On Wednesday, The New York Times published a piece written by Linda Hirshman, a lawyer, author, and liberal pundit who is planning to vote for Joe Biden. That itself isn’t all that surprising, but it’s noteworthy because of the circumstances. The article is headlined, “I Believe Tara Reade. I’m Voting for Joe Biden Anyway.”
Think about that for a second. It’s one thing to believe Joe Biden is innocent and vote for him; it’s a whole other situation entirely to believe he’s guilty of sexual assault and to be like “Whatevs, I’m voting for him anyway.” But, alas, that’s exactly what Hirshman says she’ll do:
Discounting Ms. Reade’s accusation and, one after another, denigrating her corroborating witnesses, calling for endless new evidence, avowing that you “hear” her, is nonsense. We are now up to four corroborating witnesses — including one contemporary corroborating witness, unearthed by Rich McHugh, who was Ronan Farrow’s producer at NBC News during the Harvey Weinstein #MeToo reporting — and one “Larry King Live” tape.
So stop playing gotcha with the female supporters of Mr. Biden or the #MeToo movement, making them lie to the camera — or perhaps to themselves — about doubting her to justify their votes.
I’ll take one for the team. I believe Ms. Reade, and I’ll vote for Mr. Biden this fall.
There’s a part of me that does want to give her credit for being honest. Other liberal pundits have desperately tried to convince themselves that Reade’s allegations lack credibility, or even that Christine Blasey Ford’s allegations were more credible! As Hirshman noted, these people are lying to the public and themselves, and they look foolish when they do it.
Still, it’s hard to wrap my head around the fact that this woman believes Tara Reade, but will vote for Biden anyway. See, Hirshman is the author of a book called Reckoning: The Epic Battle Against Sexual Abuse and Harassment, which is described this way:
Linda Hirshman, acclaimed historian of social movements, delivers the sweeping story of the struggle leading up to #MeToo and beyond: from the first tales of workplace harassment percolating to the surface in the 1970s, to the Clinton/Lewinsky scandal—when liberal women largely forgave Clinton, giving men a free pass for two decades. Many liberals even resisted the movement to end rape on campus.
And yet, legal, political, and cultural efforts, often spearheaded by women of color, were quietly paving the way for the takedown of abusers and harassers. Reckoning delivers the stirring tale of a movement catching fire as pioneering women in the media exposed the Harvey Weinsteins of the world, women flooded the political landscape, and the walls of male privilege finally began to crack. This is revelatory, essential social history.
How does Hirshman justify her position? According to her, “Mr. Biden, and the Democrats he may carry with him into government, are likely to do more good for women and the nation than his competition,” though she fails to give specifics. Women have no more been setback under Trump than they were advanced under Obama. In fact, Obama’s insistence to ignore biological and societal norms by forcing schools to allow boys on girls’ sports teams and allowing them to share bathrooms and locker rooms was perhaps the biggest harm done to women in America by the government in our lifetimes.
Hirshman continued, “Compared with the good Mr. Biden can do, the cost of dismissing Tara Reade — and, worse, weakening the voices of future survivors — is worth it.”
Got that? Joe Biden might be a rapist, and electing him can weaken the voices of future survivors of sexual assault, but doggone it, he’d nominate a pro-abortion jurist to the Supreme Court, and that matters above everything else. She didn’t write that specifically, but that’s obviously what she meant.
It’s easy for liberals to put aside their morals for political gain because they have no morals. As much as they claim to be advocates for the average person, minorities, or women, they are really just advocates for their agenda. If they had souls, they’d sell them in a heartbeat to protect their agenda. Trust me, Hirshman isn’t the only one.
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Matt Margolis is the author of Trumping Obama: How President Trump Saved Us From Barack Obama’s Legacy and the bestselling book The Worst President in History: The Legacy of Barack Obama. You can follow Matt on Twitter @MattMargolis
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