The irony is that “if true” ignores the truth. It perpetuates the myth, as peddled by Education Secretary Betsy DeVos, that wrongful accusers are an equally prevalent and pressing threat to men as sexual assault is to women, when in fact, according to research, only about two to 10 percent of all sexual assault allegations are false. “If true?” Anywhere between 90 and 98 percent of the time, it is. Wrongful accusers like those in the University of Virginia-Rolling Stone and Duke lacrosse cases are held up and sensationalized, but far more common are the silent victims who would rather say nothing than risk their reputation, their family’s safety from threats, or having their mental-health records and sexual history sensationalized at trial. The women who do come forward, including those who kept their accusations against Moore secret for decades, stare down all of this and do it anyway.

Politicians playing the “if true” card also dismiss what a newspaper like The Washington Post demands of victims and their stories. It’s unsurprising that a president (along with an acolyte like Moore) who attempts to suppress the free press as “fake news” wouldn’t take it into account, but the Moore accusers would not be permitted to shout random accusations into the ether from the pages of the Post—not by the publication’s journalistic or legal standards. That’s why the claims of the four women who say Moore sexually abused them are corroborated, backed up by family and others whom they told of the misconduct shortly after it happened. Contrary to Moore’s counter-accusation that the report was just a partisan attack, the Post notes that none of the victims had donated or otherwise supported Moore’s Democratic opponent, and that the women didn’t even know each other. The president may say, and tweet, anything he likes (and often does), but the Post actually has a higher burden of proof.

There’s a reckoning underway against longtime sexual predators after the Bill Cosby, Roger Ailes, Bill O’Reilly, Harvey Weinstein, and Louis C.K. reveals (and all of the many others trickling out), and indeed, after the election of a man caught on tape boasting about grabbing women by the pussy. There is a shift toward believing victims as opposed to the long, ugly tradition of doubting and defaming them, even among notable Republicans like Mitt Romney, who tweeted: “Innocent until proven guilty is for criminal convictions, not elections. I believe Leigh Corfman.” (Others cravenly believe or disbelieve accusers based on party lines, as is the case with some GOP members who curiously lambasted Weinstein, but not Moore.) Still, in the midst of progress, “if true” is a convenient cop-out for sexist men, and a last-ditch effort to keep women down—like congressional Republicans have long been doing in policy and in practice, literally shushing the likes of Senators Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren. But silencing women isn’t working as well as it once did. That is the truth—no ifs about it.