; women with the power and platform that few are given, and are using them to perpetuate the pain of other women.

Their willingness to serve as a mouthpiece, a cheerleader, a proxy, and an instrument of injury for him boggles the mind of anyone still capable of compassion and critical thinking.

These women surely know damn well that Donald Trump is a rapist and a pedophile. They’re fully aware of the absolute horrors he and his Epstein collaborators have put hundreds, perhaps thousands of girls and young women through.They have both the knowledge of the prolific evil this man is responsible for and the ability to make him accountable.Yet, they are willing to deny those survivors justice, to exacerbate their trauma, and stand in the way of justice, all to line their own pockets, and build their brands, and keep their party in power.

When the full, unredacted truth of the Epstein files and Trump’s complete resume of abuse is finally dragged into the raking light of public access, so will the degree of their obstruction and the gravity of their gaslighting of the American people.

History will declare them shameful mothers, betrayers of victims of violence, and disgraces to our nation. They broke through the glass ceiling and are wounding other women with the jagged shards.

The Jesus of the scriptures that nearly all Conservatives loudly claim to treasure asks the question, “What can it profit a man if he gains the world but loses his soul?”

Rest assured, that he is asking that of these women, too.

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