The problems for Next Time… and maybe even this time
Put aside the details, put aside the specifics… and I’m left with these…
(1) 11th Hour Revelations are things that ought be avoided if possible. And maybe if you wind this back, Dianne Feinstein played it as well as she could have — in part because the Republicans aren’t necessarily playing in good faith, but you can’t blame the immediate “Are you kidding me?” cry of “bad faith”.
As it continues, 11th hour accusations and October Surprises proliferate and bring about some diminishing returns. (Meehaps an example is Trump 2016?)
(2) I’ve seen that statistic. 94 percent. I don’t know what it means, as at some point a judgement call needs to be made, but 94 percent of sexual assault (or maybe it’s rape?) allegations prove to be true. That stat is thrown out to counter the calls for “due process” and in arguing for levels of evidence required to convict someone. And sure. But if you want to lower the percentage — if by a statistically insignificant sum — what you do is set up the political process where an allegation under a “Believe All Women / Victims” chant — sinks an unwelcome career — to sink political directions… because the stakes are high enough to pull it in.
(3) I don’t really know how you thread this needle in posting up high school and college indiscretions as both evidence of lying under oath on ancillary matters and showing the culture where the crime could happen, but this is creating a spot where non political people moving in and out of the story can say “We’re battling high school drinking habits and adolescent humor?” Different definitions of “identity politics” brings you to “Can you survive that scrutiny?” and “I’d have to justify something there?” (I can easily explain some comments left in my high school yearbook, but I wouldn’t want to.) Again, we’re ignoring this specific case and I’m wanting to lay out the precedent of the problems of this trial as you move forward to the next trial.
(4) The rules of moral panics… even moral panics that start from points of legitimate concerns of immorality … gives as that third “gang rape party” allegation the spectre of Michael Avenatti. The story falls apart on impact, and with the initial “Not … helping” from leading Democrats validated, even as it moved to tepid forms of support (Dick Durbin jumping in that “she put her neck on the line”) and movement into discourse — corroborated as it were by John Hughes movies of the 1980s — and casually sliding in as points of fact in various think editorials. So it becomes a line of incredulity for the Republican Senators on the Judiciary Committee and Donald Trump himself — defacto evidence against the initial “was credible” accuser. It’s an unwanted distraction, and easily viewed as such from the get-go … and yet, you’re having to weed it away.
Satanic Ritual Abuse, shades of.