and so is glib equivalency. Here's the partisan part for me. Roy Moore is a Republican from a state that remains avowedly segregationist in many respects, who is perpetuating the long damaging conflicts over race that have caused civil wars and lingering genocide in this country. I believe in equal rights too, but if credible accusations of statutory rape can derail Roy Moore's campaign, and elect a senator, Doug Jones, that brought KKK child killers to justice and prevent at least a part of Trump's agenda from becoming law, I would call that a fair bargain. I have a limited say because I am not from Alabama and not Republican, and I have no expectation that the Republican Party will put aside political expediency and call for his resignation.
On the other hand, Al Franken has been a very reliable progressive vote from a reliably Democratic state whose delegation generally doesn't vote in favor of Iraqi War resolutions and Wall Street deregulation; Franken and his colleagues tend to fight hard even when they are outnumbered, as Franken did against Jeff Sessions, another segregationist and enabler of Trump's policies. So, when Franken was confronted with charges of sexual misconduct of uncertain veracity, I would assume that his political party would not deny him due process. I am clearly partisan in the way I frame the two sets of charges, and I had the simple hope that other Democrats would treat their own senator with fairness. Roy Moore has plenty of defenders in his party; no one in the Democratic Party really stood up for Al Franken, at least not the Dems in the Senate.
If we're more concerned about appearing hypocritical than we are about allowing due process for a popular and duly elected senator from a blue state, nothing I say will matter anyway. I have written as much to Tammy Baldwin, my home state senator. I can't see that my letter to her or these words to you will help address this hot mess we've made of this party, but what else can be done?
= new reply since forum marked as read
