Sorry. There's no equivalence between Republicans and Democrats on sexual harassment.
By Paul Waldman November 17 at 1:32 PM
When radio host Leeann Tweeden accused Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.) yesterday of kissing her against her will when they were on a 2006 USO tour together, many Republicans were no doubt pleased, just as Democrats have been gleeful about the headache Roy Moore is causing the GOP. That’s what happens in politics: Whatever side you’re on, when a prominent figure from the other party is caught in a scandal, you can’t help but be happy about it.
But there’s something else happening on the issue of sexual harassment, and it shows just how radically different the two parties are on this issue at the moment. Anyone who tries to argue that there’s no moral difference between how Democrats and Republicans are reacting to these scandals is simply not being honest.
To be clear, I’m not arguing that liberal men are any less likely to be sexual harassers than conservative men. It has become more than clear that the abuse and objectification of women happens in every industry, every major institution, every religion, at every socioeconomic level and among people of every political orientation. But we should all be asking ourselves some very hard questions, not only about the people now in positions of power but about how we’ve each thought about these issues in the past and what we want to change in the future. Democrats are doing that — perhaps imperfectly and arriving at different answers of varying quality, but at least they’re grappling with it. Republicans, by and large, are doing anything but.
The reaction to the revelation about Franken shows what I’m talking about. Despite the fact that he is a widely admired senator some were hoping would run for president, his actions were immediately condemned by many in his own party, including his Senate colleagues. No prominent Democrat is defending what he did.
So please, conservatives (or anyone else for that matter), if your argument that Democrats are being as bad on Franken as Republicans were on accusations against Donald Trump (more on him in a moment) rests on a tweet you saw where @NobodyTroll insulted Leeann Tweeden to his 12 followers, spare me. This is about the reactions of people with significant voices in the public sphere — politicians, writers, media personalities — the ones who have the ability to influence how others understand the issue.
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https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/plum-line/wp/2017/11/17/sorry-theres-no-equivalence-between-republicans-and-democrats-on-sexual-harassment
