First, the accusations are false. (I would think no matter who you support, the world is a better place when someone is actually innocent and not guilty.) Then, they are contained in the fevered swamp of Twitter, which is rife with conspiracy theories and not really representative of reality anyway. Finally, Biden ends up winning the nomination (which he's greatly favored to do right now), and this is only an issue among the small slice of people who are influenced by Twitter.

They're all connected to his campaign, let's not play dumb here. There is plenty of evidence of this being a false allegation.

but is it even an accurate reflection of voters as a whole, or is it a small social media sub-group?

Twitter is mostly a set of small echo chambers where people amplify and reinforce each other's existing beliefs. It's not a good place.

For context, and background, I was a Sanders supporter in 2016, but a Warren supporter this year. In my opinion, this tactic hints of desperation.

One sign of good character, and leadership, is recognizing when it is time to abandon the quest. This story, even if quickly disproven, will stay alive as it is pushed by agenda driven people on social media.

has not FOR THE GOOD OF MANKIND withdrawn and tried to stop the lies about Joe, but I am not at all.

It fits a profile I have mentioned before.

Each hour it continues it hurts our ONLY chance of removing a mass murderer from power.

No one really cares about twitter anyway.

It is a cesspool.

And, we have bigger fish to fry anyway.

I suspect Biden will do fine. I know I plan to crawl over broken glass if necessary to vote a straight blue ticket. And I also know that I'm not alone in that.

The radical end of Bernie supporters (I also like his platform) are that sort of purist socialists who will actually waste their vote on a third party candidate or not vote at all if the candidate's platform isn't exactly right for them.

We see this type of zealotry manifested also in evangelical Protestantism. If you don't say the sinner's prayer and believe the EXACT dogma they believe, why then you're gonna be in that lake of fire with worms that don't die.

We also see zealotry among white supremacists.

And, NO, people, I am NOT comparing Bernie supporters with white supremacists. I'm merely saying that the zealotry of some of his more fervent supporters is similar in nature to the zealotry exhibited by other extreme groups. That's all.

Whatever it is about, zealotry is not a good thing.

But again, cheer up, because the vast majority of people aren't zealots. And most people aren't on twitter much.

From what I've read on Twitter (yes, I know), this accuser is a long-time Bernie supporter and has possible Russian ties. Katie Halper, Shaun King, et al, will stop at nothing to smear Biden. Nothing.

We are in the midst of a pandemic that is going to kill thousands, if not millions of people before it's done. What Team Bernie is doing is really disgusting.

Link to tweet

Tweet from Edward-Isaac Dovere of the Atlantic, April 3 of last year:

Link to tweet

You'll have to click on the link to the Medium blog post in that tweet, not the excerpt, since DU's software breaks it.

But now it will just take you to an error message, since Tara Reade has deleted that page. She obviously knew how damning it was and how suspect it made her claims.


Here's a Twitter thread posted today that has a screen shot of that blog post of Reade's. Thread starts here:

Link to tweet

This is the second tweet in that thread:








Would I ever believe a YUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUGE fan of Putin who's making an unbelievable allegation, decades late, to try to stop the Democratic candidate that Putin and Trump fear the most?

Hell, no. NEVER.

So convince me that effort is not deliberate

If so, I understand. There can be a lot of disingenuous concern trolling in politics.

But I promise that my motive is what I said-- great dismay, bordering on anger, that one campaign has seen fit to accuse another candidate of a serious crime. I figured that this was already all over Twitter, being pushed by prominent people in Sanders's orbit, so my little thread wouldn't make much difference. I purposely didn't link to anything so as not to give them more traffic.

Now, why haven't I come out and said whether I think the accusations are true or false? That's something I agonized over. On the one hand, there are reasons to be skeptical-- among other things, the accuser has changed stories in the last year, and those who are spreading the accusation are all clearly politically motivated and only interested in this so they can go after Biden. On the other-- well, mostly I was afraid of looking like the Republicans who reflexively defend the likes of Brett Kavanaugh.

I don't know if that helps. I'm sorry-- maybe I should delete this whole thing.

Why you brought this here? I’m not sure how anyone could have there own “evolving” evaluation of whether something is true or not, no evidence has been presented. An accusation does not mean anything, ESPECIALLY being generated with the help of an opponents campaign. An opponent who has lost, won’t step aside and goes in the gutter like this smells like desperation. It’s not at all appreciated especially with the likes of that wanna be dictator in OUR White House.

To play political dirty games like this, when you have clearly lost makes me wonder just whose side they are on?

This is a rumor. I had not heard this one yet. So thank you, I guess?

Mostly I was angry that one campaign decided to go nuclear on another.

But you bring up a good point that maybe I should have said what I think about the accusations. As I said in #14, I find myself kind of skeptical because the accuser first made charges against Biden last year that were far less severe, and is only now making these far more serious ones. Also, the person who publicized these, and everyone blasting them out, are clearly only interested in using them to attack Biden, and aren't acting in good faith themselves. On the other hand, as a supporter of MeToo and all that it entails, I find it hard to say I disbelieve someone in this position. And I wanted to be an honest broker, and to caution folks that accusations like this shouldn't be tossed around so lightly, given the possibility that this will only help the orange moron.

Also, "evolving" was a bad choice of words. I just meant that I didn't want to be closed-minded about it.

I'm sorry about the trouble-- do you think I should delete this thread?

Actually, your OP was NOT removed entirely. Anyone who's curious enough can click the Edit history (4) link that's currently part of your recently edited OP, and the previous versions become visible again.

If you truly wanted to get rid of a post that wasn't well-considered (or wasn't well-received) then you should use the "Self-delete" option (located right next to the "Edit post" that you've been using.)

But perhaps it may be useful in its present form pour encourager les autres....





"From Bernie’s perspective, dropping out of a race once you have no chance of winning is peculiar behavior that can only be explained by the work of a hidden hand. For most politicians, though, it is actually standard operating procedure. Only Sanders seems to think the normal thing to do once voters have made clear they don’t want to nominate you is to continue campaigning anyway."





"When things are not called by their right names, what is said cannot make sense. When what is said does not make sense, what is planned cannot succeed. When plans do not succeed, people become uneasy. When people are uneasy, punishments do not fit crimes. When punishments do not fit crimes, people cannot know where to put hand or foot."