Name: Joe Biden Leads Democrats Back to the Norm of Ignoring Inconvenient #MeToo Accusations
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Joe Biden Leads Democrats Back to the Norm of Ignoring Inconvenient #MeToo Accusations

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The liberal activist group MoveOn.org, a seven-million-member organization that lobbies for progressive causes, was founded in 1998 to oppose the impeachment of President Bill Clinton for lying to Congress about his sexual improprieties. The organizers thought the public should stop caring so much about Clinton's mistreatment of women, thus the genesis of the name: It was time to move on.That same year, the crusading feminist Gloria Steinem, known for her support of alleged victims like Anita Hill and the , for&nbsp;The New York Times&nbsp;in support of Clinton, even "if all the sexual allegations swirling around the White House turn out to be true."On Monday,&nbsp;The New York Times&nbsp; by the feminist attorney and scholar Linda Hirshman: "I Believe Tara Reade. I'm Voting for Joe Biden Anyway." Hirshman's piece is well in-keeping with a long tradition of liberals and Democrats discounting problematic sexual misconduct allegations leveled against members of their own political tribe. Indeed, the Democratic establishment has greeted Reade's sexual assault accusation against the former vice president with an all-too-familiar collective shrug. Those who broke ranks and gave voice to Reade's accusation, including MSNBC's Chris Hayes, were met with .This is the norm of politics:&nbsp;He may be a sexual predator but he's , damn it.&nbsp;We are witnessing a reversion to this norm, and it should take no one by surprise.The actual surprise was that, for a brief moment, at the height of the #MeToo movement, there was an effort by liberals to stand on principle and hold powerful Democrats accountable. This culminated in late 2017 with the successful ouster of Sen. Al Franken (D–Minn.) for alleged sexual harassment and nonconsensual touching. Then the reversion began: The New Yorker's Jane Mayer, who once teamed up with Ronan Farrow in the service of publishing , wrote a piece arguing that Franken was wronged by his overzealous colleagues.One of those overzealous colleagues, Sen. Kirstin Gillibrand (D–NY), has become synonymous with #MeToo feminism. Gillibrand invited to the State of the Union in 2015. She said When she was running for the Democratic Party's presidential nomination last year, she complained that some of her rivals were insufficiently committed to the cause of combatting rape. "I've got to tell you, I'm really sick of it," she . "I'm so freaking sick of it."When last week about Reade's allegation, Gillibrand said that Biden had her support.Biden, similarly, has balked at being held accountable under the that he himself worked tirelessly to enshrine for people accused of rape on college campuses. On Wednesday, following Education Secretary Betsy DeVos's of new rules that restore due process and the presumption of innocence to college Title IX adjudication, Biden to reverse the changes if elected president.This hypocrisy runs in both directions, of course. Republicans who were silent about the numerous sexual assault allegations against President Donald Trump don't exactly have the moral standing to weaponize the Reade allegation, though that won't stop them.is apparently wary of the accusation against Biden, though. He reportedly asked an aide, "Does it sound like bullshit to you?"

The liberal activist group MoveOn.org, a seven-million-member organization that lobbies for progressive causes, was founded in 1998 to oppose the impeachment of President Bill Clinton for lying to Congress about his sexual improprieties. The organizers thought the public should stop caring so much about Clinton's mistreatment of women, thus the genesis of the name: It was time to move on.That same year, the crusading feminist Gloria Steinem, known for her support of alleged victims like Anita Hill and the , for&nbsp;The New York Times&nbsp;in support of Clinton, even "if all the sexual...

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@reason senior editor. 2016 @forbes 30 Under 30 list. Author of "Panic Attack: Young Radicals in the Age of Trump." Available now: http://bit.ly/2t6lO23

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Reason is an American libertarian monthly magazine published by the Reason Foundation. The magazine has a circulation of around 50,000 and was named one of the 50 best magazines in 2003 and 2004 by the Chicago Tribune. Reason was founded in 1968 by Lanny Friedlander (1947–2011), a student at Boston University, as a more-or-less monthly mimeographed publication. In 1970 it was purchased by Robert W. Poole Jr., Manuel S. Klausner, and Tibor R. Machan, who set it on a more regular publishing schedule.

Joe Biden Leads Democrats Back to the Norm of Ignoring Inconvenient #MeToo Accusations

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