See, there is a part in most peoples brains that don't want to believe the worst in people.
I think that part of this is also frustration at things just not coming out for so long. That's a reflection of how rapidly society's values have changed, as well as generational differences. It's also, unfortunately, problably a reflection of problems being more widespread than we care to admit to ourselves.
Take Roy Moore - he was on the supreme court of alabama, twice. The revelations about him were revealed one month before the election. Not when he was on the alabam bench, not when he was trying to move up the alabama courts, not when he was facing ethics investigations as a judge for separate matters, not when he announced his candidacy for the senate, not during the alabama senate primaries, but about one month before the general election for the senate seat. And apparently his conduct was an open secret not just in political circles, but in multiple cities.
Kavanaugh? Again, this guy was on the courts. The accusations against him seemed to only come out when he was up for SCOTUS and the path had been cleared for him.
Trump was a known piece of shit and even he had some revelations, namely the "grab em by the pussy" tape, that didn't come out until about a month before the general election.
Biden? Known to be handsy, has 7 women besides Reade who have accused him of inappropriate touching of shoulders/hair. If there was more to it than that, people wish it was used to primary him in the senate races in 1996/2002/2008. They wish it was used to knock him off of the shortlist for Obama's VP in 2008, so that Evan Bayh or Tim Kaine could have been chosen instead, or in 2018 or 2019 to ensure he remained on the sidelines and out of the presidential race, or when there was another moderate democrat in the race to consolidate behind, or the debates were ongoing, or before super tuesday.
People are frustrated because *they want to know everything as early as possible and about as many people as possible.* They want perfect information, they want to know just how widespread this behavior has been and just how many people are okay with it, and they feel like those details are being clouded by information being released "too late." They want to somehow separate the politics of the dialogue from the culture, to feel like we confronted these very real, and very widespread problems as early as possible, not when they had political ramifications. Cognitive biases are why they feel this way. Revelations are always going to be made "As late as possible," just like things are always in the last place you look for them (you stop looking after they're found).
To use myself as an example, I fell into this trap with Al Franken. I wondered "Wtf? Where was this when Franken was trying to unseat Norm Coleman and they were in a dead heat? Where was this before he started establishing himself as the anti-trump? Fuck, his inappropriate jokes and conduct as a comedian were even brought up against him before, including inappropriate "comedy," and I thought we had already made it apparent that it was okay to talk about this, that we could air everything out, weigh his aconduct and misconduct against his character and fitness for politics, make a decision, and focus on the immediate past, present, and future from then on. I was even looking forward to maybe seeing him run in 2020, or get a senior leadership position, because, during his time in office, he's lived up to my expectations, and then some, and handled himself gracefully in policy and politics, and professionalism. What happened? Was I wrong? Am I wrong? Was I lied to? Was he a worse person than I thought? Fuck, I'm worried about saying this because I don't want to be a rape apologist, or to be seen as a rape apologist. Am I being one? Fuck, why couldn't we at least get an investigation? I wish we had more time..."
You see? It's all there. The unintentional victim shaming. The anger that it was "held back," and fitting it into some kind of a political context, even though it wasn't occuring during any campaign. The desire to sweep things under the rug. The yearning to understand everything and everyone, and an OCD-fueled feedback loop of doubt and uncertainty over just who we are as a collective and as individuals, and a sinking feeling that we never will pull back the curtain on just how bad things are, we'll just spin our wheels and act like dogs chasing our tails, while keeping secrets that we take to our graves. I was guilty of it. I still am in several aspects, and will continue to be in the future. And I'll probably delude myself into thinking I'm not, to protect my own fragile ego from the sad fact that none of us are as good as we'd like to think we are.
Does any of this make sense? >_>
