And a woman who claims she's been harassed just can't be trusted.
Gretchen Carlson sued Roger Ailes for sexual harassment on July 6, 2016.
In the days following the July 6 lawsuit, six other women have alleged that Ailes' sexually harassed them.
@GretchenCarlson we all no Gretchen's ratings were tanking! This woman has the nerve to lie. Give me a break.
And aside from the requisite Twitter army, conservative blogs have taken the opportunity to focus heavily on Carlson's faults without focusing a whole lot on Ailes' character.
A recent Breitbart article spent plenty of time vilifying Carlson's character, as if a bad personality lessens the chance that someone will be harassed.
The same piece, which featured an exclusive interview with Fox news anchor Kimberly Guilfoyle, had little to say about Ailes himself outside of the general He-never-did-it-to-me-so-there's-no-way-he-could-possibly-do-it-to-someone-else reasoning.
And as for the network itself, major Fox News players have largely been in Ailes' corner, taking a break from their regularly-scheduled Hillary Clinton-bashing to speak out on Twitter.
Fox's highest profile anchors, Bill O'Reilly and Megyn Kelley, have remained notably silent on the issue.
Part of what makes this particular case so remarkable is that much of the degrading sexism has been featured on air in front of our eyes ― and that still somehow isn't enough to convince people that perhaps there is some validity to Carlson's allegations, or that at the very least they aren't coming completely out of left field.
There are striking similarities between the Ailes' storyline (so far) and what we've watched unfold in years since dozens of women have accused Bill Cosby: once one person makes an accusation, the floodgates open, and those women are inevitably labeled fame-seeking attention whores.
But there's a major difference, too: Ailes is not an idolized American hero.
From the Bill Cosbys to the Sean Penns to the Woody Allens of Hollywood, we will conveniently ignore the pasts of powerful men in order to hold on to the nostalgic, comforting images we have of them.
But unlike Depp, Allen and Cosby, Ailes is not a treasured entertainer with a nostalgic hold over the American people. His role as CEO of arguably the most divisive news network on television has certainly not resulted in the widespread adoration of his character.
And yet many still do not believe his alleged victims. Not only is our instinct to protect the famous men we idolize after they've been accused of physical, sexual or psychological abuse, but it's also our unsettling default to discredit the women who make the accusations ― no matter who the man in question is.
Roger Ailes and Bill O'Reilly, two of Fox News' most famous men who've been accused of sexual harassment.
Even with explicit on-air misogyny and a long history of accusations against a marginally-liked perpetrator, people still have a damn difficult time believing that a woman has endured sexual harassment in the workplace.
Will Carlson be put through the wringer of character assassination and victim-blaming that other women have gone through after accusing powerful men of abuse? Will it take a man commenting on it decades later for the accusations to become relevant?
Will we believe her only then, or can we believe her now?