[Content Note: Sexual abuse; rape apologia; Christian Supremacy.]
Last night, Republican presidential candidate Mike Huckabee appeared on Fox News with Megyn Kelly to further defend the Duggars and accuse the media of "exploiting" the Duggar family.
Huckabee, the former governor of Arkansas, where the Duggar family resides, said he was "stunned and shocked" that the girls were "exploited in this by the media for their own purposes."To recap: The Duggars made their daughters available to Fox News for a friendly interview after prepping with a crisis public relations specialist whose objective was strategizing the defense of their abuser. There is someone who is exploiting those women, but it's not "the media," by whom more effort was made to protect the identities of the victims than I have ever seen in any other case.
"There was no interest in the media to protect those girls. There was no interest to make sure that their interests were served. And I think your interview pointed out that they had a very different reaction to all of this than did their critics, who were out to destroy their family," Huckabee told Kelly, referencing an earlier interview with family members on "The Kelly File."
Huckabee went on to repeat the lie that making the records public violates state law, and then argued that Josh Duggar is "innocent" because the case was never adjudicated, despite his confession—and despite the fact that the case was not adjudicated because of his family's conspiracy of silence.
"Megyn, he is an unadjudicated minor at the time that this happened. You're an attorney. You understand that a person is innocent until proven guilty," Huckabee said.He can say from here to Hope, Arkansas, and back again that the records were illegally released, but that will never make it true. And while I'm absolutely certain there are plenty of people who are delighted to see the Duggars brought down—some who simply have a thrill for destruction, some whose lives and very identities have been attacked by the Duggars, and many who have had long expressed concerns about the endemic abuse in patriarchally structured Quiverfull families—Huckabee's assertion that no liberal (which, despite Huckabee's implication, is not mutually exclusive from "Christian") cares about the victims is absurd.
"But he confessed," Kelly responded.
"He was never adjudicated, but he did not confess in a court of law. The law does not hold him accountable, even if he confesses," Huckabee said.
The bigger issue, he added, is that the girls were exploited by the "illegal, unlawful release" of the information surrounding their molestation.
"It was not about the victims. It was about trying to go after the Duggars. They have been known as a family that is a Christian family, and if a liberal has anything like this kind of situation, it's no big deal," Huckabee said.
It isn't conservatives who are the primary drivers behind deconstructing and dismantling the rape culture.
And if there's any doubt who really doesn't give a shit about Josh Duggar's victims, Huckabee provides this defense, without a trace of irony:
[H]e has not heard much about his support of the Duggars from people on the campaign trail.That Huckabee's supporters don't understand why it's "a big issue" for any family to abet and conceal sexual abuse is terrifying. And it sure as shit isn't indicative of people who care about victims.
"I never get a question about this unless it's to say, 'By the way, why is this such a big issue?'" he said.
