Al Franken's Resignation - the Lose/Lose Trap
Regardless of how we handled the accusations against Senator Franken, the Democrats were going to be tarred-and-feathered by the Republicans.
Had we told the GOP to clean up their own house first (i.e. by ridding themselves of Trump and Moore), we would be labelled as hypocrites who refused to take allegations of sexual misconduct seriously when it was one of “ours”.
Had we pressured Franken into resigning (as the party has now done), we would be labelled (as we now have been) as a party that turns on its own without affording him an opportunity to defend himself against allegations that may or may not have any basis in fact.
Either way, we were going to wind up in the same place – a place where we’d be damned if we did, and equally damned if we didn’t. Either way, we were going to be forced to engage in the same battle – defending our position to stand with Senator Franken, or defending our position not to do so.
This is one of the many troubling aspects of the party’s decision to effectively oust Franken – the fact that the outcome of not so doing would be almost the same as if we had.
Surely no one on our side was naïve enough to believe that if we threw Franken on the sacrificial altar, the Republicans would laud us for having done the right thing. Surely no one was short-sighted enough to think that Franken’s resignation would put an end to the matter, and we’d all walk away from the funeral pyre as sadder-but-wiser victors.
But there is one major difference in the outcome as to how things have now played out, which is why I say it would be almost the same had we taken a different stance – and that difference is that although we are now still facing the same battle against the Republicans, we are doing it less one valiant warrior, one less voice that has more than proven its worth, one less man who has never wavered in defending the rights of women and advancing their cause.
Let’s keep in mind that Senator Franken’s lengthy career – as a comedy writer and performer, as well as his political career – has never been blemished by accusations of sexual impropriety until the GOP decided to run a credibly-accused child molester for the senate. Let’s remember that the allegations against Franken have been oh-so-conveniently levelled at a time when the Republicans’ only avenue of defence was to play offence, in hopes that the cries of “both sides do it” would be heard and believed.
Let’s remember that while the allegations against Roy Moore have substance – such as his being barred from a mall for inappropriately approaching teen-aged girls when he was in his thirties – the allegations against Senator Franken are as flimsy as tissue paper, and his accusers have been shown to have political ties that render their accusations suspect, to say the very least.
The Democrats who have called for Franken’s resignation did so without any consideration of his heretofore unsullied reputation, and without any regard for the facts underlying the accusations against him. Instead, they acted just as the Republicans hoped they would – sacrificing a lamb in order to placate rabid wolves that were going to stay hungry one way or the other.
In the end, we have gained nothing, and we have lost much – including the support of many Democrats who are now seeing our party as willing to give up one of our best-and-brightest rather than stand up and fight not only on his behalf, but on our own.
There is no “higher ground” here that has been won; there is no “moral superiority” that has been demonstrated. There are no voters who have been persuaded to support Democrats because they turned on Franken; there are no voters among those who elected a self-admitted “pussy-grabber” that have been persuaded by our party’s position that accusations alone are sufficient evidence to judge, convict, and punish.
What we are left with is the sad truth that some among us are more than willing to respond to Republican commands that we jump not by asking why we should, but by asking how high.
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