I got word he is running for a job as a state legislator. That surprised me because as a public official in one of Oregon’s rural cities, he’s done nothing much other than show up at ribbon cuttings and every other photo op event.

Years ago, shortly before he ran for public office, he was the subject of local town gossip. They said he was a player, a swinger. Like I said, rumors. I was a reporter, and even if it was true, so what? Swinging might be distasteful for a whole host of reasons, not the least of which are sanitary ones (I won’t even partake in potluck suppers at church because I don’t like the thought of how dirty somebody else’s kitchen might be). So even though folks kept bringing me the story about this fella and his sexual proclivities, it wasn’t something I was going to address as a reporter.

I’d long ago moved away and left behind the journalism jobs when I heard from someone I respect a totally different kind of story about this fella running for a statewide office. Allegedly this fella, married with kids, blackmailed a babysitter into performing sex acts for him. She and her family were undocumented. He reportedly threatened to turn them in unless she did him some favors.

She was just a teenager then. She’s grown now. If the story is true, I can’t help but wonder: What does she think when she drives about town and sees the yard signs promoting him to an even higher office, where he will have even more power to make demands of undocumented women?

Some years back while teaching at a local high school, I showed my students a documentary film by Frontline. The film dealt with the legal issues undocumented women face when they are sexually assaulted. In the follow-up discussion, several students shared stories their own mothers had told them about the assaults they endured since coming to the US.

The stories were disturbing in so many ways, but you know what they weren’t? They weren’t surprising. Not in the least. In a country where patriarchy is institutionalized and preached from the pulpits, sexual assaults are commonplace. Not in a country where sexual assault is the most prevalent crime and the most underreported.

If you think it was difficult for E. Jean Carroll to step forward and tell the story of how Donald J. Trump violated her, imagine being an undocumented teenager assaulted by one of the town’s powerbrokers. Isn’t any assault you report then just marked up to “rumor” and dismissed?