I agree there are levels. But all of these guys have been accused by multiple women of doing things which should not be tolerated of our top elected officials. None of them should remain in office.
Y’know, if Democrats had shown up to vote in 2010 and 2014, Merrick Garland – or someone to the left of him – would be a Supreme Court justice and a whole lot of federal judge-ships would have been filled by a Democratic president.
Just sayin’. The other stuff is nice, but nothing can save (or doom) you like voting.
(And if Obama is allowed to fill Scalia’s seat by a Democratic majority in the Senate, almost certainly Citizens United would have been overturned by now.)
(Oh, and those gerrymandering cases would be going to a Supreme Court that would likely rule in favor of voting rights along a 5-4 continuum. And not to mention…restoration of the voting rights act protections struck down in 2015.)
Our definitions are not in synch. My view of
SJW is where mob rule and public shaming were primary factors where any semblance of guilt was meet with cries for the firing swuad, regardless of severity.
I still don’t agree you punish all of them the same and whether it occurred while they were in office should also play into the punishment.
For example, lesser transgressions could be stripping therm of committee assignments, whereas forcible rape or sexual harassment would be grounds for dismissal.
If you hold up Franken, it’s just a completely different class and if you hold this line you’ll lose half the democrats in office while all the pedophiles and rapist on the republican side laugh at you in jest.
That’s now how it’s used. It’s not just public shaming it’s public shaming around issues that involve women, minorities and LGBTQA members. It’s slapped on anyone who basically participates in social activism, and of course that includes pretty much every topic that involves women. Maybe we see that term differently, but I’ve only seen it as an mob attack on the person they labeled it with.
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Now as for Franken. We cannot use Weinstein, Moore, AIles as the top bar. These are bottom feeders, but there is a huge range above them that is completely not acceptable. I know that we haven’t really defined that top bar, but these are representatives. These people are people I should be able to engage with, as a woman, in an office and about issues that matter to me as a citizen without risk. If they can’t behave themselves around women, respect women, keep their hands to themselves, then they do not belong in that office.
Again, I haven’t seen ANYTHING from any of his accusers any of this occurred while he was in office. Are you really going to hold him accountable for any past transgressions such as this?
Yes?
1
Wanna apply that to Roy Moore and see how badly that reads?
Of course I am. Just because it took place some time ago doesn’t wash it away.
If you want to bother to read my other posts to understand how I delineated transgressions with other things, then by all means do so, otherwise go back to your pithy sayings.
I have.
And it still reads really poorly. Democrats don’t get to be the party of women’s rights and empowerment on one hand while allowing Senator Grab-Ass to keep his seat.
I defended Franken when it was just LeAnne that was accusing him and it happened before he was in office. Now that several women, have accused him of groping them while he was Senator, that’s unacceptable for any man, much less a top elected official.
As for “whataboutthem”. During the Clinton impeachment, Congressman Bob Livingstone was designated Speaker of the House (replace Newt, who’s multiple affairs cause him to resign.). After Larry Flynt offer $1 million for dirty on Republicans, news of an affair that he had with non-staff person came to light. Livingstone decided to resign not only the Speakership but his seat, since it was going to be a distraction.
As Republican at the time, I remember initially thinking this is so unfair. Clinton is screwing interns, and raping women and he remains in office, while Livingstone had one affair. But back then the Republican held the moral high ground, just as the Democrats do today and that is actually worth something.
But more importantly we have to hold elected official to higher standard than the average man, not a lower one.
Pretty much agree with Strollen.
If Roy Moore is elected to the Senate and Al Franken stays in, that’s a terrible look for Democrats, and an unforced error that may create repercussions going past 2018 and into 2020.
So yeah, it sucks that it requires application of false equivalency to get there, but there’s a lot about politics and public opinion that isn’t fair or even based on rationality sometimes.
The high ground is there. It’s not only the right thing to do, it’s very politically beneficial.
Yeah, and that’s why orange pumpkin face, pussy grabbing Trump is still in office.
You know, with all the energy everyone here has, I’d say your priorities are wrong, but hey, you take the moral high ground and see how that fairs. I don’t think it will do very good, just as orange pumpkin face pussy grabber got 45% of college educated women votes and we’ll see next week how Moore goes.
Think about that, Moore wins and you’re pressing for Franken to resign. In my mind, what Moore did is so much worse than anything Franken did and do you think that the Republicans will call for his ouster? Ha-ha. Yeah, I didn’t think so.
I believe those were educated white women. That’s an important distinction. Apparently some of these women are in white supremacy groups and they don’t understand why they’re not being treated equally there either.
Dahlia Lithwick with the pessimist’s take.
Who knows why the GOP has lost its last ethical moorings? But this is a perfectly transactional moment in governance, and what we get in exchange for being good and moral right now is nothing. I’m not saying we should hit pause on #MeToo, or direct any less fury at sexual predators in their every manifestation. But we should understand that while we know that our good faith and reasonableness are virtues, we currently live in a world where it’s also a handicap.
Unilateral disarmament is tantamount to arming the other side. That may be a trade worth making in some cases. But it’s worth at least acknowledging that this is the current calculus. It’s no longer that when they go low, we get to go high. They are permanently living underground. How long can we afford to keep living in the clouds?
At some point, normal people are going to NOT want to be associated with this kind of filth.
If the Democrats can preserve any shred of integrity, then they will get those voters. If they cave on it based on some absurd bullshit view of, “The other guys do bad stuff, so we need to do it too to compete!” then everything is fucked.
Principles fucking matter, people. There’s no point in “winning” if you need to become the bad guys to do so. This is what I’ve tried to tell GOP folks before they became whatever the fuck they are now.
While in general, I agree, I also think that strategically, it’s a good move to show that you’re willing to stand by your beliefs, even when it requires sacrifice. The fact that the sacrifice is relatively politically “safe” (likely democratic replacement for Franken, etc), means that it’s probably a good trade.
There is still a possibility, that Trump will be forced to testify in Summer’s lawsuit, perjure himself, and then get impeached. I’d rather see him impeached for Russia collusion, but I’ll take anything.
That’s not the play, though. The play is that the contrast between Democrats (“we have a no tolerance policy toward sexual harassers”) and Republicans (“Pedophile? Pussy grabber? COME ON DOWN!”) will eventually bear electoral fruit.
We’ll see. As I lost all faith in the American electorate last November, I’m personally not overflowing with optimism. But it is nice that I get to vote for a party that actually seems somewhat interested in at least appearing to do the right thing.