When asked about the sexual assault allegations leveled against him by a former staffer, Joe Biden offered what seemed like a reasonable compromise: Those who disbelieve Tara Reade should vote for him, and those who do believe her should not.
“I think they should vote their heart,” he told MSNBC on Thursday. “And if they believe Tara Reade, they probably shouldn’t vote for me. I wouldn’t vote for me if I believed Tara Reade.”
At first glance, Biden’s solution, to what has become a very complicated series of back-and-forths, seems fair. He isn’t pressuring Democratic voters to vote for him if they have concerns, nor is he scolding them for “throwing away their votes” or “enabling President Trump” — two criticisms I’ve seen from plenty of Democrats and Never Trump types over the past couple of weeks.
But Biden’s proposition doesn’t address the key problem, which is that the Democratic establishment plans to make him the party’s nominee, despite the fact that he has been accused of a gross wrongdoing. This problem is made even worse by the fact that Reade’s allegation has been independently corroborated by at least four sources and contemporaneously by a recent court document and a television clip from the 1990s. There is clearly enough substance to warrant an investigation, yet the Democratic National Committee has refused to act.
Biden’s answers also create a problem for his supporters, specifically his female surrogates. At first, Biden’s advocates were able to defend their continued support of the former vice president by arguing that they would like to see more information, or they would like to wait for additional evidence before making a final determination. Now they have no choice but to choose: They must either believe Biden and vote for him or disbelieve him and look elsewhere. (Granted, many of Biden’s female supporters have already chosen that latter route, and it doesn’t seem to have bothered them.)
Voters absolutely have the right to weigh in on the allegations made against Biden. But the Democratic Party also has a responsibility to make sure its candidate is worthy of those voters in the first place. And it will have an increasingly difficult time making that case to its voters if evidence supporting Reade continues to emerge.
