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Creepy Men Have Been A Constant In 2016

by Seth Millstein

America is likely on the cusp of electing its first female president. That’s a good thing. What’s not quite as good is the road that the country is taking to get there. With the FBI’s announcement that new emails from Hillary Clinton’s server were discovered during an investigation into Anthony Weiner’s sexting, it became clear that creepy men have decidedly taken over the 2016 election.

To start with the obvious, there’s Donald Trump, clearly the most notorious creeper in this election. This is a man who has boasted that he can kiss women and “grab 'em by the p---y” without their permission, because he’s famous. A man who has joked about dating his own daughter and who, by his own admission, used his position as the owner of Miss Universe to leer at beauty contestants while they were changing. Oh, and let’s not forget the 12 (and counting) women who’ve accused Trump of sexually assaulting them, allegations he has denied. The Republican Party’s presidential nominee is the preeminent creepy guy in this election.

But he’s far from the only one. We also have the "Tweedledee" and "Tweedledum" of this election, Newt Gingrich and Rudy Giuliani. Both are 1990s throwback politicians who’ve emerged as top Trump surrogates, and both are creepy dudes.

Gingrich, who divorced his first wife to marry a younger woman, only to then divorce her to marry another younger woman, recently made headlines for wagging his finger at Fox News anchor Megyn Kelly. As she attempted to do her job, he accused her of being “fascinated with sex” because she reported on the assault allegations against Trump. Any man who labels a woman as "fascinated with sex" because she's covering sexual assault allegations is, well, creepy.

Giuliani, meanwhile, found himself shouting, “there was semen on her dress!” with a crazed look on his face during an interview with Chris Matthews about the Monica Lewinsky scandal. It looks bad in print and sounds about a thousand times worse on video.

Speaking of Lewinsky, there’s always Bill Clinton, who may well be living in the White House again as a result of this election. Bill’s sexual indiscretions, both alleged and confirmed, are well-documented, and while they’re all decades-old, they've gained some new attention after Trump held a press conference with Bill’s accusers. He then invited them to the second presidential debate.

Oh, and let’s not forget the Republican primary, which featured an ill-advised run by former Arkansas Governor and certified creeper Mike Huckabee. During his campaign, Huckabee went out of his way multiple times to defend reality TV star Josh Duggar after Duggar admitted that he molested several of his younger sisters.

"No purpose whatsoever is served by those who are now trying to discredit Josh or his family by sensationalizing the story,” Huckabee wrote at the time. “Good people make mistakes and do regrettable and even disgusting things."

This election also saw the downfall of former Fox News chief Roger Ailes, who resigned after no less than 20 women accused him of sexual harassment. Former anchor Gretchen Carlson alleged in a lawsuit that Ailes told her, “You and I should have had a sexual relationship a long time ago, and then you’d be good and better and I’d be good and better.” Ugh. Ailes has denied these allegations.

And now, we’ve got Weiner rounding out the gang. The disgraced former lawmaker resigned from Congress in 2011 after his first of many sexting scandals, and in September, the FBI opened an investigation into reports that Weiner had sent sexually explicit text messages to a 15-year-old girl. Weiner neither confirmed nor denied the allegations. And this brings us full circle: It was this FBI investigation that led to the bureau to discover new emails related to the Clinton investigation.

Clinton is poised to become America's first female president, and that's nothing short of historic. And yet from beginning to end, this election has been dominated by creepy men.