简体中文
**Editor's note: **Bradley Blankenship is a Prague-based American journalist, political analyst and freelance reporter. He has been featured on Press TV, Russia Today and Radio Sputnik. The article reflects the author's opinions, not necessarily the views of CGTN.
U.S. President Donald Trump is no stranger to fanning the flames of violence, often racially or otherwise discriminatorily motivated, for his own political gains. His words have led to violence against America's most vulnerable and motivated white supremacist terrorism, which has now become a top FBI priority.
With his fascist-esque appeal to an idealized past ("Make America Great Again"), Trump has reversed course for much of the societal gains of inclusion over the past several decades.
His opponents, namely the presumptive Democratic nominee for president, Joe Biden, along with his supporters, have also shown in this election cycle that the other side of the coin is equally backward. Whenever Trump has stooped to new lows, Biden has shown a complete willingness to go lower.
For example, Trump launched an attack in April titled "Biden stands up for China" that attempted to tie Joe Biden to China, seeming to label the former vice president as a foreign agent working for China to harm the American people.
A little over a week later, a pro-Trump Super PAC followed with a "#BeijingBiden" ad and proclaimed "Stop China, Stop Biden." A new round of these ads was just rolled out on Friday in key battleground states, ensuring that this issue will be pivotal leading up to November.
How did Biden's camp respond to these claims? In mid-April, the Biden campaign launched an ad against Trump saying: "When Trump rolled over for the Chinese, he took their word for it. Trump praised the Chinese 15 times in January and February as the coronavirus spread across the world."
The ad also slammed Trump for allegedly letting in 40,000 travelers from China into the U.S., somehow managing to project himself as more xenophobic than Trump.
In buying into the basic presumption that China caused America's failed response to a global pandemic, Biden has now allowed Trump and Republicans to shift anti-Chinese sentiment to the new normal, replacing Islam as the new scapegoat.
The Democratic establishment convinced Democratic voters that Biden, with a nearly half-century record in public life with a track record proving the total opposite, is the most fit to beat Trump while also being a safe bet on social issues. Biden himself, tossing a bone to the ultra-woke Twitter warriors in the Democratic Party, proudly proclaimed that he would pick a woman running mate.
Biden, the feminist champion and Me Too ally, is facing yet another allegation of inappropriate contact with a woman, this time a credible and well-corroborated allegation of sexual harassment and sexual assault against one of his former senate aides. He unequivocally denied the allegation on MSNBC's Morning Joe on Friday, his 16th public appearance since the allegations became public.
Since coming forward, his accuser, Tara Reade, has faced an absolutely staggering amount of vitriol, hatred, and threats from Biden supporters, along with being misrepresented by the press.
As Rolling Stone's Katie Halper, who first interviewed Reade about her allegations, tweeted:
"Tara Reade has had her real social security number, fake websites fake social media accounts real photos, addresses numbers of her family members posted. She's received death threats, she's been falsely accused of being a Trump supporter…"
Reade has said previously that she fears talking to large media outlets in fear for her and her family's safety. She canceled an interview scheduled to take place on Sunday with Chris Wallace of Fox News due to a wave of death threats, she said.
Along with vitriol from supporters, there is also the issue of fair media representation of her allegations.
Greg Froehlinch and his wife Deb of Steubenville, Pa., take advantage of early voting, Sunday, March 15, 2020, in Steubenville, Ohio. /AP
The New York Times first broke the mainstream media's silence on April 12, all but insinuating that she was lying with the line: "Filing a false police report may be punishable by a fine and imprisonment." The Times' Editorial Board on Friday called for a full and transparent investigation into the allegations after facing criticism over their handling of the story.
Reade also claimed that media outlets have misrepresented her quotes. On Saturday, the Associated Press ran a story with the headline "Tara Reade says a Senate report she filed against Joe Biden didn't refer to sexual harassment or assault," which Reade claims is false.
Journalists who have reported on the allegations in a fair manner have been threatened and attacked by the pro-Biden camp up to and including official surrogates.
MSNBC's Chris Hayes was the first on his network to address Reade's claims and was harassed on Twitter by pro-Biden accounts, so much so that the hashtag #FireChrisHayes was trending.
One Biden surrogate, Lindy Li, in a now deleted tweet, called for Current Affairs editor Nathan J. Robinson to be criminally investigated alongside Rolling Stone's Katie Halper and the Intercept's Ryan Grim for reporting on the allegations.
Critics have rightly pointed out the hypocrisy from the Me Too camp, where allegations by women should be taken seriously unless they involve a powerful liberal establishment candidate.
Perhaps the death of the Me Too movement, caused by Biden and his supporters, can be best embodied by the bastardization of "I Believe Women" into "I Believe Biden".
But, let's be very clear: Despite these credible allegations against Joe Biden, and surely more are yet to come now that the floodgate is open, Donald Trump is not only no saint on the issue of women, he himself is faced with a litany of allegations.
The only difference in these cases is that liberals at least pretend to care, and Trump and his Trump's supporters don't and never did. But now, the difference in the tactics between the two camps is indistinguishable. If this is brought up during the heat of the general election, and it will be, expect a serious amount of mud on both sides.
Sadly, American voters will likely be faced with deciding between two old powerful white men with credible sexual assault allegations that both politically weaponize xenophobia. So for 2020, there is no moral decision to be had in this election, and those that believe in "the lesser of two evils" should come to terms with the fact that it's not less evil anymore, it's just plain evil.
(If you want to contribute and have specific expertise, please contact us at [email protected].)
