I haven't been a victim of sexual violence, but I still find myself conflicted about what the right course of action is in this situation. To some degree my uncertainty is moot since I live in a red state and it doesn't really make any difference who I vote for, but nonetheless I don't know what the correct choice would be if I lived in a swing state.
On the one hand, I think there's a convincing argument to be made that we only have two real options to pick from and we should therefore choose the least harmful one even if both options are bad. But on the other hand, just as there are likely to be far-reaching consequences of a continued Trump presidency, there may be far-reaching consequences of rallying behind Biden. With the Republicans supporting Trump and the Democrats supporting Biden are we entering a scenario where neither party can credibly say that sexual assault has any bearing on one's fitness for public office?
I may be misremembering some of the details of the Kavanaugh case, but as I recall it was fairly similar to what we have with Biden. That is, there is an allegation combined with additional evidence (e.g. Kavanaugh's yearbook or the videos of Biden being "handsy") that suggest that it wouldn't be completely unimaginable that these men might have committed sexual assault. Democrats argued, rightfully in my opinion, that the seriousness and credibility of the allegation should disqualify Kavanaugh from holding a position on the court. If the Democrats now support Biden, does that undercut our argument? More specifically, was the party actually opposing Kavanaugh simply because he was a conservative and the rape allegation was only used as a tool to keep him off the bench, or did we really believe that that accusation of sexual assault disqualified him in and of itself?
Especially after the #MeToo movement, I think there has been a growing consensus on the left that our response to Bill Clinton's sexual misconduct was incorrect. The Republicans no doubt were using the Lewinsky scandal to score political points, but the blanket defense that we as Democrats had for all of the sexual abuse allegations surrounding Clinton was a mistake. And in hindsight, our unity at the time seems to have been to little benefit: his presidency was followed by who I still consider to be worst president in my lifetime. Would things have been different if Democrats had been more supportive of the victims and separated from Clinton? Maybe? Probably not? Who knows.
I was very sympathetic to the argument that if Republicans were really as concerned about morality as they claimed to be in the 90s, then they wouldn't have supported Trump, and by doing so they showed themselves to be hypocrites. I still think that's a good description of what happened - the Republican party at large used morality as a weapon to achieve political power, but they didn't actually care. With all this in mind, am I a hypocrite if I now support Biden? When I told family that even if they agree with conservative policy they ought to oppose people as immoral as Trump, was I lying (perhaps unconsciously) to myself and my family about my true motivations? Did I really care that Trump is a sexual predator, or did I just not want a conservative to be elected?
Even with all these considerations in my head, I do think that reiterating that despite everything we still only have two options and should therefore choose the least harmful one is still a reasonable response. It's not one I necessarily agree with yet, but maybe in time I'll get there. But for all the conflict I'm experiencing, I can only imagine that it is amplified several times over for those who lived through sexual violence. These are dark, confusing times and we're just trying to do the best we can.
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