Harvey Weinstein, and what this story means to us
He is a bad man and easy to throw under the bus. A recent meme, chiding us Democrats about Weinstein being one of us, had a clever retort: we aren't going to make him president.
There is a lot to that. The most obvious is that #fakepresident is on par with Harvey Weinstein so "conservatives" aren't in a position to say a whole lot. But this troubles me because, especially with the recent KKK and Nazi garbage, some "conservatives" choose to attack me and suggest that I'm not in any position to criticize their racism. I could refute their stupidity but that goes nowhere either. They have nothing but stupidity so they're unscathed.
On a deeper level, forget about #fakepresident. Weinstein is a bad man. #fakepresident, too, is a bad man. These are two independent events. One event should not be affected by another. When people engage in atrocious behavior they should bear the consequences. Of course what consequences has #fakepresident bore? This troubles me, a lot, and there goes my attempt to compartmentalize. I struggle to get back to de-partisanizing bad behavior, but there is so much bad behavior from Republicans, and tolerance of that behavior.
At least we will not tolerate Weinstein, I guess.
Digging down a little more, will we hurt ourselves by owning this? I have had so many battles here, some simply by advocating that we promote the positive instead of promulgating negativity. Here we have a negative. Of course Weinstein isn't a candidate for anything but if he were then I'd still have to advocate throwing him under the bus. But where is that line drawn? It's clear to me that we only play into the "both sides do it," Republican ploy, when we attack our own for "corporatism" or whatever other related garbage some of us throw out. The Republican ploy here could not be more obvious and it's been done with Russian collaboration. If both sides do it, then #fakepresident isn't so bad, right? And here we are, with that vile man in a position to do so much harm, and "conservative" cowards cowering in the face of his atrocities. "Both sides do it" so shut up and take whatever this asshole doles out at you. Right? That's what we play into.
I don't know that I spelled out this conundrum as well as I might. I do put thought into these things but I don't have the time or inclination to write a more careful essay. The good news is that people who think as I do seem to understand in spite of deficiencies. People who don't think as I do seem to go out of their way to find fault and dole out some abuse or another. I strive to simplify: Vote Democratic! I do this because it's too easy to tie ourselves up in knots, and it really is that simple. And then we have Harvey Weinstein.
= new reply since forum marked as read
