As the evidence backing Tara Reade’s sexual assault allegation against Joe Biden accumulates, slowly but surely, the dam of truth is breaking. And at the New York Times, feminist lawyer Linda Hirshman declared, “I believe Tara Reade. I’m voting for Joe Biden anyway.”
Hirshman writes:
“So what is the greatest good or the greatest harm? Mr. Biden, and the Democrats he may carry with him into government, are likely to do more good for women and the nation than his competition, the worst president in the history of the Republic. Compared with the good Mr. Biden can do, the cost of dismissing Tara Reade — and, worse, weakening the voices of future survivors — is worth it. And don’t call me an amoral realist. Utilitarianism is not a moral abdication; it is a moral stance.”
Hirshman’s galling admission is followed by a freshman-level pseudoexplanation of Benthamic utilitarianism, a fallacious equation of Ken Starr’s “censorious Republican Party,” Bill Clinton’s “libertinism,” and, of course, a sly dig at Mike Pence, perhaps one of the last men in Washington to actually respect his wife. All of which to say, Hirshman (and evidently a growing consensus of liberals) are willing to turn not just Reade but every other future sexual assault survivor debating whether to come forward into collateral damage because Orange Man Bad.
To be sure, I still think Reade’s credible allegation hasn’t quite met the preponderance of evidence — if only because she hasn’t yet responded to Biden’s only public statements about it and because he hasn’t opened his own records. But to Hirshman, the allegation is true, and it doesn’t change her calculation in the election. She should at least be given credit for honesty, as no doubt many other Democrats will make the same calculation while ridiculously trying to convince others that Reade is less credible than Christine Blasey Ford.
Let’s just say that Biden could force a subordinate up against a wall and shove his fingers inside of her, and some Democrats would still vote for him. The logic is evidently that our guy who grabs ’em by the pussy is bad, but yours is worse.
Evidently, some “feminists” would rather advance the liberal agenda than keep the progress from spending decades empowering sexual assault victims to come forward with their allegations and demonstrate consequences for those who abuse power.
Buckle up, and get your wine or whatever sedative can brace you for the next half-year. It looks like 2020 is gearing up to be the even more reprehensible reboot of 2016, when the country was forced to choose between somebody who boasted of grabbing women and a woman who smeared the women who came forward to accuse her husband of sexual misconduct. In 2020, voters will be forced to argue about which candidate is the least rapey option.
