How much evidence must there be for Democrats to take Tara Reade seriously?

But we do know this: Something happened. Something that left a deep enough impression on Reade that she told her neighbor, her mother, her brother, her friend, and her ex-husband about it.

A court document filed in 1996 and obtained by the San Luis Obispo Tribune proves as much. In it, Reade’s husband at the time, Theodore Dronen, recalls that Reade confided in him about “a problem she was having at work regarding sexual harassment, in U.S. Senator Joe Biden’s office.” Reade and Dronen were working their way through a messy divorce proceeding, but Dronen specifically states in the filing that what happened to Reade in Biden’s office “had a very traumatic effect” on her, “and that she is still sensitive and effected (sic) by it today.”

In the course of my reporting, I’ve worked closely with several sexual assault survivors. Many of them never fully recover. There’s pain, trauma, guilt, despair, self-inflicted suppression, and a wide-eyed hope that time will bring comfort. And the result is often relational stress and an ongoing hesitation to report or speak openly about one’s attacker.

Reade fits this description. She did not come forward until Biden announced his bid for the presidency, which is a point many of her critics have used to discredit her allegation. But the truth is that this isn’t surprising at all: Many victims do not come forward until they feel they have no other choice, and sometimes not even then. My guess is that that uncertainty becomes even worse when your alleged attacker is a man whose name is a common household subject.

It is also clear that what happened to Reade in Biden’s office deeply affected her. This was a subject brought up in her divorce filing, which means that these events very likely played a role in her marriage, whether physically or emotionally. Again, this is not unusual.

My question for Democrats, then, is what more do they need to see, hear, or read before they’re willing to treat Reade’s allegation seriously. And by that, I do not mean accepting Reade’s story as fact. We can’t be sure whether she’s telling the truth. But we can at least investigate her claims and weigh the evidence as it is found.

This is something few Democrats have been willing to do. Dianne Feinstein, the ranking Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, has dismissed Reade entirely, as has House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, Mich. Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, former gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, and many, many others. And their reasons for doing so are, of course, inadequate at best and dishonest at worst.

The only honest explanation I’ve seen thus far is from Linda Hirshman, who wrote in the New York Times that she believes Reade but will vote for Biden anyways. She calls it an “ugly moral choice.” I call it a half-assed attempt at decency. But at least she’s willing to own it in a way that Feinstein, Pelosi, and the rest are not.

And it’s this blatant double standard that troubles me most. I argued back in 2018 that Christine Blasey Ford deserved her time before the Senate Judiciary Committee for the same reasons I’m arguing that Reade’s allegations are worth consideration now: because I recognized the familiar symptoms of someone who had experienced what no woman should.

I do not regret defending Ford’s testimony, nor do I regret arguing afterward that her allegation against Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh did not pass legal or ethical muster. But I do regret offering that little bit of leeway to a party uninterested in doing the same now that it’s their guy in the hot seat.

Reade deserves better. Democrats deserve better. And victims of sexual harassment and assault certainly deserve to be treated with respect and humanity, rather than as tools of political convenience.