The Kavanaugh Circus Could Destroy The "Me Too" Movement

Source: ZeroHedge

Authored by Alexandra Desanctis via NationalReview.com,

These are salacious claims launched without verification and wielded by those with no interest in the truth...

".....Meanwhile, Hawaii senator Mazie Hirono has advanced the extremely dangerous notion that it doesn’t matter whether Kavanaugh committed misconduct or not.  Last week, she insisted that “not only do women like Dr. Ford . . . need to be heard, but they need to be believed” and that all men need to “just shut up and step up.”  And when CNN’s Jake Tapper asked Hirono Sunday whether Kavanaugh has “the same presumption of innocence as anyone else in America,” the Democratic senator replied, “I put his denial in the context of everything that I know about him in terms of how he approaches his cases.”

With this answer, Hirono - who casts herself as one of our government’s foremost opponents of sexual abuse - dealt a significant blow to the seriousness of the Me Too movement.  If it doesn’t actually matter whether alleged abusers actually abused anyone, and it’s just a question of partisanship, why should Americans listen to the stories of victims at all?  Just decide whether or not you like the politics of the person being accused, and that’s that.

The idea that we must “believe all women” is similarly reckless, and left-wing activists and abortion-rights groups are pushing it nearly nonstop.  Far from being a way to support women, this argument means that the truth of an allegation matters not at all, a terrible development for real victims of assault — not to mention for men falsely accused.

All of this will add up to the average person, who naturally wants justice for survivors, being less inclined to take sexual-abuse allegations seriously, the exact opposite of what the Me Too movement has promised and until now largely delivered. Because these accusations against Kavanaugh have so clearly been weaponized as a partisan tool, it only makes sense that onlookers will dismiss stories presented by biased politicians or shoddy reporting.

When people become numb to outrageous claims launched without verification and wielded by those with no interest in the truth, they will close their eyes to real instances of abuse.  This debacle is teaching onlookers to take the stories of victims with a grain of salt. How can the average person be expected to care about seeking justice when so many in the public square seem to care more about advancing an agenda than about discerning who has actually been mistreated or abused?

The Me Too movement has gained immense influence over the last year precisely because it has encouraged us to acknowledge the reality of sexual abuse and follow the truth wherever it leads. Now, the question of whether the accusations against Kavanaugh are true has been subjugated to a political endgame.  That promises to destroy the cultural power of the Me Too movement. ....."

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-09-26/kavanaugh-circus-could-destroy-me-too-movement