In 2018, a farce began. The Democratic Party and many of its liberal allies launched a desperate and sloppy attempt to prevent the appointment of a second conservative justice to the Supreme Court in as many years.
What they truly sought to achieve is still unclear. Even if the attacks on Brett Kavanaugh had successfully derailed his nomination, President Trump simply would have nominated another conservative justice to fill the seat. But hysteria, not logic and reality, gripped the Left during that time.
Building on the recent (and initially much-needed) phenomenon of the #MeToo movement, Democrats demanded that the pendulum of injustice swing in the opposite direction. We were told to “believe all women” as the accusations against Kavanaugh ran rampant. He was accused of sexual harassment, sexual assault, rape, and gang rape, as the stories quickly grew more outlandish and less credible.
Before his nomination, Kavanaugh had served as a judge for 12 years with an impeccable personal record. (Albeit a questionable judicial one on some issues such as the Fourth Amendment.) But that no longer mattered, and each time one allegation was proven false, another would pop up.
Despite the suspicious circumstances of these sudden accusations, those who pointed to the importance of due process in the face of serious charges were shouted down, called anti-woman, and accused of supporting rape culture. It seemed the battle lines were drawn: You either cared about due process or you cared about violence against women. It couldn’t be both.
As a woman, proponent of the #MeToo movement, victim of sexual harassment, and criminal justice reform advocate, I saw through this sham for what it was: a partisan charade disingenuously propagated by people who only cared about violence against women when it could be weaponized to harm their political opponents.
The disparate treatment of women who accuse conservative men of misconduct versus those who accuse left-wing men of the same has been on display for decades. Monica Lewinsky, a victim of predatory sexual behavior by a powerful man if there’s ever been one, was denounced and humiliated by the liberal media and the Left when she was unwillingly thrust into the spotlight with her story alleging impropriety by Bill Clinton in the 1990s. Her appearance was mocked severely, and she was cast as an opportunist as the Left rallied to save its tarnished president from her testimony.
And now, in 2020, this blatant hypocrisy is on display yet again as the presumptive presidential nominee for the Democratic Party, Joe Biden, faces new, credible complaints of sexual assault. Biden has a history of strange behavior toward women. He is frequently pictured grabbing women and girls inappropriately, often without permission, and sniffing their hair.
Joe Biden has been accused of unwanted intimacy. #MeToo
Those pictures say enough. Creepy Joe. pic.twitter.com/OO0ubGRruZ
— Vincent Victory (@VinVictory777) April 13, 2020
In 2016, Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump dealt with his own slew of accusations and a public history of mistreating women. Democrats rallied, ranted, and raved against this behavior (and rightfully so), asserting that this history disqualified Trump from holding the highest office in the land.
But in direct contrast to that stance, Democrats in 2020 seem to be ignoring the charges against Biden in a display that is heavily reminiscent of their protective posture over Clinton in the 1990s. The New York Times even edited out harmful details of their report on the assault accusation (which only came 19 days after the story broke) at the Biden campaign’s request.
For all of the partisan outrage ink spilled over these controversies, there’s been little meaningful action taken to prevent violence against women in this country.
Every 73 seconds, someone in the United States (usually women) is sexually assaulted. One out of every 6 women in the country has been the victim of an attempted or completed rape. Another 10 million people face domestic abuse every year in the U.S. To date, more than half of all female homicide victims are killed at the hands of their intimate partner.
Even when women tell their stories, little is done about it.
In 2017, the clearance rate for rape crimes hit their lowest point since the 1960s, with a mere 32% of cases closed. Furthermore, hundreds of thousands of rape kits sit untested in this country as the short statute of limitations on these crimes ticks down. It must be pointed out, repeatedly, that the failure to test these kits is a failure of police departments to prioritize these cases, not a lack of funding.
Women are offered puny measures of protection at best, such as (expensive to obtain) restraining orders that go largely unenforced. Essentially, women are left to defend themselves even as the Left consistently strives to take away their ability to do so through harsh gun control measures.
So, it’s time to drop the act: Most people don’t actually care about violence against women, at least not more than they care about politics. And every time this issue is politicized by partisan actors, it just makes it even harder for advocates like me to get people to care about the problem.
Hannah Cox (@HannahCox7) is a libertarian-conservative activist and a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog.
