Each week the editorial board reflects on a current issue in Our View. The position taken does not reflect the opinions of everyone on the Hilltop Views staff. This week’s editorial board is composed of Viewpoints Editor Lauren Sanchez and writer Collin Mims.

While commenting on the abuse allegations against Rob Porter, the White House press secretary Sarah Sanders said that President Donald Trump, and I quote, “supports victims of domestic violence.” We are talking about the same person, right? President “grab them by the pussy” Trump? President “nasty woman” Trump? President *in Tommy Wiseau voice* “I did naht hit her” Trump?

Ultimately this whopping alternative fact is about as fake as his Party City quality comb over, especially given the behavior he has exhibited in the past when it comes to survivors of abuse or assault.

Take his tweet concerning Porter for example:

Peoples lives are being shattered and destroyed by a mere allegation. Some are true and some are false. Some are old and some are new. There is no recovery for someone falsely accused – life and career are gone. Is there no such thing any longer as Due Process?

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 10, 2018

While yes, due process is important, it is also important to acknowledge the type of danger survivors of abuse are put in when their abuser is allowed to roam free without consequence.

Trump also commented on Friday that Porter did a “very good job” while working in the White House and that he hopes Porter has a “wonderful career.” 

Trump also commented “He also, as you probably know, says he’s innocent and I think you have to remember that.”

So suddenly because the alleged abuser in this case says he’s innocent that automatically means he’s innocent? Someone saying they’re innocent is the weakest of legal defenses. “I didn’t do it” is literally what five-year-olds say when they get caught stealing from the cookie jar.

Trump’s support of an abuser should hardly come as a surprise, however, as Trump’s whole campaign slogan focused around the concept of “making America great again.” This plays into a lot of modern American myths, particularly the Camelot of 1950s America with its economic prosperity, segregation and open and proud subjugation of marginalized peoples.

This extended, naturally, to the role of women, who remain the primary victims of abuse. The role of women, even in this mythical fairy-tale period, was one in which she could not fairly stand on her own. Could a woman manage by herself during this period? Certainly. But the systematic inequality of the period would ultimately undercut her tremendously, emphasizing a reliance on men both socially and economically.

These “traditional values” of Trump’s cabinet are ones in which a woman belong in the home because they would be “happier there,” where people of color remain segregated from white people or where the disabled, the queer and the mentally ill were swept under the rug like stubborn, unwanted dust bunnies before the family came over for Thanksgiving. Nothing about traditional values is good for abuse victims, especially when victims of abuse are overwhelmingly POC, queer, disabled and female.

So how are we to believe that Trump is a supporter of abuse survivors when his own policies and documented values so obviously and readily display how he truly feels?

Just in case you needed it spelled out for you, Donald Trump does not support abuse survivors. Trump is not a champion of the people; he is not a fighter for the downtrodden, the disenfranchised or the wounded. In the end, Trump champions only his self-interest and abuse survivors don’t make the cut.