Recent sideshows, such as President Biden’s embrace of accused rapist Jacob Blake and the cable news replatforming of accused serial groper Al Franken, have indicated that the #MeToo movement has been dead for some time now. But the high-profile scandal of multiple sexual assault and harassment allegations against New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo (and the extraordinary silence of national Democrats) confirms that the final nail is in the coffin.
And Vice President Kamala Harris is the one holding the hammer.
The once-noble movement made a radical proposition: People in power shouldn’t make sexual advances against their subordinates, and it’s time for women to start speaking up and for society to give them a fair hearing. Yet, our first female vice president hasn’t heralded in a revival of the movement; instead, Harris has danced on the grave she helped build. After Christine Blasey Ford accused then-Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh of sexually assaulting her, Harris made a mockery of the movement with her insistence that an allegation itself (no evidence was ever produced to corroborate Ford’s charge) was evidence enough to brand the man as an attempted rapist.
Now, Cuomo faces six allegations of harassment and abuse that, in multiple cases, have contemporaneously corroborating witnesses. And yet, Harris has remained silent over weeks of the scandal unfolding, most recently escaping from a press gaggle when a reporter asked her about the allegations.
Long gone are the days when Democrats demanded Franken’s resignation and Republicans in the blood-red state of Alabama chose a Democrat over the credibly accused predator Roy Moore. And we have people like Harris to thank. While touting herself as a feminist hero, Harris’s shifting standards for the movement corroded its credibility. If you believe that a single allegation without evidence — as a reminder, both the Debbie Ramirez and Julie Swetnick farces have been totally debunked — is grounds to kill Kavanaugh’s career but six credible allegations, some of which have ample evidence, aren’t grounds to kill Cuomo’s, your standards aren’t about fair and equal justice.
They’re about politics. That’s bad news for women.
