Some thoughts on Joe Biden

It is possible that Joe Biden raped Tara Reade. It is very discouraging how badly people are handling that.

Calls for firing  Chris Hayes were trending on Twitter for reporting on the allegations. I suppose that is better than the people saying that Reade is too ugly to have been a victim, or calling her crazy; have we really not gotten any better than that over the years?

There is a way in which the anger could make sense, in that people are afraid that it will lead to a Trump victory in November. That would indeed be terrible. However, that anger and unwillingness to listen and tendency toward personal insult is typical of many similar stories, and we need to grow beyond that.

So maybe the first thing to get out of the way is that we can vote for Joe Biden even if the allegations are true. It's not just that Trump is a horror of the first magnitude as president, whereas Biden would probably be no worse than underwhelming. If rape is disqualifying for the presidency (I could be okay with that), then Trump has more allegations, not just in quantity but in how appalling and how credible the accusations are.

(One of the most chilling and accurate things I read was from a friend who asked whether we thought we had never voted for a rapist before. Point taken.)

So the first thing to say to Republicans who are saying that Democrats only care about allegations that don't affect their candidates: Clean your own house first.

To Democrats who are acting like that is true, we need to be better than this.

That's not just a general saying, where you would want to hold to a higher standard than the party that has gone from a death cult feeding off racism to adding in a personality cult that has multiplied the death and the racism. That's a low bar; we should be better than that without trying.

No, I say we need to be better than that because it is the refusal to rise above the petty bigotry and structural racism and misgyny that everything is built on that keeps us from improving.

Think of the Civil Rights Movement in the 60s, and the way they inspired people and legislation. Why is there still so much unequal enforcement of law?

Think of all of the studies debunking beliefs about women and their abilities and job performance. Why are pay disparities still a problem?

Yes, there was Russian meddling in the election, but it worked by stoking racism and sexism and we should not have fallen for it. There is an extent to which anyone likely to be concerned about this issue - rape allegations against a Democrat - did not fall for the Russian propaganda, but are you still worrying too much about trying to appeal to the working class? When you picture the working class, in your mind's eye, are they still white men?

That's why we don't get anywhere. That's why we had a strong economy and a budget surplus with Clinton, then election fraud that should have been fought harder, intelligence that was ignored because it didn't fit the administration's priorities resulting in 9/11, huge tax cuts benefiting the rich and corporations and two countries invaded, which led to a huge loss in lives, money, and civil liberties with W. (Who is getting more approval than he deserves now; see that low bar thing.)

That's why we made improvement on health care accessibility,  improved relations with other countries under Obama, and had it all trashed at a breathtaking pace with Trump.

It's certainly why Democrats ended up with one of the most mediocre candidates out of a really strong field.

I can give more examples and break it down more, but if you are not getting the drift yet it is going to take too much for this post.

So I am going to add one bit of hope for those reasonable concerns about Trump.

Investigating works.

I take false allegations very seriously. Someone I care about has had to deal with some. That's not my story to tell, but I can tell you this: even though my initial reaction was that it couldn't be true, I read through everything carefully. I believe in truth and I believe in listening to women, even if that does not require automatic belief.

It felt much better having read the allegations and seeing all the ways in which they didn't hold up than it did just hoping it wasn't true.

It feels like too often when there are accusations the reaction comes down to disbelief if you like the person and belief if you don't. Likability is not the best predictor of innocence anyway, but that leaves you with injustice on multiple sides. There may also be uncomfortable fear and guilt that you can try to ignore, but succeeding makes you a worse person.

You may lose a hero; I know Cosby still hurts for a lot of people. What we gain is better.

I know there are a lot of people who don't want a truly equal society, but I am not writing for them. If you want a freer, more equal world, it takes listening to the marginalized, and taking accusations seriously, and not bending to power, and trying to help make things better.

We can do that, and it's worth it.

I will write more about this.