A July 9, 2020 examination of the contrasting responses to allegations involving Brett Kavanaugh and Joe Biden, the political role of feminist groups, CNN polling, black voter support, Trump rallies, and the prospects for Donald Trump’s reelection.

July 9, 2020
The Political Double Standard Exposed by the Kavanaugh Hearings: Feminism, the Biden Allegation, Opinion Polls, and Trump’s Reelection
The following is a continuation of the preceding chapter.
This text is taken from an article by Soju Watanabe published in the monthly magazine WiLL under the title “Trump’s Enemies: Their Appalling True Faces.”
Soju Watanabe is one of the world’s leading researchers of modern and contemporary Japanese–American history.
This article should be read not only by the Japanese people but also by people throughout the world.
It presents important arguments concerning American politics and the major media that people relying solely on news programs produced by NHK or newspapers such as the Asahi Shimbun would never be able to learn.
In the preceding chapters, Watanabe identified several “monsters” confronted by President Trump, including the neoconservative establishment, the Deep State and the major media, and the Democratic Party’s money-driven political class.
The fourth monster discussed here consists of feminist organizations that, in Watanabe’s view, supported the Democratic Party’s interest-group politics.
It is, of course, important to protect women’s rights and to listen seriously to women who report sexual violence.
However, allegations must not be treated differently according to the political affiliation or position of the person being accused.
If allegations against a Republican are reported intensively before they have been adequately substantiated, while allegations against a Democratic presidential candidate receive little attention despite the existence of witnesses or surrounding circumstances, such a difference represents a political double standard.
This article compares the 2018 confirmation hearings for Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh with the allegation made against Joe Biden in 2020 and examines the conduct of the Democratic Party, feminist organizations, and the major media.
The reference to the “Haiten office” in the original Japanese text was an obvious contextual error and has been corrected to the “Biden office.”
The Strong Possibility of Reelection Remained Unshaken
The fourth monster was the feminist movement that symbolized the Democratic Party’s interest-group politics.
In the summer of 2018, the Senate considered President Trump’s nomination of Brett Kavanaugh to the United States Supreme Court.
The Democratic Party placed at the center of the confirmation process an allegation by a woman who said that Kavanaugh had assaulted her while they were in high school in the early 1980s.
Watanabe argued that the political purpose was to defeat the nomination of Kavanaugh, who held a conservative position on abortion, and to appeal to feminist organizations.
Democrats maintained that the woman’s allegation should be believed even though the precise date and location of the alleged incident had not been established.
Watanabe argued that no witness appeared who could substantiate the allegation.
Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court was ultimately confirmed by the Senate.
President Trump consistently defended him while the allegation received intensive media coverage.
In March 2020, however, a woman came forward alleging that Joe Biden had assaulted her.
According to Watanabe, she had worked in Biden’s Senate office and several people knew about circumstances surrounding her departure following the alleged 1993 incident.
Nevertheless, many feminist organizations and major media outlets that had emphasized the allegation against Kavanaugh did not treat the allegation against Biden with the same intensity.
Watanabe argued that this exposed the political double standard of the feminist movement.
The truth or falsity of an allegation cannot be determined according to whether the accused is a Republican or a Democrat.
Each allegation must be carefully examined under the same standards, including the specificity of the testimony, surrounding evidence, witnesses, and contemporary records.
To demand that the public “believe women” in the Kavanaugh case while remaining silent about an allegation involving Biden does not protect the dignity of women.
It selects women’s allegations according to their political usefulness.
Watanabe argued that, for the Democratic Party to win the presidential election, it needed to satisfy at least one of two conditions.
The first was a split within the Republican Party.
However, Republican voters overwhelmingly supported President Trump at the time, making a major party division unlikely.
The second was to obtain an overwhelming share of the black vote.
Only a small percentage of black voters supported candidate Trump in the 2016 election.
By 2020, however, several prominent black Americans had publicly expressed support for Trump, and some polls suggested that his support among black voters had increased since the previous election.
Economic results such as job creation, lower unemployment, and rising incomes appeared to be receiving recognition from at least part of the black electorate.
Against this background, CNN, which had consistently reported critically on Trump, published a poll on June 8, 2020, showing Biden leading Trump by fourteen percentage points.
President Trump strongly protested that the figure did not reflect political reality and demanded an apology and correction from CNN on June 10.
Watanabe suggested that the final “monster” to be defeated might be polling organizations that repeatedly produced results favorable to the Democratic Party.
Opinion polling is an important instrument for measuring voter attitudes.
However, the results can change substantially depending on the selection of respondents, the proportions of Republican and Democratic voters, the wording of questions, and the method used to identify likely voters.
If a poll is used not to measure political reality but to create the impression that one candidate is overwhelmingly ahead and thereby influence voter motivation, it ceases to be neutral research and becomes political information management.
President Trump’s nationwide campaign rallies, which had been suspended following the spread of the novel coronavirus, were also scheduled to resume.
According to the Trump campaign, more than one million requests for admission were submitted for the first rally in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
The major media strongly criticized the resumption of the rallies because of the risk of coronavirus transmission.
Watanabe argued, however, that their deeper concern was that the silent majority supporting Trump would appear publicly and expose the difference between Trump and Biden, who had conducted almost no comparable campaign rallies.
Enormous crowds and enthusiastic support for President Trump could reveal a political reality very different from the figures presented in media opinion polls.
The American stock market, which had fallen sharply following the spread of the coronavirus, was also showing signs of recovery.
If economic activity, employment, and stock prices recovered, the economic record that had been one of President Trump’s principal achievements would once again become a central election issue.
Watanabe concluded that, despite efforts by the Democratic Party, the major media, feminist organizations, and polling companies to create an anti-Trump political atmosphere, the possibility of President Trump’s reelection remained high.
The election would not be decided by figures displayed on CNN.
Nor would it be decided by allegations selectively promoted by political organizations.
It would be decided by ordinary voters living and working throughout the United States and attempting to protect their families and communities.
The judgment made at the ballot box by the silent majority, whose existence the major media rarely acknowledged, would be the decisive factor in the 2020 presidential election.