https://www.currentaffairs.org/2020/03/everything-has-changed-overnight/
Why Joe Biden Is Done
[Content warning: sexual assault]
I need you to do something. I need you to listen to the latest episode of the Katie Halper Show, which is an interview with former Biden staffer Tara Reade. The full interview is here, and if you have the emotional wherewithal to do so, you should listen to it in full. There’s also a short version here, and a good article covering it can be found here.
In the interview, Reade describes how, when she was working for Biden in the early ’90s, he sexually assaulted her. Her description of the events is precise, brutal, and compelling. She sounds, to me, credible. I have also had several private conversations with her that have left me with no reason to doubt that she is telling the truth. When feminists talk about “believing women” who come forward to talk about sexual assault, it doesn’t mean we believe every word a woman says no matter what; it means that when a woman comes forward with a story of being sexually assaulted, we start from the presumption that she is probably telling the truth. In short, we trust, but verify. Reade claims that, at the time of the assault, she told her brother and a friend. Ryan Grim of the Intercept has spoken to both the brother and the friend, who confirm Reade’s story. That, on top of Reade’s heartbreaking, detailed account on The Katie Halper show and our private conversations, is sufficient verification for me.
Sexual assault is a crime committed behind closed doors, in private; our legal system currently finds these cases difficult to prove even when victims choose to report. Of course, no one can know with absolute certainty if Reade’s story is accurate. But as Biden himself once said, “For a woman to come forward in the glaring lights of focus, nationally, you’ve got to start off with the presumption that at least the essence of what she’s talking about is real.” When women accuse powerful men of sexual assault, the consequences are usually severe and horrific; Christine Blasey Ford had to move four times and keep a security detail due to death threats. We took Blasey Ford seriously (not seriously enough) on the basis of similar verification and compelling testimony. We must take Tara Reade seriously, too. [UPDATE: Tara’s story has now broken into the mainstream press, with a full report in Newsweek.]
In fact, we shouldn’t be surprised at all by Reade’s accusation. Joe Biden has long been considered a MeToo scandal waiting to happen. He had already been accused by seven other women of inappropriately touching them and violating their boundaries. A female Democratic fundraiser told Harper’s last year that Biden “has a bit of a Me Too problem… We never had a talk when he wasn’t stroking my back.” Based on the previous allegations, and Biden’s documented history of sniffing the hair of women and girls, anyone could have thought that a more serious allegation might drop sooner or later. Now it has, and nobody is saying: “Surely not Joe Biden, it seems so out of character.”
Lucy Flores, who had been a Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor of Nevada, said Biden came behind her, put hands on her, smelled her, and kissed her without her consent. And if that’s what Biden did to a prominent politician in public, is it implausible he would do worse to low-level staffers in private? Powerful men with boundary issues aren’t exactly well-known for stopping at hair-sniffing. They tend to do whatever they feel they can get away with. Lucy Flores, despite being a major state-level Democratic politician, was mocked and ignored, her accusation treated as trivial.
Tara Reade came forward in April 2019, after she heard people saying things like “well, if what Lucy Flores says is really true, why aren’t any of his former staff members complaining?” At that time, Reade only came forward to confirm what Flores was saying about Biden’s general handsiness. But, after being subjected to online smears, and seeing the media was not taking claims against Biden seriously, she didn’t pursue the matter further or tell her full story. Reade says she approached numerous reporters and prominent people, including Elizabeth Warren (whom she supported at the time), but nobody helped.
But in January, Reade tried again, contacting the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund, which was set up by the National Women’s Law Center to provide legal aid to MeToo victims. And they shooed her away, not because they disbelieved her but because she was accusing Joe Biden. They said they could not handle a claim against a candidate for office because legally they would risk their nonprofit status, a highly dubious assertion. Finally, Reade found her way to left podcaster Katie Halper, the only one who would listen, who interviewed her at length.
I think the cynical view will be that while Reade’s allegation is serious, it won’t hurt Biden, because the press won’t cover it and no one will care. I have certainly feared that myself, but I think one thing all Democrats need to be pressed to do is listen to Reade’s actual interview in her own words. Because when you hear her, it becomes very difficult to think it’s possible to disregard her testimony. Many Democrats will not want to hear it, because they now believe the fate of their party is tied to propping up Joe Biden’s dismal campaign. But it is hard for me to accept that no one prominent in the post MeToo-era Democratic Party cares enough, that they’re all so invested in Joe Biden, that it is of no interest to them whether he has been accused of a horrific sexual attack.
Personally, I have long believed Joe Biden is an incredibly weak candidate against Donald Trump. I think that has been proven even more by his handling of the crisis, which is troubling even to people close to his campaign. Some people disagreed with me, thought I was overstating things. I don’t see how they can disagree now, though. After all, Joe Biden’s entire pitch against Trump was his “character.” He wanted to make the election not about what Democrats could do for people, but about what kind of man Trump is and what kind of man Joe Biden is. As the one supposedly without “malarkey.” Biden, it was theorized, would win.
But with Tara Reade’s powerfully persuasive testimony, it’s going to be very difficult to make even the one argument that Biden had left. Reade is a lifelong Democrat who voted for Hillary in the 2016 primary, but Trump will use his hundreds of millions of dollars to play her interviews far and wide, so that every American knows her name. And of course we do not even know whether more women will come forward to accuse Biden of inappropriate behavior—more, that is, than the eight who already have. Trump, of course, has plenty of assault allegations of his own. But do Democrats really want to be put in the position of having to argue that their guy is the one with “character” because slightly fewer women have accused him of sexually assaulting them? How on earth do any of them plan to handle this? They won’t be able to ignore the claims against Biden, because Trump will talk about them constantly. Democratic spokespeople will either have to try to smear and discredit Biden’s accuser (“Reade once wrote a dumb blog post about Russia, ergo she is a Russian spy” is the current best attempt on this front), or say that it somehow means Biden committing an outright sex crime against a staffer doesn’t matter. I would encourage all Democrats to game out how this scenario would go. Let’s be real: Joe Biden is done, and the only question is whether you still want him to get the nomination before it becomes clear just how completely done he is. We can stop Biden now while there’s time to replace him, or we can watch with horror as the general election becomes about whether or not the Democratic candidate raped a staffer. (Tara does not refer to the incident as rape, but if you listen to her description it can be characterized that way, and I do not think Democrats especially want to have a public discussion over whether nonconsensual digital penetration is better characterized as rape or assault.)
Look, you don’t have to do this. You don’t have to run a guy with a dismal record, who has flopped at the moment he most needed to step up and lead, and who now faces a credible assault allegation and other credible allegations of inappropriate behavior. You could run a popular FDR-style social democrat, who has exactly the message and the agenda that this historic crisis needs. Why let Trump be reelected needlessly? Are Democrats so completely committed to destroying the possibility of the progressive agenda Sanders supports that they’d literally commit party suicide if it meant stopping Bernie from increasing unemployment benefits and improving healthcare financing? This has gotten nuts. While they are in lockdown, everyone needs to have a long think about the primary and reevaluate it carefully. We should admit Bernie is clearly right for the moment, and his supporters need to pick up the fight again.
Why Joe Biden Is Done
[Content warning: sexual assault]
I need you to do something. I need you to listen to the latest episode of the Katie Halper Show, which is an interview with former Biden staffer Tara Reade. The full interview is here, and if you have the emotional wherewithal to do so, you should listen to it in full. There’s also a short version here, and a good article covering it can be found here.
In the interview, Reade describes how, when she was working for Biden in the early ’90s, he sexually assaulted her. Her description of the events is precise, brutal, and compelling. She sounds, to me, credible. I have also had several private conversations with her that have left me with no reason to doubt that she is telling the truth. When feminists talk about “believing women” who come forward to talk about sexual assault, it doesn’t mean we believe every word a woman says no matter what; it means that when a woman comes forward with a story of being sexually assaulted, we start from the presumption that she is probably telling the truth. In short, we trust, but verify. Reade claims that, at the time of the assault, she told her brother and a friend. Ryan Grim of the Intercept has spoken to both the brother and the friend, who confirm Reade’s story. That, on top of Reade’s heartbreaking, detailed account on The Katie Halper show and our private conversations, is sufficient verification for me.
Sexual assault is a crime committed behind closed doors, in private; our legal system currently finds these cases difficult to prove even when victims choose to report. Of course, no one can know with absolute certainty if Reade’s story is accurate. But as Biden himself once said, “For a woman to come forward in the glaring lights of focus, nationally, you’ve got to start off with the presumption that at least the essence of what she’s talking about is real.” When women accuse powerful men of sexual assault, the consequences are usually severe and horrific; Christine Blasey Ford had to move four times and keep a security detail due to death threats. We took Blasey Ford seriously (not seriously enough) on the basis of similar verification and compelling testimony. We must take Tara Reade seriously, too. [UPDATE: Tara’s story has now broken into the mainstream press, with a full report in Newsweek.]
In fact, we shouldn’t be surprised at all by Reade’s accusation. Joe Biden has long been considered a MeToo scandal waiting to happen. He had already been accused by seven other women of inappropriately touching them and violating their boundaries. A female Democratic fundraiser told Harper’s last year that Biden “has a bit of a Me Too problem… We never had a talk when he wasn’t stroking my back.” Based on the previous allegations, and Biden’s documented history of sniffing the hair of women and girls, anyone could have thought that a more serious allegation might drop sooner or later. Now it has, and nobody is saying: “Surely not Joe Biden, it seems so out of character.”
Lucy Flores, who had been a Democratic candidate for lieutenant governor of Nevada, said Biden came behind her, put hands on her, smelled her, and kissed her without her consent. And if that’s what Biden did to a prominent politician in public, is it implausible he would do worse to low-level staffers in private? Powerful men with boundary issues aren’t exactly well-known for stopping at hair-sniffing. They tend to do whatever they feel they can get away with. Lucy Flores, despite being a major state-level Democratic politician, was mocked and ignored, her accusation treated as trivial.
Tara Reade came forward in April 2019, after she heard people saying things like “well, if what Lucy Flores says is really true, why aren’t any of his former staff members complaining?” At that time, Reade only came forward to confirm what Flores was saying about Biden’s general handsiness. But, after being subjected to online smears, and seeing the media was not taking claims against Biden seriously, she didn’t pursue the matter further or tell her full story. Reade says she approached numerous reporters and prominent people, including Elizabeth Warren (whom she supported at the time), but nobody helped.
But in January, Reade tried again, contacting the Time’s Up Legal Defense Fund, which was set up by the National Women’s Law Center to provide legal aid to MeToo victims. And they shooed her away, not because they disbelieved her but because she was accusing Joe Biden. They said they could not handle a claim against a candidate for office because legally they would risk their nonprofit status, a highly dubious assertion. Finally, Reade found her way to left podcaster Katie Halper, the only one who would listen, who interviewed her at length.
I think the cynical view will be that while Reade’s allegation is serious, it won’t hurt Biden, because the press won’t cover it and no one will care. I have certainly feared that myself, but I think one thing all Democrats need to be pressed to do is listen to Reade’s actual interview in her own words. Because when you hear her, it becomes very difficult to think it’s possible to disregard her testimony. Many Democrats will not want to hear it, because they now believe the fate of their party is tied to propping up Joe Biden’s dismal campaign. But it is hard for me to accept that no one prominent in the post MeToo-era Democratic Party cares enough, that they’re all so invested in Joe Biden, that it is of no interest to them whether he has been accused of a horrific sexual attack.
Personally, I have long believed Joe Biden is an incredibly weak candidate against Donald Trump. I think that has been proven even more by his handling of the crisis, which is troubling even to people close to his campaign. Some people disagreed with me, thought I was overstating things. I don’t see how they can disagree now, though. After all, Joe Biden’s entire pitch against Trump was his “character.” He wanted to make the election not about what Democrats could do for people, but about what kind of man Trump is and what kind of man Joe Biden is. As the one supposedly without “malarkey.” Biden, it was theorized, would win.
But with Tara Reade’s powerfully persuasive testimony, it’s going to be very difficult to make even the one argument that Biden had left. Reade is a lifelong Democrat who voted for Hillary in the 2016 primary, but Trump will use his hundreds of millions of dollars to play her interviews far and wide, so that every American knows her name. And of course we do not even know whether more women will come forward to accuse Biden of inappropriate behavior—more, that is, than the eight who already have. Trump, of course, has plenty of assault allegations of his own. But do Democrats really want to be put in the position of having to argue that their guy is the one with “character” because slightly fewer women have accused him of sexually assaulting them? How on earth do any of them plan to handle this? They won’t be able to ignore the claims against Biden, because Trump will talk about them constantly. Democratic spokespeople will either have to try to smear and discredit Biden’s accuser (“Reade once wrote a dumb blog post about Russia, ergo she is a Russian spy” is the current best attempt on this front), or say that it somehow means Biden committing an outright sex crime against a staffer doesn’t matter. I would encourage all Democrats to game out how this scenario would go. Let’s be real: Joe Biden is done, and the only question is whether you still want him to get the nomination before it becomes clear just how completely done he is. We can stop Biden now while there’s time to replace him, or we can watch with horror as the general election becomes about whether or not the Democratic candidate raped a staffer. (Tara does not refer to the incident as rape, but if you listen to her description it can be characterized that way, and I do not think Democrats especially want to have a public discussion over whether nonconsensual digital penetration is better characterized as rape or assault.)
Look, you don’t have to do this. You don’t have to run a guy with a dismal record, who has flopped at the moment he most needed to step up and lead, and who now faces a credible assault allegation and other credible allegations of inappropriate behavior. You could run a popular FDR-style social democrat, who has exactly the message and the agenda that this historic crisis needs. Why let Trump be reelected needlessly? Are Democrats so completely committed to destroying the possibility of the progressive agenda Sanders supports that they’d literally commit party suicide if it meant stopping Bernie from increasing unemployment benefits and improving healthcare financing? This has gotten nuts. While they are in lockdown, everyone needs to have a long think about the primary and reevaluate it carefully. We should admit Bernie is clearly right for the moment, and his supporters need to pick up the fight again.
they are playing politics like it a game of dungeon and dragon and their the lawfully good progressive liberal paladins
that are going to strike down
the lawfully evil centrist democrat warlocks
it is what it is 
