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If we're doing electoral politics culture war, how about the news out of Ohio?
For those not paying too much attention there's a fairly competitive race going on for Ohio governor between Democrat Amy Acton and Republican Vivek Ramaswamy. On Twitter yesterday Walter Curt, whose biography describes him as the State Director of the Conservative Caucus of Ohio, posted this video. The video features one Donna Arthur, Amy Acton's mother, who says the following:
That's a pretty powerful ad! Getting a candidate's mother to come out against them like that. Acton's campaign had their own response prepared, of course.
Those are some pretty explosive allegations! Perhaps Acton's mother's opinions are not very reliable if Acton was removed from her custody at age 12 and Donna chose her rapist husband over her daughter. As best I can tell, the allegations are true. National Review alleges to have reviewed documents showing one Cledith Arthur was charged with having sexual contact with Acton while married to Donna. Donna has her own criminal history as well, with a conviction for theft by deception and accusations of animal abuse. Interestingly the Huffington Post dug up another 2020 interview with Donna from Operation Rescue. According to that interview:
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It seems to be Donna's own testimony that her husband was arrested for sexual abuse of Action and Donna and her husband skipped town while on bond to avoid any kind of trial.
Journalists naturally reached out to Ramaswamy's campaign for comment, and they said:
On the one hand, it's hard for me to see how one goes forward with the ad above knowing the full story. If the question is to be one of credibility I am not sure I trust Acton's mother, whom she has not spoken with for almost 50 years and who chose her rapist husband over Acton, above Acton herself. Especially if she has her own criminal convictions for specifically fraud-adjacent behavior.
On the other hand, how did you not know this information? As best I can tell it took the National Review and Huffington Post less than a day to get their hands on the primary legal documents detailing the dispute. The campaign's own statement references the 2020 interview, in which Donna admits the sexual abuse allegations and discusses their leaving town ahead of a trial. I guess the hope is voters see the ad but don't dig any further into the situation or context?
Ramasawmy just cannot help himself. He's shown time and time again that he's willing to poke the bear in ways that most politicians have the savvy to avoid. Controversy aside, I did not find this ad convincing. My reaction wasn't "Acton must be a real slimeball for her own mother to speak against her!" Instead, it was immediately apparent to me that this was a perennial family conflict that had been weaponized for the sake of the election, and it looks desperate. I'm not one of those "respectability politics" people, but this is a conspicuously low blow.
It doesn't help that Acton's mother doesn't mention what Acton is a liar about. I don't think it would be a very effective ad to say, "My daughter is a liar - she said she was raped when she was twelve, but she wasn't!" It seems Ramaswamy's camp forgot about the Streisand effect: in trying to avoid addressing the allegations they've just made Acton look more sympathetic and strong, especially to her increasingly mobilized Democratic base.
What I have read, though cannot prove, is that the campaign cut the ad but some staffer was aware of the foot-gun potential and prevented them from releasing it as an actual campaign ad. However, someone else in the campaign (potentially Ramaswamy himself) disagreed and leaked it to conservative influencers to post instead. The campaign has now doubled down on it and is allegedly spending some $4 million to promote it ahead of election day.
I think it's intended to refer to Acton's claim to have lived in a tent one winter while in her mother's custody but still not great with the additional context.
This is consistent with my theory, which is that an increasingly large number of young MAGA conservatives (including potential Ramaswamy campaign staffers) think that almost all rape allegations are false, and therefore the relevant decision-maker assumed that Acton's rape allegations were false without checking to see how plausible they were.
This is an even dumber stuck prior to have than assuming they're almost all true.
You're both right. Almost all rape allegations are true. But the ones that filter up to make the national media spotlight are mostly false, or at least complicated. From the holy texts: https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/12/17/the-toxoplasma-of-rage/
Completely ridiculous. I have personally heard multiple BS rape accusations which fell apart as soon as anything serious came of it beyond "look at me, pay attention to me, feel bad for me." There are famous works of art which have stood the test of time for thousands of years because of how common and serious a problem this is (Euripedes). We have thousands of years of laws across the entire world and many cultures and traditions which discount these allegations and require more evidence because of how persistent a problem this is because, if true, the ramifications are severe so they need to be true.
I definitely think it's worth separating formal and informal rape accusations here; I expect the BS ones predictably fall off as the standards of evidence rise, producing very different samples.
I suspect it's likely true formal accusations are more likely to be true than informal ones. I suspect more so that accusations of violent/forcible rape are more likely to be true than non-violent, non-forcible rape.
We going that far or just stopping at formal/informal to defend this bailey 'Almost all [formal] rape allegations are true'?
I still don't think we're even in the same zipcode of an accurate statement, but I would agree it's probably more true than the original which is, to be frank, indefensible.
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No, even with formal accusations, the overwhelming majority (something like 90+%) is inconclusive. There really is no room for him to make such a claim.
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