one night, after the democratic convention, i caught a train back to downtown philadelphia. some men boarded the train a few stops after me, shouting about hillary clinton. i took out my earphones to listen. <u+201c>she<u+2019>s a slut who belongs in jail,<u+201d> one of them said. at the time, i took that remark as a reminder of the sexism driving the antipathy for mrs. clinton among some voters. now i see it as a harbinger of things to come. in a tweet on tuesday, sid miller, an adviser to donald trump, called hillary clinton a sexist slur: facing criticism, mr. miller<u+2019>s team claimed his account was hacked and then that the comment was a mistaken retweet. the comment appears to have been copied, but not retweeted, from a white supremacist account. this is only the latest time the slur has been lobbed at mrs. clinton by the trump camp. back in july, scott baio, who spoke at the republican national convention, tweeted a meme using the slur. the alt-right radio host alex jones has called her a <u+201c>bitch<u+201d> and a <u+201c>witch.<u+201d> rush limbaugh called her <u+201c>a witch with a capital b.<u+201d> merchandise reading <u+201c>trump that bitch<u+201d> and <u+201c>life<u+2019>s a bitch; don<u+2019>t vote for one<u+201d> has shown up at trump rallies. mr. trump himself, of course, called his opponent <u+201c>such a nasty woman<u+201d> during the third presidential debate. and while his boasts about grabbing women <u+201c>by the pussy<u+201d> took place before this campaign season, they<u+2019>ve added to a political environment in which grotesquely sexist language has become commonplace. this language is not shocking. probably every woman in america has been called a slut, a bitch or worse. we have stood up for ourselves, we have talked back, we have moved on. in some cases, we have reclaimed these words as our own. but we have not forgotten. every time one of hillary clinton<u+2019>s opponents speaks words like this, we remember the men who sought to humiliate us and to keep us silent. we remember the first time, when we learned the words that men would use to hurt us. we remember the last time, when we were surprised to find those words still hurt. words can<u+2019>t stop us, but they matter and they do harm. i wasn<u+2019>t surprised to hear hillary clinton called a slut that night in july. i know i<u+2019>ll hear worse if she becomes president. i<u+2019>m prepared, but i wish i didn<u+2019>t have to be. editors<u+2019> note: november 2, 2016 this article has been revised to remove the offensive term used by mr. miller. anna north is a member of the editorial board.
trump adviser<u+2019>s slur is a sign of things to come
anna north