The hypocrisy dividing line: How accusations against Biden reveal what we really care about
Ever since a Nevada County woman named Tara Reade leveled serious accusations of sexual assault against former Vice President Joe Biden, the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, my thoughts have been along the lines of, ‘I’ve seen this movie before.’
We’ve all seen serious accusations of sexual misconduct become weaponized in partisan fights in which the emotional well-being of the accuser and the idea of due process for the accused are casualties of Twitter justice and the crooked court of public opinion.
If you don’t like the politician being accused of a sexual misdeed, he must be guilty even if there is no judge, jury or an investigation of his alleged crimes to confirm the accusation.
If you do like the politician, then you either attack the accuser or you ignore her or patronize her by claiming on Twitter that you “hear her and see her.”
This phenomenon is bipartisan.
Some Democrats embrace this hypocrisy in the Biden case as willingly as some Republicans did in 2018 when sexual assault allegations rocked the Supreme Court confirmation process of Brett Kavanaugh.
Biden on Friday denied the allegations, saying “This never happened.” He said during the Kavanaugh hearings, “you’ve got to start off with the presumption that at least the essence of what she’s talking about is real, whether or not she forgets facts, whether or not it’s been made worse or better over time.”
It’s funny how some scream “believe the woman” the loudest when they are trying to block a man they don’t like from one of the highest offices in the land. Or they crow about “believing women” while dismissing the one accusing the politician they support.
Reade as a political weapon
To my eye, those most motivated to use Reade’s accusations against Biden are supporters of President Donald Trump and of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, who recently endorsed Biden after dropping out of the Democratic primary. Right now, that race to the bottom seems like a deadlock between those who want Trump or Sanders prevail over Biden.
Reade’s allegations stem from an incident she says happened nearly 30 years ago. There are holes in her story. There are people who emphatically deny key aspects of her story. Her claims haven’t been investigated by a reputable, dispassionate source. And yet, on Tuesday, Sanders’ national organizing director called on Biden to drop out of the race.
“Now is the time to deal with the ramifications of Tara Reade’s accusations, not this fall. There is simply no moral justification for Biden to continue as the presumptive nominee,” tweeted Claire Sandberg. “Out of respect for survivors and for the good of the country, he should withdraw from the race.”
Frankly, Sandberg’s nakedly political words damage the #MeToo movement by stripping it of its righteousness as a cause to protect women from harassment, discrimination and bullying. For Sandberg and others like her, the true worth of Reade’s story is that it creates a vehicle to serve the political desire of skipping an investigative process to vet an allegation and go straight to a desired conclusion, in this case, the termination of Biden’s campaign.
That’s what GOP senators did in 2018 when they undermined Christine Blasey Ford, the Palo Alto University professor who accused Kavanaugh of assaulting her when they were teenagers in the summer of 1982.
Sen. Lindsey Graham and his crew had a process – a U.S. Senate investigation and an FBI probe – to vet Blasey Ford’s allegations but they short-circuited it, with the help of the Trump White House, to get Kavanaugh seated on the high court while chucking Blasey Ford to the side.
Sandberg wants to chuck Biden to the side with no process at all.
#MeToo approaches that work
But it doesn’t have to be this way. There is a process to support the integrity and meaning of #MeToo, one that also protects Biden’s due process rights.
“Where I have a very big difference with some people, as someone working in the field myself and a survivor myself, is that I believe these issues should be vetted in private trauma-informed investigations- not on twitter,” said Christine Pelosi, chair of the California Democratic Party’s women’s caucus and daughter of Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi.
Christine Pelosi is also counsel for We Said Enough, the Sacramento-based nonprofit that was key player in forcing California legislative leaders to confront sexual harassment, bullying and discrimination with the vast state capital community. Pelosi and courageous We Said Enough leaders, such as Sacramento lobbyist Adama Iwu and others, have been consistent.
They have pushed the Legislature to establish a hotline so victims can report harassment. They have advocated for establishing processes so victims feel safe and receive counseling. But most important of all, they have pushed for independent investigations of harassment claims that maintain privacy for all parties.
Pelosi and We Said Enough have been consistent on this message that until harassment is treated seriously with a sober process seeking truth – until such a process becomes a standard – we will have what we have in now:
Weaponized accusations in which the accuser and the truth become secondary to politics. The object then is to use the accusation to take out a Joe Biden or to bury a Christine Blasey Ford to lift up Donald Trump, Bernie Sanders or Brett Kavanaugh.
The work that Pelosi and We Said Enough have done has gained positive results. They and others have pressured the California Democratic Party to be more transparent on allegations of abuse levied against its members.
How could Tara Reade’s accusations move beyond the political and toward justice? Washington, D.C., Police could do an investigation. Thanks to a new law, there is no statute of limitations for sex abuse in the nation’s capital.
So even though Reade claims Biden assaulted her in 1993, somewhere in the U.S. Senate building – she can’t remember where – D.C. police can start investigating today.
On Thursday, the New York Times published a story on how Reade finds getting booked on TV to tell her story difficult.
Why not tell her story to D.C. cops instead? How are we supposed to move beyond the political and toward justice if Reade’s allegations live outside the law and inside the echo chamber of partisan politics?
Already on Thursday, Trump’s allies are chiming in as passionately as those of Sanders.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell is calling on Biden to come clean. How convenient. What’s the point here?
The point is that right now, Reade’s accusation isn’t about protection or about justice. It’s about taking out Biden. And let me say here, that I didn’t vote for him in the California primary.
And I’m willing to believe Reade, who grew up less than 100 miles from Sacramento. But I’m not willing to believe her because opponents of Biden say so on Twitter.
Like I said, I’ve seen this movie before and it never ends well for the accuser, the victim, #MeToo or our democracy.
This story was originally published April 30, 2020 at 1:54 PM.
