Speaking as someone who’s actually been diagnosed with PTSD from sexual assault…
- It’s possible for someone to have extremely mixed feelings about the person who sexually assaulted them, happens all the time. That’s part of the reason why it can be so traumatic. For example, when Tara thought he was actually trying to end sexual assault, she could have easily interpreted it as him acting out of a guilty conscious about what he did to her, and supported his change of heart. The fact she supported him for a time speaks nothing to whether or not her allegation is true.
- “Only one story can be correct.” People leave jobs for more than one reason every day. Her story isn’t necessarily inconsistent, but it may be complicated.
- Her support for Russia and his lack thereof could certainly explain why she’s accusing him of sexual assault now, but if she was only accusing him of something she knew he didn’t do at all out of allegiance to Russia, it would be a little counterproductive to admit that she’s a diehard fan of Russia and that’s why he fired her, wouldn’t it? She disavows how she feels about Russia now. If she was only accusing him to help out Russia, after outing herself as a Russia supporter, she’d just double-down on her reasons for supporting Russia now, wouldn’t she? Besides, if she was just in it for political motives, why not accuse him of forcibly raping her with his penis or something much more extreme like that? Her feelings about Russia don’t necessarily cast doubt for me.
- People don’t always change their minds on things they feel very strongly about overnight. She was a die-hard fan of Russia, but she’d been a victim of domestic violence. For all we know, the retweet about Russian domestic violence was the first she really considered her own cognitive dissonance about those two facts and it took her a year or two to completely work it out and disavow her feelings on Russia for good. Besides, again, feelings can be deeply nuanced. Maybe she had a love/hate feeling about Russia, Putin, and passionate people or countries who attempt to intimidate women into doing whatever they want generally.
There’s not really enough information here to impart strong feelings about whether she’s telling the truth or not. If anything, her years of back-and-forth about Biden and Russia make her story that she was totally derailed by what happened more compelling. In light of accusations from other women and the fact she could make much stronger ones, if no additional information is revealed between now and election day, it’s enough for me not to want to vote for him. I could be persuaded out of my position if it started to look more like she’d actively lied instead of tried to simplify a complicated situation.
Journalists willing to dig up her original paperwork accusing him of assault in 1993 and conduct interviews with the people she told around the time to see if they corroborate with her story would do a service to the cause of getting a better idea of the truthfulness of this accusation without destroying anyone’s dignity.