Amelia Robinson is the Columbus Dispatch's opinion and community engagement editor.
My stepfather called me into the bedroom he shared with my mom when I was in elementary school, pulled me close, and trapped my body between his legs.
The lessons I learned from my mother and ‒ truthfully ‒ watching TV, mainly “After School Specials” and movies of the week like the 1984’s “Something About Amelia” about child. molestation, clicked into my head.
I quickly managed to squirm away and raced from the room. When my mother got home from work, I told her that what he did ‒ or was attempting to do ‒ made me uncomfortable.
She believed me, and acted accordingly, kicking his ass out.
Amy Acton's mother is nothing like my mom, and if you are among the lucky, nothing like yours,
either.
Instead of believing her 12-year-old daughter was sexually abused by her husband, Cledith Arthur, Donna Arthur fled the state with Cledith in 1978, before the start of his felony rape trial.
She stayed with him until he died in 2004.
Forty-eight years after losing custody of her kid, she is still believing the alleged pedophile over her daughter.
Vivek Ramaswamy, the father of three who is featuring Donna Arthur in a campaign ad for his Ohio gubernatorial run, wants you to believe the "mother," who hasn't seen Acton, or the kid brother who backs up Acton's story, since 1978.
What kind of daughter is such a liar that her own mom speaks out against her? That's what Ramaswamy wants you to ask.
The real question is, what kind of mother believes a man over her own child? What kind of mother surfaces after decades of estrangement to ‒ for the second time ‒ call her kid a liar?
"This is part of a pattern of someone else who appears to know her well who says the same thing, and I do think that it's important for voters to take all of that into account," Ramaswamy said of Arthur's statements in his 60-second ad, which leaves out the facts that Arthur's husband had been accused of sexually abusing Actonand another child.
Documents have emerged that substantiate Acton's version of events, including warrants issued for Cledith Arthur's arrest in October 1978 and December 1981 related to the charges, along with records that show Acton is also telling the truth about the poverty and homelessness she experienced in Arthur's care.
In the newest twist, Ramaswamy wants you to believe that when Arthur accuses Acton of being a lifelong liar, she wasn't suggesting that Acton was lying about sex abuse. That is beyond logic. It's disingenuous garbage.
The marketing, media and public relations professionals behind the multimillion-dollar campaign clearly knew Donna Arthur has accused her daughter of lying about being raped, multiple times. Just as they knew Arthur borrowed $10,000 to skip town with her fugitive husband.
While Acton was Ohio’s director of health in 2020, Donna Arthur told the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue that Acton's biological father coached her to lie about the abuse Cledith Arthur inflicted, breaking her family irreparably.
Arthur positions herself as an expert, opening the ad by touting her job working at the Children and Family Services Association, where she helped build "the first sexual abuse program in America."
While Arthur does not directly address the allegations against her late husband, her vague and repeated declarations make her meaning clear.
"She's lied her entire life," says the woman who last saw her daughter in a courtroom during the Carter administration.
Ramaswamy and the president of the United States, a father of five, wants Ohioans to ignore what's in front of our faces. They want us to abandon logic and believe Donna Arthur is a credible mother simply because she gave birth to children.
“The mother is calling the daughter a terrible person and a liar. Everybody should be so lucky. Why would you shield somebody from that?”President Donald Trump asked during a rally Oct. 22 in Iowa. “So I told him leave (the ad) up and look upstairs and say thank you, God, very much. I appreciate it.”
God has nothing to do with Ramaswamy using an ad that legitimizes Donna Arthur's betrayal of her defenseless children. By the mere fact that she fled Ohio instead of fighting for her kids, Donna Arthur lost the right to call herself a mother.
In one of his typically rambling Truth Social posts, Trump, oddly, referenced his own mom.
"If my mother, the legendary Mary MacLeod Trump, said anything bad about me, the Fake News would play it up. The Dumocrats would be totally supportive, and it would go down as the Ad of the Decade — Maybe the Century!," he wrote.
What a thing to say. Trump is blessed his mother is not Donna Arthur and his childhood wasn't like Amy Acton's. Or her brother's, or the untold number of Americans who have suffered or are suffering childhood abuse.
Who is he ‒ or Vivek Ramaswamy ‒ to call 12-year-old Amy Acton a liar?
Donna Arthur may have her side, but all indications are that it is on the wrong side of righteousness.
Ramaswamy's use of the video has received widespread condemnation, including from Ohio's Republican Gov. Mike DeWine, who urged him to stop airing it on TV.
Thankfully, other Republicans see this for what it is, too.
"When I read our state party chairman telling people, 'Yes—we are keeping score,' I believe that deserves a response," Republican Robbie Jacks, the Gallia County Auditor, wrote on Facebook. "Mr. Chairman, voters are keeping score, too. They are looking at their property-tax bills, their household expenses, and whether the people they elected are listening. They deserve leadership that takes those concerns as seriously as it takes winning an election. I believe endorsing Vivek Ramaswamy so early in the process was a mistake. His campaign’s decision to use Amy Acton’s estranged mother in an attack ad was another. I can disagree strongly with a Democrat’s policies and still believe there are lines our candidates should not cross. Being a Republican does not require me to defend every decision made by a Republican campaign."
The uproar about the ad clearly isn't only about Amy Acton.
One in in 4 girls and 1 in 13 boys in our country are estimated to experience child abuse, according to Centers for Disease Control stats published by the National Children's Alliance.
Ramasawamy's use of Acton's childhood trauma is sending a message to little girls and boys facing childhoods like hers.
Your mom ‒ the person who is supposed to know you best ‒ won't believe you.
What kind of message is that from someone who wants to be governor?
Amelia Robinson is the Columbus Dispatch's opinion and community engagement editor.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: He got in bed with mother who stood by accused rapist. Now Ramaswamy gaslighting | Opinion
