Are 11th hour #metoo accusations going to become a regular thing (like for Kavanaugh)? I predict we will see many, against multiple candidates, right before the midterms. What do you think?
I certainly imagine that victims, seeing the people who assaulted them attempting to rise to (or retain) a position of public power, might be inspired to let the public know about those assaults, bolstered by the fact that in 2018 at least some portion of the population might take accusations seriously (ie, in the context of #metoo).
If so, it’ll likely be concentrated against candidates who were, in fact, assholes as younger people.
Accusations of sexual impropriety are as old as the Romans. As is the strategic release of damaging information.Happened before #metoo and will happen long after Weinstein, Kavanaugh etc are dead and forgotten.
The interesting thing will be 20 years from now. When people with Twitter, Instagram and FB pages as youngsters start getting into positions of power.
I suspect that a lot of people who know they got away with some crime will now hesitate to seek a high-ranking position for fear that their past crimes will be exposed. Which is a good thing because generally people like that shouldn’t hold high-ranking positions.
And are still, in fact, assholes. For the most part, getting older does not lead assholes to become otherwise.
p.s. I will once again post my objection to using the term “asshole” as a pejorative, even though I have followed this habit myself and there is no real hope of any change. However, assholes are very useful organs and for some of us have taken on additional positive meaning.
Doubtful. Long term, power and money will defeat just and proper everytime. They’ll simply figure out new ways to protect themselves and deal with complaints.
I think some of these people previously just asked for hush money?
Do you think the individual who has a high motivation to strive for high office or leadership positions might, by definition, be a man who would think he’s entitled to do as he pleases?
Not entitled as much as willing to take risks and break boundaries.
Yes, I agree.
I think that if we create an environment where victims of sexual assault are not pilloried for coming forward, then yes, we will see more accusations. I think this is why the conservative movement is so intent on destroying women who come forward, to intimidate and control women.
While this is a different type of “11th hour” from the OP, it does illustrate that the liberal/conservative thing is a bit overstated.
With just two days to go before the statute of limitations was to expire, Paula Jones filed a lawsuit against Pres. Clinton. All of her legal actions were immensely aided by conservative people.
There are general differences between the two sides on such matters. E.g., Al Franken resigning vs. a lot of GOP folk still in office (esp. Trump). But there can be “last minute” accusations against liberals as well.
I saw a headline: Republican Women; "What teenage boy didn’t do that?"
I thought, “What kind of beasts did those GOP women date? I was a teenage boy, just as horny as the rest, and I never tried to tear off any girl’s clothes or put a hand over her mouth to stop the screaming.”
John Oliver just did a segment on Kavanaugh (not officially online yet) where he happened to have done an old interview with Anita Hill way before any of this controversy, that was sadly on topic.
Oliver asked Anita Hill if she thought this could happen to anyone else in the future. Anita Hill said that she thought that things have come a long way, and that it wouldn’t happen because people doing this kind of behavior would be taken out during the vetting process.
Anita Hill must be horrified with how little progress has been made.
To the OP, I hope that 11th hour allegations continue to happen for people who are not vetted thoroughly enough not to have these allegations be necessary. If the candidate is thoroughly vetted with full information, the accuser can be interviewed by the FBI and the candidate can be pulled or the allegation can be explained away without there being a public spectacle.
Since not every candidate since Clarence Thomas has had this happen, I don’t think all candidates are equally likely to have this happen.
Republican men are waiting for this inconvenient wave of women empowerment to blow over. The GOP is increasingly a party of aggrieved white men.
They will continue to happen as long as we live in a society where victims get punished for coming forward. As long as that is the case, there will always be women who choose not to face that punishment until something worse is about to happen.
And, yes, we are in a society where women are punished for coming forward.
But the issue is what do these men want to do when they feel they have the power to do whatever they want?
Most men don’t want to feel like they have to force a woman to have sex with them. They’d prefer to think that thousands of women want them and will happily agree to have sex with them. Men like this might feel entitled to have sex with dozens of women but they would never try to rape a woman.
Rapists are a different type; they desire sex with women but they have too much self-loathing to believe women want to have sex with them. So their sexual fantasies involve situations where they can force unwilling women to have sex with them.
The problem with using sexual-assault accusations (whether true or false) as some kind of a political weapon (as opposed to justice for justice’s sake) is that the use of a weapon, by nature, invites the opposing side to do the same. And if Democrats use truthful sexual-assault accusations against Republicans for the sake of political gain, there’s little incentive for Republicans to not use false sexual-assault accusations against Democrats in the future. When or if that day happens, there will be have to be a movement that will arise to say, “We cannot take all accusations at face value.”
I often agree with your posts, so this one comes as a surprise. Would you please provide cites for these claims? Thanks.