I am so, so stupid.
I really believed we were better. We watched time and time again, when Republicans faced charges of sexual harassment or worse, the horrible tactics used by the right against the accusers. Dig into the accuser’s past — en masse! - to try to find anything you can to disqualify her, so that they didn’t have to reject One Of Their Own.
- Did she ever work for a liberal news source? If so, she’s a liar, because they lie, and so everything she says is a lie, including this!
- Has she done anything at all sexual? Slut shame her! Make it out so that she was encouraging all sexual activity in her direction, and then only after the fact decided to pretend to be upset by it!
- Why did she wait until NOW to report, huh? Huh???
- Did she ever spend time near her accuser? Wow, a photo where she’s smiling her him — the money shot! LIAR! She couldn’t have actually been upset if she managed to smile for a photo!
- Are left-wing bloggers promoting the heck out of it? Did — heaven forbid — one of them find out that it was about to be published early? LEFT WING SMEAR CAMPAIGN!
- “I’ve actually been ((assaulted / raped / insert-action-here)), and I think she’s a liar, and I’m allowed to say that because of my past!”
Whatever it takes. As disgusting as it was to watch, it was always heartening to watch the righteous condemnation on our side. Never taking the tack of “we’re doing this because they’re Republicans”, but because we recognize that the above behaviors are disgusting and an integral part of rape culture that lets abusers get away with their actions, because people like the abuser.
- We — unlike the right — know that anyone can be abused, left or right, by someone on the left or right. We can put aside our partisan filters — just because a reporter works for a liberal magazine or news source doesn’t mean that their accusation against someone on the right is fake. A person’s ideology doesn’t matter; anyone can be a victim.
- We — unlike the right — don’t slut shame. EVER. It’s beyond the pale. We don’t try to dig up a person’s past. We don’t bandy about pictures and videos of them doing things sexual with others to try to make it look like they brought it on themselves. NEVER.
- We — unlike the right — realize that most people don’t report. That they tend to keep these things to themselves, unless a confluence of factors makes them think, “I have to. I just have to.” Nobody should ever be shamed for their timing — we get that!
- We — unlike the right — understand how it’s hard to come to terms with unwanted sexual activity. How much victims usually try to put on a happy face and act like nothing is wrong. How they often blame themselves, not their abuser. We never, ever would pull such a scummy tactic of “look — the two were near each other without the victim being in tears!” tactics.
We’re not like that.
We’d never do that.
We’d…
…
sigh.
Rec list after rec list. Every disgusting tactic where I thought we were better then them… displayed in all its gory detail from people I thought were better than that. People I actually thought could put partisanship aside. People I never would have believed would reflexively defend a man because he’s “one of ours”.
Every time I see this, it just kills me inside. I don’t want to believe what I’m seeing… that this is who we are here. But it clearly is.
I just… can’t. I can’t do this anymore, just sit here and watch this.
This isn’t GBCW. But my heart is broken by watching what’s happen here. And I need to step away for a little while and take stock of what I’ve seen.
I’m so sorry.