United States

The #MeToov movement, the Alabama U.S. Senate special election, and the Trump tax cut

A different kind of social movement began shaking American society in October 2017, after it was revealed that film mogul Harvey Weinstein had for years with impunity sexually harassed and assaulted women in the industry. After one of his victims, actress Alyssa Milano, made her story known, a multitude of others who had been victims of sexual harassment or assault began sharing their experiences on social media. The resulting movement, which took its name from the social media hashtag used to post the stories, #MeToo, grew over the coming months to bring condemnation to dozens of powerful men in politics, business, entertainment, and the news media, including political commentator Bill O’Reilly, television newsmen Charlie Rose and Matt Lauer, actors Kevin Spacey and Sylvester Stallone, and U.S. Sen. Al Franken.

Allegations of sexual misconduct also played a pivotal role in the special election in December 2017 to fill the seat in the U.S. Senate for Alabama vacated by Jeff Sessions when he became attorney general. During the general election campaign, allegations surfaced that the Republican candidate, controversial former Alabama supreme court justice Roy Moore, had, when in his 30s, not only romantically pursued a number of teenage girls but also engaged in improper behaviour with some of them, including alleged assault. Seemingly in response to the allegations and as a reflection of growing discontent with the Trump presidency, Alabama voters elected a Democrat (Doug Jones) to the Senate for the first time in more than two decades.

The Alabama election was a setback for Trump, who had prominently supported Moore. Nevertheless, the president saw the implementation of a number of policy initiatives that pleased both his solid base of supporters and Republicans in general. Most notably, some two weeks after Jones’s election, Trump signed into law sweeping tax-cutting legislation that had been at the top of Republican wish lists for years. The new law reduced the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to 21 percent, kept the existing seven tax brackets for individuals but reduced rates almost across the board from 39.6 percent to 37 percent for the highest earners and from 15 percent to 12 percent for those in the second lowest bracket, and eliminated the tax penalty for individuals who had not purchased health insurance.