this post was submitted on 03 Feb 2026
1773 points (99.2% liked)
Political Memes
10955 readers
3037 users here now
Welcome to politcal memes!
These are our rules:
Be civil
Jokes are okay, but don’t intentionally harass or disturb any member of our community. Sexism, racism and bigotry are not allowed. Good faith argumentation only. No posts discouraging people to vote or shaming people for voting.
No misinformation
Don’t post any intentional misinformation. When asked by mods, provide sources for any claims you make.
Posts should be memes
Random pictures do not qualify as memes. Relevance to politics is required.
No bots, spam or self-promotion
Follow instance rules, ask for your bot to be allowed on this community.
No AI generated content.
Content posted must not be created by AI with the intent to mimic the style of existing images
founded 2 years ago
MODERATORS
you are viewing a single comment's thread
view the rest of the comments
view the rest of the comments
What are you on about?
Rape is a crime. A crime of nonconsensual sexual activity with another person. That, by necessity, requires consent for uncriminalized sex. Children can't give consent and that's why sex with children is called statutory rape.
That's their point: Rape being an explicit crime makes the whole thing a legal minefield.
Accusing someone of something opens you up to being sued for defamation. Truth is a defense against defamation. If I slander my neighbour for taking photos of my bedroom windows and they sue me, I can produce the photos where they are visible in the reflection as evidence that what I said is true.
However, an accusation of committing a specific crime is considered true if and only if the defendant has been judged guilty in a court of law. Until then, they are considered innocent in the eyes of the law. Proving the truth of your accusation would first require the accused being criminally charged, tried and found guilty. By then, you might have lost the suit for defamation or poured a lot of money into legal defense.
So a major news outlet accusing a sitting, immune and known to be vindictive president of a crime that he can't be tried for for the next three years and might never be convicted for by the justice system he rigged would be gambling with much to lose, little to win and awful odds.
Saying he had sex with children is essentially the same content, but a different packaging that doesn't paint as much of a target on your forehead.
Is it fucked? For sure. Is it possible they're just trying to sanewash the crime? Absolutely. At the very least, it's spineless. This isn't me defending their choice of wording, just elaborating on the reasoning behind it potentially being a CYA.