A long-held progressive belief now breaking the surface and gaining acceptance.
As a front-page article in the New York Times this week illustrated, not even a left-wing icon such as Sanders is going to be given a pass for the culture of sexism that apparently pervaded his campaign. Sanders wasn’t accused of any personal misbehavior, but his reactions to the numerous incidences of sexual harassment, demeaning treatment of women, and gender-pay disparity in his campaign, as detailed by the Times, seemed very familiar to those who have been following the way large cultural institutions have dealt with #MeToo allegations.
As far as Sanders was concerned, poor "human resources" work was to blame. He offered the obligatory, unconvincing non-apology apology "to any woman who felt she was not treated appropriately" and promised to "do better the next time," but nevertheless claimed he should not be held responsible because he "was a little bit busy running around the country" while his campaign was devolving into a hotbed of malfeasance.
Sanders acted, in other words, as if the investigation of his last campaign were irrelevant to the question of whether he should run another one in 2020 ‐ a distraction from the Democrats’ singular focus on "resisting" President Donald Trump. But if he thinks this isn’t a serious obstacle to winning the nomination he came so close to securing in 2016 the next time around, he hasn’t been paying attention to what’s been going on in the country in the 15 months since the #MeToo movement began.
The same can be said for Joe Biden as he also ponders whether to enter the 2020 race. The increased focus on Biden’s role in the confirmation of Justice Clarence Thomas after charges of attempted sexual assault were made against Justice Brett Kavanaugh last fall should weigh on Democrats’ minds as they decide whether the former senator and vice president should be their party’s standard-bearer next year.
