It's No Mystery Why Trump's Accusers Waited to Come Forward

After a number of women accused Donald Trump of sexual assault this week, those both inside and outside the Trump camp argued that if the incidents the women allege had really occurred, they would have come forward earlier.

Former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski said on CNN that the women had plenty of previous opportunities to come forward "if this incident had been so important to them." Spokesperson Katrina Pierson asked why they would have waited until less than a month from Election Day, and accused them of seeking "15 minutes of fame." On his MSNBC show, Joe Scarborough explained that if he'd been harassed by Trump, he wouldn't have waited until October to go public with his allegations.

And when questioned by MSNBC's Chris Hayes about the allegations, the Trump campaign's AJ Delgado proclaimed, "If somebody actually did that, Chris, any reasonable woman would have come forward and said something at the time."

That is a laughable assertion. Reasonable women get assaulted every day and make the perfectly rational decision that it isn't in their best interest to do anything about it. They do so because they don't expect they will be believed, or that their assault will be taken seriously, or because they want to move on from the experience more than they want to hold their batterers accountable.

http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/features/its-no-mystery-why-trumps-accusers-waited-to-come-forward-w444878