Thestandard wisdom is that revolutions eat their own children. Driven by social media, political correctness has stormed popular opinion, with allegations of all types of misbehavior dragged up from the distant past. Reputations and careers have been ruined, lives wrecked, or indeed lost through suicide. The consequences of this public shaming have been devastating.

These social media memes have mostly been generated by liberal or ultraliberal groups. They produce tidal waves of posts condemning, often in the most vicious terms, anyone who voices views contrary to their own. Thus a respected professor such as the clinical psychologist Jordan Peterson of Toronto University in Canada has become a figure of demented hatred because he criticized small but extremely vocal groups promoting ideas such as gender being a matter of personal choice rather than a fact of birth.

Moreover, other conservative academics and pundits who seek to debate their views, not least in universities, are “no-platformed”. Thus the recent absurdity of a UK university debate on Freedom of Expression saw one speaker banned because he backed, yes, freedom of expression. Given that young people are supposed to complete their education by learning through a free and fair exchange of ideas, it does not say much for the university authorities who permit and sometimes even encourage this nonsense.

But, of course, the biggest online movement has to be #MeToo and its copycats. Allegations that surfaced on these platforms have seen the downfall of movie and TV stars, business moguls and politicians. Over time, however, it became clear that in the United States, the majority of the targets were anyone who had ever supported or said a word in praise of Donald Trump. When he nominated Judge Brett Kavanaugh to become a Supreme Court Justice, allegations were dragged up from the nominee’s days as a high school teenager. After enduring an intrusive FBI investigation and a social media tsunami of hatred, Kavanaugh was confirmed by the US Senate.

Democrat leader in Congress, Nancy Pelosi marked the Senate vote by putting out a statement saying “Today is a profoundly heart-breaking day for women, girls and families across America.” For her, Kavanaugh was a creature of Donald Trump and, therefore, had to be a sexual monster.

Roll on to this week and allegations that Obama’s former vice-president Joe Biden had inappropriate sexual contact with two young female aides. Biden is widely expected to seek the Democrat presidential nomination to take on Trump next year. He is also a close political ally of Nancy Pelosi, who is now the leader of the Democrat-controlled Congress.

Given her virulent response to the Kavanaugh allegations, it might have seemed obvious that Pelosi would wash her hands of Biden and join in a chorus of condemnation.

Except that the social media fury over the Biden allegations has been notably less strident than that over Kavanaugh or the president himself. And Pelosi, who unleashes her avenging fury even when allegations are proven to be false, suddenly seems to have lost her high moral compass. Instead she has leaped to Biden’s defense insisting that she does not think the allegations disqualify him from being the Democrat presidential nominee. To most objective observers, Pelosi’s maneuvers look very much like a blatant double standard. It remains to be seen if the #MeToo millions will actually call her out.