Have you actually looked at the contemporaneous accounts here?
One of the four witness accounts is definitive and consistent with Reade’s current claim she was raped. That person is voting Biden. Two of the other three accounts NEVER mention rape. The other account didn’t mention rape when first reported (her brother’s account).
This is so disingenuous. Like, you’re just lost if the worms have burrowed this deeply.
I think this kind of thing is sort of good, in a way. Really pulls the scab off and shows you who is and who isn’t an unutterable fucking scumbag.
I’m going to give you the benefit of the doubt and assume you, thankfully, don’t have much experience with sexual assault.
People who are assaulted commonly feel ashamed. They question if they were even assaulted. Did they accidentally consent? Was it their fault? There was no penetration with his penis so does that even count as rape? Should I destroy this important mans career? If I do speak up will anyone even believe me? Just two years after Anita Hill was destroyed will anyone even believe me? Will they destroy me like they did her? These are things that would have been going through her mind.
The idea that her contemporary accounts don’t specifically mention the word rape is hardly exculpatory.
I agree that the lack of consistency isn’t exculpatory (if you read my post you’ll know I actually have studied the neurological affects of trauma and trauma response at length) but if the statements themselves, which are the only evidence, and rely heavily upon the credibility of the accuser, aren’t inculpatory of what’s being claimed now that has to affect the strength of the claim, no?
It’s perfectly normal for people in other countries to have an interest in American politics for all the reasons you mention. It’s weird that you hate Biden for not supporting M4A though. You should be heartened by his strong platform on climate change!
The various contemporary accounts you cite clearly indicate something happened right? Or is your position it was all a lie and literally nothing happened between them?
If we concede something happened it is difficult to imagine what it was if not some kind of assault given the content of the contemporary claims, that she seems to have had problems adjusting afterwords in her relationship, and now comes forward knowing she will be pilloried.
What is her motive to lie now? If anything she seems to have a strong motive to stay silent.
Oh boy, magic beans? I’ll take all you’ve got!
I fully expect something happened. Something very similar to the accounts of all of the other women that have complained of Biden: that he was overly familiar and affectionate.
To be more serious for a minute, I actually don’t doubt that you are engaging in American politics at least as seriously as the vast majority of Americans, I just find it deeply alarming. There is a deep political rot spreading, not just in the U.S., and I believe that at least some of its origin can be found in the particular mix of cynicism and naivete unmoored from any practical reality that lets you, in Ireland, get drawn into debates about U.S. health insurance and income taxes with the same degree of fervor that people who aren’t covered by UHC and actually pay U.S. taxes feel.
The dynamic kind of puts me in mind of the Ron Paul movement (although Bernie has a much larger base, many of whom back him for more normal political reasons). The cynicism is the perception that the whole system is corrupt, serves powerful interests, politicians are crooks, etc. That’s largely accurate, but it’s coupled with the erroneous perception that Ron or Bernie or whoever, despite being powerful and wealthy politicians in the corrupt system, are actually pure of heart and act only for the good of the people. People don’t want to be, or can’t accept the reality of being, relatively inconsequential agents in a huge political system. Instead, they seek belonging by devoting themselves to their chosen avatar and the cause they represent. Even when the avatar recedes, the mindset remains. Who could cast a vote for some grubby transactional politician who gives slick speeches but, at best, will turn the dial a smidge in the direction of justice and fairness while primarily serving the coalition of special interests that put him in office after you’ve tasted the pure nectar of supporting a noble hero of the people?
It obviously would be great to have a president who cared only about the people and didn’t take money from special interests and cared about the environment and who one could confidently say had never sexually assaulted anyone. The fatal flaw, though, is that the people who come into a lot of power are, without exception, people who seek power as the organizing goal in their lives. (It’s much easier to come into a lot of money by pursuing some other goal than it is to accrue a lot of power as a side effect.) If your standard for supporting a politician is that they pursue power only so they can use it for the people, never cut deals to build their power at the expense of justice, etc., then you don’t end up getting a pure politician. You end up getting a talented grifter who puts on a good enough act to get elected.
The path to justice doesn’t come from noble politicians triumphing over the corrupt special interests. (In 20th century U.S. history, the two great progressive champions are FDR and LBJ–both vile, manipulative human beings you wouldn’t want to be in the same room with, which is fine.) It involves special interests incrementally selling each other out by giving more rights and benefits to the people to benefit themselves in their internal power struggles. Over decades and centuries, the special interests ratchet themselves out of their privileges and we end up with prosperous, vaguely-aspiring-to-be-just-and-free societies. Maybe in 50 years we’ll be even further along. But there are no short-cuts, only dead ends.
Everyone who is voting should be voting for Joe Biden, even if you hate him and think he’s a rapist. I guarantee he’s a garbage human, total asshole, sick money-hungry power-hungry bastard, whatever you want to say. A senile old frotteur. Go on as long as you want. But, if Joe Biden becomes president, I would feel extremely confident that there will be another presidential election in 2024, and maybe the person who wins that election will be 5% better than Joe Biden and will hold an election in 2028 and so on. If Trump has another term to work, there will certainly not be fair elections, and there may not even be contestable elections. I don’t think the Democrats represent my interests in almost any way (I would suspect I disagree with them far more than you do). As a relatively insignificant agent in a vast, vast machine though, it is crystal clear that the right way to exercise my agency is to support a grubby creepy senile transactional politician over the potential end of American democracy. You can try to convince yourself that this isn’t true with elaborate bank-shot game theory strategies to upend the landscape of American politics or whatever, but that’s a far grander strategy than you or I have the power to implement. All you can do is the best you can with what you’ve got, which is unfortunately Biden.
I’ve been saying for a while that there are a bunch of things like this. Whenever anyone says “whatabout” , “carry water”, “optics”, “bad look” and yeah, “privilege” it’s usually like what you’re saying - some kind of non-content-laden floating bullshit or something like that.
Seems like an endorsement of Citizen’s United. Or at least a tacit acknowledgment that the political landscape would not be improved in the absence of dark money. They’re all megalomaniacs anyway.
tldr, but I think the political rot in the world is that, while it’s ok for rich educated people to be cynical, it’s deeply alarming when you see it from your inferiors.
I don’t think the special interests are going to slowly give the people more rights. I think they’re going to continue to horde all the wealth.
This doesn’t really jibe with Biden crushing the African-American vote.
Agreed. But there’s a massive gulf between egregious assaults like rape, which the information known mostly doesn’t support, and inappropriate contact, which the information at hand strongly endorses.
NAACP
GLAAD
AFL-CIO
Yeah, I read it all and my take was right. Is there more than one person on this site from a state that might possibly be in play who isn’t voting for Biden? And everyone seems to think that they are free to call Joe a rapist or a senile old frotteur, but they panic when they see someone else doing it. That might be populism.
Motives matter.