You Can’t Let Your Politics Dictate Who You Believe

At least not when it comes to sexual assault.

Karen Banes
4 min readAug 27, 2021

Recently I started reading a political Facebook thread. No, I don’t know why either. They are simultaneously depressing enough to make me wail out loud and annoying enough to keep me up all night.

This one involved a Republican and a Democrat fighting over who is the sexual assailant, Donald Trump, or Bill Clinton. I’m sure it won’t surprise you to know that the Democrat was convinced that Trump was a sexual assailant, and the Republican knew for a fact that Clinton was.

The thread grew to several Democrats and Republicans fighting in teams, but the argument itself remained unchanged. The Republicans knew that Donald Trump had never sexually assaulted anyone, ever, in his whole life. And the Democrats knew that the exact same thing was true of Clinton.

I should perhaps point out that I am not a Democrat or a Republican, because I am not an American, and do not have either the right or the responsibility to vote in US elections.

This is not a commentary on politics per se. It’s a commentary on how our beliefs and values (in this case political) can drive every smidgen of logic from our brains. What we believe about politics dictates what we believe about individuals, and how…

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Karen Banes

Freelance writer sharing thoughts on life, society, creativity, and productivity. https://changetheworldwithwords.substack.com