OPINION: This article contains commentary which reflects the author's opinion
Things are about to get real ugly for former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic nominee for President of the United States.
His sexual assault accuser Tara Reade has hinted that she may be coming out of the shadows and speaking at the Republican National Convention next week, Fox News reported.
Tara Reade, who rocked the presidential primary race early this year with sexual assault allegations against Joe Biden before her story faded from the headlines in the face of adamant denials, voiced disappointment in the Democratic Party’s handling of claims from her and other survivors as its convention draws to a close.
As the former vice president prepares to formally accept the Democratic nomination Thursday night, Reade discussed her thoughts on the convention program, her experience since coming forward with allegations and more in an interview with Fox News. She said witnessing figures celebrate the man she claims sexually assaulted her has been “traumatizing.”
And she said the party has been “complicit” in what she described as “gaslighting” survivors.
“I’ve communicated with other people who are watching this who had very visceral reactions to what’s happening and how sexual assault survivors. … We’re being gaslighted, right, collectively,” the alleged victim said in an interview with Fox News. “They’re pretending that they’re the upholders of the ‘Me Too’ like a shield but meanwhile, some of their main Democratic elites, some of the main powerful people involved with the party are actually perpetrators themselves. And it’s this denial, collective denial and gaslighting of survivors, that’s been so concerning to me.
“And frankly, I think the Democratic National Committee is complicit because they’re not just ignoring it. They’re participating in it … and enabling those perpetrators,” Reade said.
She said that the inclusion of former President Bill Clinton, who has been accused of rape, as a speaker at the Democratic convention was “pretty unconscionable” and a “slap in the face to survivors.”
“I’m a sexual assault survivor, so to me, what the speaker lineup showed is kind of like a thumb in all of our faces. It was … really disappointing,” she said. “Rape culture in the United States is thriving under the Democratic Party. I feel that they are not only enabling but they are allowing that behavior to continue just by virtue of who they lined up as speakers who have credible sexual assault and harassment allegations against them and I feel like there’s an abandonment of the voices that are trying to be heard that really wanted systemic change.”
Her inclusion as speaker at the Republican convention would be like a nuclear bomb in the face of the Biden campaign.
Biden and his campaign have strongly denied Reade’s claims of sexual assault by the former vice president.
“They aren’t true. This never happened,” he said in a statement in May.
“While the details of these allegations of sexual harassment and sexual assault are complicated, two things are not complicated. One is that women deserve to be treated with dignity and respect, and when they step forward they should be heard, not silenced. The second is that their stories should be subject to appropriate inquiry and scrutiny,” he said.
If she is given the national spotlight next week she is going to get that scrutiny. She has shown she can handle it. Can he?