Tag: Roy Moore

SAVOR THE MOMENT: ROY MOORE ISN’T A SENATOR

Sometimes it takes a really good day for us to grasp just how bad things are. For liberals, yesterday was that kind of day. Those of us on the left end of spectrum went into a euphoric frenzy at 9:24 p.m. CST Tuesday. That’s when the AP called the special Alabama Senate election for the Democrat. We tossed exclamation points at social media posts like drunken sailors, and wondered when it was that we last felt this good. The consensus was either Woodstock or Obama’s first inauguration.

Then we woke up the next morning. It still felt good, except for those of us in the geezerhood who should know better than to over-pump our arthritic arms into the wee hours of a new day. Yet, there in the dawn’s new light, we slowly grasped the perspective and parameters of our jubilation. The source of our abiding joy was the surprising realization that a disgusting, homophobic, racist, misogynistic, accused child molester of a troll named Roy Moore was not going to become a United States Senator from Alabama. Against all odds, he was defeated by a margin of 1.5 percent by a seemingly decent, if unknown, guy named Doug Jones, the first Democrat in more than 25 years to win a state-wide election in Alabama.

Hubert H. Humphrey, an architect of modern liberalism, once said that the moral test of government is how it treats “those who are in the dawn of life; . . . those who are in the twilight of life; . . . and those who are in the shadows of life . . .” This was the great moral fiber that paved the way for Head Start, Social Security, Medicare, the Civil Rights Act and anti-poverty programs. Those were the kind of victories that liberals once cheered in a bygone era.

Now we get excited when the U.S. Senate is spared a despicable worm like Moore, twice removed from his state judgeship for a complete disregard for the rule of law. That’s how bad things are in this country. Keeping one more malignant goiter from attaching itself to our body politic is as good as it gets for liberals right now. We have every right to savor the electoral demise of Roy Moore and, with it, the stinging loss it represents for his fellow traveler in bigotry and sexual misconduct, Donald J. Trump. After all, Humphrey also taught us this about navigating a successful progressive movement: “Never give in and never give up.” Small victories have a way of multiplying into bigger ones.

That’s not to deny the core reality that these are painfully dark, grim times in these United States. We have a moronic, megalomaniac of a president who, according to Washington Post fact checkers, lied 1,628 times during his first 298 days in office. He has taken incivility to new heights and has emboldened and licensed an army of freelance bigots to bully, castigate and demean people on the basis of their race, religion, sexual orientation and national origin. Meanwhile, Congressional Republicans are on the verge of passing a tax bill that will redistribute even more wealth to corporations and the rich, at the expense of middle class families struggling to maintain a decent standard of living.

Does the Alabama Senate election change any part of this bleak equation? No, at least not immediately. But it gives us something that is essential to our movement for transformational change. It gives us hope. At a time of intense cynicism and hyper-partisanship, one of the most Republican states in the country said values, decency and dignity matter more than party and Trump’s ego-driven agenda. Granted, Alabama voters didn’t deliver that message by a large margin. But they said it in a way that counted. Given what we’ve been through this year, that’s worth a few moments of euphoria.

THE REAL CESSPOOL OF POLITICS: CREEPY GUYS WHO GROPE

Another day, another cringe-worthy tale of men who grope. Following the news hasn’t been this depressing since the body count days of the Vietnam War. Tongues jammed into mouths, breasts fondled, hands up skirts, all unilaterally executed by men because nothing stopped them, not their sense of decency, not their warped notion of consent, and certainly not the power imbalance that gave rise to these encounters.

It has been said – to the point of becoming a cliché – that we are now engaged in a “national conversation” about sexual harassment and assault. If this little chat is going to take on any real heft, we desperately need a change of venue to someplace – anyplace – outside of Washington. The nation’s capital is an unholy shrine to the very worst of male privilege and the notion that sex on demand is a perquisite of power, one that rises to sexual misconduct only in the opposition party. Letting these folks revamp the moral hierarchy of sexual interaction would be like turning a conversation on pedophilia over to the College of Cardinals.

Only in Washington would a “national conversation” on sexual propriety devolve into partisan chatter over the comparative sins (alleged of course), of Republican Senate candidate Roy Moore of Alabama, and Democratic Senator Al Franken of Minnesota. What’s worse, a 32-year-old Republican stalking and fondling teenage girls as young as 14, or a 55-year-old Democrat forcing his tongue into the mouth of a fellow USO performer and then placing his hands on or near her breasts while she slept? As an exercise in moral relativism, the allegations against Moore are far more serious than those against Franken. Yet, if this moment of reckoning is to be truly transformative, our “national conversation” has to be about more than predation parsing. It also has to go beyond the political leanings of the accusers, as was the case in both the Moore and Franken stories.

Most of the key players in Washington are currently incapable of looking at sexual misconduct accusations through anything other than the lens of their own political interests. So you have GOP congressional leaders urging Moore to drop out of the race because they believe his accusers. Of course they never wanted the albatross of Roy Moore in the Senate in the first place, and are worried about the adverse consequences a pederast senator might have on the 2018 elections. Yet, this same crew of Republican leaders remains perpetually silent on the sexual misconduct accusations made by 16 women against Donald Trump. Meanwhile, the Donald is rooting for Moore to win the December 12 election because “we don’t need another liberal person in there.”

This issue was easier to deal with six weeks ago when the only culprit was Hollywood mogul Harvey Weinstein. There was such moral clarity then. The evidence was as overwhelming as it was sickening. The guy made a career out of forcing himself on hundreds of women. Police in multiple jurisdictions are pursing possible rape charges (here, here and here). For those inclined to view morality through a binary lens of black and white, good and evil, Harvey was pure black and evil.

Then, thanks in large part to the #MeToo movement, things started to get a bit more complicated. Women – and some men – who had been silently churning with the pain of sexual abuse for years, if not decades, started to rise up and name their predators. The list has been growing daily, even hourly. In addition to Moore and Franken, here is a small sampling of the accused: Democratic Rep. John Conyers, television host Charlie Rose, New York Times White House reporter Glenn Thrush, comedian Louis C.K., NPR executive Michael Oreskes, New Republic president and publisher Hamilton Fish, actor Kevin Spacey, political reporter and author Mark Halperin, former president George H.W. Bush and 40 state legislators from 20 states. The allegations run the gamut from rape to fanny pinching. The accused share two common denominators. They all achieved outstanding success in their given fields, and they all stand accused of forcing sexual contact on multiple unwilling partners.

What needs to be part of our “national conversation” is that sexual misconduct is not a behavioral aberration limited to Neanderthal thugs. Men we have come to respect and admire, whether for their art, intellect or leadership, are just as capable – and culpable – as the more stereotypical villains when it comes to sexually harassing and abusing women. We need to grapple with a deeply embedded and toxic cognitive dissonance that separates the virtually universal notion that all sexual contact must be consensual, and the behavior of an alarmingly large number of men whose actions blatantly defy that principle.

This isn’t going to be easy. The daily deluge of #MeToo stories has revealed a gaping hole in our social fabric, one that tears into the basic constructs of human interaction. Sadly, it’s something we should have dealt with long ago. Instead, it comes now, right smack in the middle of one of the most hyper partisan battles ever waged. We have all picked our sides and suited up. The most natural inclination in combat is to rush to the aid of a fallen comrade. Yet, that approach is totally inconsistent with a meaningful national conversation about sexual misconduct.

On a personal level, the Al Franken accusations really hurt. As both a liberal and a native Minnesotan, I put him on the same elevated tier as my other home state political heroes: Hubert Humphrey, Walter Mondale and Paul Wellstone. I understand that the accusations against Franken are significantly less severe than most of the others. I’ve also read the stories suggesting that Republicans set him up. It still hurts. A good man made bad choices. He is not alone. And that is precisely why this eternal plague of sexual misconduct is so insidious and pervasive. It’s not just the serial predators like Weinstein, Moore and Trump, it’s also all those good guys who made some bad choices and added to the #MeToo Chorus.

Our challenge now is to learn from this. Most guys know the rules. What they have trouble with is the boneheaded notion that there is a waiver for frat parties, or a reasonable facsimile thereof. It might help to read the #MeToo statements and absorb the deep, lasting, tormenting pain of those who have been abused. This has to stop. Now.