This was supposed to be the year that everyone banded together to end campus sexual assault by any means necessary — even if it meant improperly branding young men across the country as rapists.

The focus on sexual assault in 2014, which began in January when President Obama announced a task force to combat the issue on college campuses, can be no coincidence. The “war on women” narrative worked quite well for President Obama and Democrats in 2012, and the 2014 midterms were expected to be challenging for the party. Combine that with the fact that young, unmarried women overwhelmingly voted for Democrats two years ago and it becomes clear why there was such an intense focus on the issue.