Many simultaneously hold the beliefs that real change happens from below and also that you have to keep propping up liberals by voting for them even as they dedicate their entire existence to stopping any meaningful change from happening.
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Two women have come forward, on the record, to corroborate Tara Reade's claims about her treatment by Joe Biden
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Many simultaneously hold the beliefs that real change happens from below and also that you have to keep propping up liberals by voting for them even as they dedicate their entire existence to stopping any meaningful change from happening.
Any option where "the party's nominee is not a rapist" is, objectively, the better option.
Whether they go with Bernie, Harris, Cuomo, Warren, etc., they are better than sticking with Biden at this point, regardless of how one feels about their individual policies.
You think Republicans won't go after him for this shit? He's giving them a layup, and they're probably keeping the senate. The leftist dems won't toe the party line if it comes down to it. Especially if he chooses a well-liked, female VP.
But I'll be honest, even if it's not possible, I don't care. Trump cannot win. Nothing else matters to me.
Setting aside Tara Reade, Biden's silence essentially means he's comfortable allowing his presumptive voters to internally struggle with a grave ethical choice that we've detailed in this thread and others: do we tell victims they don't matter simply to beat Trump?
That's what galls me the most. I realize why he's doing it -- because the polling hasn't (and may never, I don't know) catch up with him. But it's an incredibly presumptuous thing. It's the functional equivalent of, "You're stuck with me. What are you gonna do, vote for Trump?"
While I realize this isn't about me, I resent the fact that I now have to make this ethical decision.
He never should have run in the first place, especially when the appeal of the eventual nominee is basically going to be "not Trump" and "carries the banner of the Democratic party with a fleet of endorsements." Many people could realistically do that, whether it's Amy or Cuomo or Warren.
This sucks. I wholly recognize that it sucks worse for Reade on a personal level, but it sucks for the country too.
That's what galls me the most. I realize why he's doing it -- because the polling hasn't (and may never, I don't know) catch up with him. But it's an incredibly presumptuous thing. It's the functional equivalent of, "You're stuck with me. What are you gonna do, vote for Trump?"
While I realize this isn't about me, I resent the fact that I now have to make this ethical decision.
He never should have run in the first place, especially when the appeal of the eventual nominee is basically going to be "not Trump" and "carries the banner of the Democratic party with a fleet of endorsements." Many people could realistically do that, whether it's Amy or Cuomo or Warren.
This sucks. I wholly recognize that it sucks worse for Reade on a personal level, but it sucks for the country too.
This has been Biden's stance on questions related to immigration and climate change before these latest accusations.
I mean this really didn't first come out until a little bit after super tuesday, and took a little bit more to go mainstream. The majoirty of the primary voters didn't have this known.
You should actually read what I wrote all the way through because your response doesn't apply to my point
Biden is the nominee unless he withdraws. I don't say that to be an asshole, but because that's how I see the facts.
The only route to ensuring Biden isn't the nominee is to convince him to withdraw. The primaries may 'technically' still be ongoing, but there's no one else left in the race. Every other candidate is mathematically eliminated, has endorsed Biden, or both. I don't see the good it does anyone to ignore that.
Technically Trump is the presumptive nominee too. That doesn't really mean anything either though.
I've seen no evidence in polling done since Reade's account was reported on that he's suffered in any measurable way for it. It's possible it's being more than counter balanced by other factors, but if other factors can more than balance it out, I don't think it's really saying much for the average voter.
Reminder for everyone, this behavior wasn't new. He was openly saying this stuff during the primary. See the time when Biden's campaign event got protested by immigration protesters protesting his history of deportations and his immigration policy, where his message to them was "Go vote for Trump".
Technically, anyone can jump back in who's suspended their campaign but at this point, it's unlikely that you'll see Bernie, Harris, etc. unsuspend their campaign; it's likely the nominee will be decided by the party at their delayed convention, going by the recent decision made by New York's state elections, assuming Biden does step down as the presumptive nominee.
I don't know if that's really fair to say. I just don't like the idea of broadly painting it as most democrats voting for a rapist when people had no knowledge of anything related to that until weeks after voting.
A vote for Joe Biden is a vote for Joe Biden. You can rationalize it any way you like, but you're still voting for an alleged rapist. You need to admit this and come to terms with it.
Then every Democrat should be doing everything in their power to convince him to withdraw. They should be withholding funding, support, refusing to vote for him, etc.
Not hemming and hawwing. Not trying to convince people that Trump is so bad they should vote for The Good Rapist.
But of course many Democrats are not doing that. The wagons are being circled and anyone who dares push back against Biden can look forward to being branded a Trump supporter or worse.
If those same leftist dems aren't willing to push him to step down now then there is no chance in hell that they will vote to impeach. Again I'm not going to criticize anyone for how they decide to vote in November, but I do think we should have no illusions what voting for Joe Biden means. If Joe Biden is elected President he will face zero negative repercussions for his actions. It will also be the nail in the coffin for the #MeToo movement, as it will be exposed as nothing more than a political cudgel that no one will take seriously again. Is that a fair trade to avoid 4 more years of Trump? I don't have the answers as that is something that every individual will have to make.
Congratulations on your rapist President, America. That two of the leading men contending to become your leader are both certified rapist truly signal how morally bankrupt your country really is.
Good job.
Good job.
It has sickened me to see so many Democrats defending Biden in the same way Republicans defended Kavanaugh. They were supposed to be better than this. It definitely doesn't help the #MeToo movement, especially when the managing director of the Time's Up Legal Defense Fund's PR arm is Anita Dunn, who is the Biden campaign's top adviser, and also did damage control for, you guessed it, Harvey Fucking Weinstein.
It shouldn't come as any surprise then, that the Time's Up Legal Defense Fund declined to support Tara Reade.
Oh and bERniE hASnT bEEn vEttED!
It shouldn't come as any surprise then, that the Time's Up Legal Defense Fund declined to support Tara Reade.
Oh and bERniE hASnT bEEn vEttED!
To think that there could be a chance to beat Trump and this creep is the chosen one... I wish he steps out (or gets forced to) and face justice, but that won't happen right?
Not to mention they are both racist and corporate puppets.
Because for the DNC, this:
was a less scary prospect than a Bernie Sanders presidency.
People seen to think proximity to Obama makes you a stronger candidate. Didn't strike so well with Hilary, and we're seeing how this is going.
If Biden is elected the most powerful position in the country he's not going to be held accountable for any past crimes. This is something people will have to accept if they vote for him. I don't blame anyone for voting for him to get rid of Trump, but that is the reality.
Then by all means push him to withdraw from the nomination
I would be absolutely thrilled with that
If the movement fails... As it very well could because as others have pointed out.. our country is morally bankrupt..
What then?
I would be absolutely thrilled with that
If the movement fails... As it very well could because as others have pointed out.. our country is morally bankrupt..
What then?
How many people voted for him when there was documented evidence of him touching women and girls - children - inappropriately?
I'm comfortable saying a significant chunk of Democrat voters don't care.
Maybe not but I think we have to grapple with the reality that our party doesn't speak out against this when it's our guy.
I know a lot of people irl that didn't even know about that, and it honestly wasn't like some big reported thing which I think goes more on the democrats and media. Most people have seen Biden as good ol uncle Joe and Obama's friend and rembember him from that. Like just being honest from what I've seen.
like why would people think this could possibly be buried. y'all should have ditched biden when you had the chance. now not only are you stuck pretending to be excited to vote for a rapist. not only do you have to vote for a horrible person. the republicans will draw as much attention as they can towards this
i am happy that reade finally gets to share her story though. it's just so tragic that y'all're stuck choosing between two rapists come november
i am happy that reade finally gets to share her story though. it's just so tragic that y'all're stuck choosing between two rapists come november
That's meaningless. California was going to be blue in November no matter what.
The media definitely takes some of the blame for not taking this seriously when there were red flags but there's no sign this has moved the needle for voters. Polls indicate support for Biden is either steady or slowly growing.
Unless some incredible unprecedented evidence emerges like records of a phone call from that era I'm gonna guess most voters will ignore this. And we're going to have to live with that.
I will, regretfully. But I'll do so knowing I got us further away from a far worse path. To lambast one for doing that ignores all that has occurred since 2016.
Well yea because now we are a month into the pandemic with Trump advocating civil war and injecting lysol. It's at the point where people are literally horrified. Idk what to really say. Like this is the reality we are in.
So should only swing states vote in a primary? Is that the only thing that matters?
Like Biden's first decisive win was in South Carolina, a guaranteed red state. Should they not get to vote?
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By this logic, does it matter that my family and I dont plan to vote for Joe since we live in a red state?
That's mainly because despite what you read on twitter these primaries were very tame. No one was going to get up on a debate stage, and talk about Joe sniffing little girl's hair. It's same reason no one talked about Warren's DNA test bungle. Those kinds of things are too "dirty" for the primaries when the candidates are generally all colleagues on relatively good terms. The Republicans on the other hand will have no problem flooding the airwaves with ads of Biden groping women and girls. Be prepared for it if he is the nominee.
Because... I want Trump out office at any cost? That's a new one.
It obviously matters less, yeah. I live in a red state too and I still vote because I hope we can turn it around some day and want to contribute toward the momentum, but my vote is obviously less important than someone's from Michigan.
I mean you might be right, but I still don't know if it will change the minds of people literally in fear for their lives of Trump winning.
User Banned (Permanent): Dismissing allegations/concerns of sexual assault, history of similar behaviour.
How can we ever address sexual assault as a problem if it gets used as a political football, though? A top-down approach to exposing scandal, at the tail ends of grassrooting, just seems like a recipe to inject chaos, to the detriment of justice.
If this kind of behavior is so widespread that chances are any candidate who gets nominated will be guilty of it, we need to expose this for the problem it is at the population level, not on an individual level. We need to know that 300 of the 400 members of congress (I'm just throwing numbers out there) have done things like this, that 80% of middle and upper management in publicly traded companies have done this, because only then can we actually understand the level of reform necessary, that it isn't going to be good enough to just focus on dismissing a Joe Biden or Donald Trump once they're exposed, because chances are, whoever replaces them will be guilty of the same misconduct, so all that outrage will have been directed to what amounts to rearranging furniture. At the very least, I would like us to have a dialogue where, I guess I would like to say, the flow of information is minimized; That is, I would like us to strive for as perfect and uniform information as early as possible, so that the complete election process can play out with as thorough and as equivalent an understanding.
Maybe I'm wrong, but I would like to believe in the goodness of people, think that this is a case of a sunk cost dilemma, where, hypothetically, this information, had it been revealed any time between 2016 and mid 2019, would have resulted in the optimal outcome of millions of people and hundreds of insiders collectively saying "This is not okay, and your political careers is now dead." and we could have established more precedent that we are better than that, and moved past tolerating this kind of behavior. It shouldn't be that way, but that's psychology in action.
Either way, the fact that the choice is being revealed as being between two people with either corroborated or confirmed cases of rape does nothing good for the trajectory of how sexual assault is perceived. You can't wait until the moment before an election to make character an issue, because then you end up retroactively making it seem unimportant to the preceding steps in the ascension of power. Worst case scenario to me is that this information gets revealed by the start of the primary and still makes no difference, that people still flock around Biden when there are tons of alternatives in the field to choose from, but at least we'd know just how much work needs to be done in the public conscience. Now, it's that much harder to send a message that sexual assault is not okay.
Like... I just don't understand why this information didn't come out until 2-3 weeks after super tuesday, and days after michigan all but confirmed biden as the nominee. This keeps on happening, with Trump, with Moore, with Biden, and it's all information that could have been easier to act on, and maybe would have been acted upon, if it had been revealed sooner.
None of this is to say that anger should be directed at victims, but I think the timing of these revelations can end up hurting the cause because it moves the posts back via sunk cost fallacy.
More than nominees, we need candidates running for nomination to be exposed, due to how our elections and campaign seasons are set up.
But then again, maybe we'd just end up with Amy Klobuchar in the white house with an abusive relationship with her entire staff. I don't know, and that's what's frustrating - I know it's a problem, I know the timing matters, and I know that it shouldn't be a problem, and that timing shouldn't matter, and we continue to put it off. This isn't right.
If Biden wins, how likely do you think it is that Dem voters are going to want to primary him in 2024?
I mean I have no clue. I don't think people in general right now are looking years down the road and just in the now, more than ever. This is an entirely unprecedented time in every single way.