Category: Me Too

No matter which side of the aisle you lean on, it’s suspicious timing for the Democrats to drop 11th hour sexual assault allegations like this. That being said, I’d like to point out that Senator McConnell is now very much reaping what he has sown. Merrick Garland wasn’t even given so much as a meeting for 10 months. If they had been in as much of a hurry to fill a Supreme Court vacancy back then, we wouldn’t be watching this trainwreck unfolding before our eyes.

I remember the Clarence Thomas confirmation hearings back in 1991, and I can tell you that little has changed since then. Now I know what you’re thinking dear non-existent reader, “but Jaime Christ, we didn’t have a Me Too movement back then”. While that is true, I’d argue that such a point is moot. Considering that Judge Kavanaugh is still likely to be confirmed this Friday, and old white guys still appear to have the same mindset as they did 27 years ago… ¯\_(ツ)_/¯.

Okay, that’s not exactly honest. There is one difference that I would like to point out. His defenders it seems, rather than accuse Kavanaugh’s accusers of lying, or just going the easier route of claiming not to believe their stories, have chosen an even more heinous defense. I’ll dub it the “If True” defense. Basically, it is an attempt to minimize the alleged attacks, and it goes something along these lines: If these allegations are true, it still doesn’t fucking matter.

But rather than launch into a lengthy explanation, let’s go straight to the source. This is Kevin Cramer, Republican Rep. from N.D., who’s comments encapsulate the “If True” defense quite perfectly:

“These are teenagers who evidently were drunk, according to her own statement. They were drunk. Nothing evidently happened in it all, even by her own accusation. Again, it was supposedly an attempt or something that never went anywhere”

First, he’s making the defense that all involved were drunk teenagers, (even though Blasey claims to have had only 1 beer that evening), and we all know that teenagers can’t hold their liquor and therefore cannot be held responsible for their actions while under the influence. As if that wasn’t enough, he also attempts to minimize the attack by calling it an attempt that never went anywhere. He’s actually stating a position that since they were drunk minors, and no penile penetration occurred in any of the victim’s orifices, that none of it really matters and we should all just move along and let Kavanaugh ascend to the highest court in the land, posthaste.

Then there was our illustrious Commander in Chief, with his patently thoughtless and ill informed opinions, when he assured the American people that if it were a real assault someone would have called the police already. Never mind that an estimated 80% of all rapes go unreported. Even more entertaining was Brett’s buddy Ed Whelan who spun a wild yarn on twitter. He used Google Maps and Zillow of all things to push a crazy theory that the actual offender was a Brett Kavanaugh look-alike. He then proceeded to post the name of the aforementioned look-alike along with his photo, and publicly accused a private citizen of rape.

The best defense though was Kavanaugh’s own when he gave an interview on Fox News, seated next to his supportive and loving wife, and commenced to deny, deny, deny! During those denials, he made the not so dubious claim that he was a virgin during his high school career, and remained a virgin for some number of years thereafter. It’s an admission that none of us were even remotely curious about to be sure, however it would not have precluded him from making any, eh-hem… failed attempts at rape. Having never succeeded at doing the deed during that period of time, by force or otherwise, is not a valid defense.

All of this is to say that despite the Me Too movement, despite the precipitous fall from grace of the once mighty Kevin Spacey’s and Harvey Weinstein’s of the world, and despite seeing the man formerly known as America’s Father get carted off to jail in cuffs this week, history will almost assuredly repeat itself.