Trump Is Now Slut-Shaming Alicia Machado on Twitter

In the early hours of morning, Donald Trump fired off a series of three tweets.

Tweet 1: Wow, Crooked Hillary was duped and used by my worst Miss U. Hillary floated her as an “angel” without checking her past, which is terrible!

Tweet 2: Using Alicia M in the debate as a paragon of virtue just shows that Crooked Hillary suffers from BAD JUDGEMENT! Hillary was set up by a con. 

Tweet 3: Did Crooked Hillary help disgusting (check out sex tape and past) Alicia M become a U.S. citizen so she could use her in the debate? 

Trump is, of course, referencing Alicia Machado, who was crowned Miss Universe in 1996 when she was 19. At the time, Trump owned the pageant, and when Machado gained a few pounds he hounded her about it mercilessly. As Clinton noted, Trump called her “Miss Piggy” for her weight gain and “Miss Housekeeping” because she was Latina. He told the press that this was a girl who liked to eat, and invited the press in to watch her working out while he looked on. Clinton brought her up in the debate as an example of Trump’s mistreatment of women, and noted that Machado has become a U.S. citizen and will be voting for her in the fall.

I want to hone in on something very specific. Trump asks whether Hillary helped “disgusting (check out sex tape and past) Alicia M” become a citizen. What past is Trump talking about? A few years after Machado was crowned Miss Universe she was accused of driving the car when her boyfriend attempted to murder the man he believed was responsible for his sister’s death, and then of threatening the judge assigned to the case. These are bad things, and while she was never convicted, Machado herself admits that she has not always been perfect. None of these things, of course, exonerate Trump for his treatment of her as Miss Universe.

Note, though, that in his tweet calling Machado “disgusting,” Trump put “sex tape” in front of “past.” If Trump were simply interested in going after Machado’s past—in arguing that he should be off the hook for his treatment of her because she was implicated in a attempted murder several years later—why does he mention a sex tape at all, much less list it first? How is whether or not Machado made a sex tame relevant to whether she’s “disgusting” or “a con”? What’s that about?

I’ll tell you what it’s about. It’s about a man who has been married three times and has had sex with countless other women, a man who has appeared on the cover of Playboy and is accused of ordering waitresses fired for not being pretty enough, slut-shaming a woman and calling her “disgusting” for having a sex tape. On some level, it doesn’t even matter that Snopes has found this claim “mostly false” and that Machado in fact did not make a sex tape (while participating in a reality TV show, she was caught on film having sex with another actor; both were in bed, wearing shirts, under the covers the entire time). It doesn’t matter because no women should be called “disgusting” for having an active sex life, sex tape or no sex tape.

I have a young daughter. She is currently in elementary school. I am horrified at the thought of her going through puberty under a Trump presidency. I am beyond horrified. If Trump is elected, my daughter will start middle school under a Trump presidency. And if Trump, a month before the election, is still taking to twitter to slut-shame women he wants to discredit, there’s not a chance he’ll stop after the election.