my goodness, not Tara Reade again
Here's how it works: and apologies for the length but this kind of gets to the heart of the political dysfunction of our moment.
--Yes, Democrats care about sexual assault. A lot. See generally: #MeToo movement.
--But the Right doesn't. At all. See generally: Backlash to #MeToo.
In this case: If there were more of an appetite on the Right for holding former President Trump accountable for the two-dozen plus sexual assault claims against him -- or for anything at all, frankly -- then Democrats would be a lot more willing to do the same.
However, Dems are not going to toss out their nominee for President over a single claim of sexual assault which she didn't even bring forward until after the Democratic primary was already done and dusted. Tara Reade came forward within a week or two of Biden becoming the nominee. So that claim was suspiciously timed to knife the Democratic nominee in the back while depriving Democratic primary voters of the ability to allow that information to frame their choice.
This means we ultimately had two accused sexual assaulters running for President in '20 against one another for the first time ever in our history, to my knowledge.
When you really drill down on it, there were several good reasons to doubt Tara Reade's credibility, and even if you take her story as true (#BelieveAllWomen!), the number and severity of the sexual assault allegations against Trump were worse by far.
But voters are not terribly great at assessing complicated claims of a scandalous nature. If Tara Reade had gotten blanket coverage, then voters would have been left with the erroneous impression that Biden was worse than Trump.
So, under these circumstances, the mainstream media's decision not to give much coverage the Tara Reade claims was correct. Of course, right wing media ran with it and had a field day for as long as they wanted while ignoring the two-dozen equivalent claims against Trump.