December 7, 2017
Many of us decried the chorus of calls for Al Franken’s resignation that came from Democratic senators yesterday. Despite the fact that seven women reported that Franken groped or kissed them without their consent, we lamented the potential loss of a well-liked, consistently progressive champion, particularly as we endure the presence of an admitted sexual predator in The White House and watch Alabama poised to elect a serial pederast to the United States Senate.
Our ambivalence is understandable. We are battle worn from the Right wing’s ceaseless assault on our economic stability, physical safety and fundamental rights and are loath to surrender any soldiers, let alone one as effective and intelligent as Al Franken. We fear winning the battle and losing the war and we don’t want to forfeit anyone until Trump is held accountable for his far worse behavior. Such a viewpoint suffers from a myopia that assumes that there are no other Minnesota Democrats who could be as progressive, intelligent and effective as Al Franken. It tells women [AGAIN], that sexual harassment is the price we have to pay to fight the Right Wing assault on our democracy. It assumes that women can’t take center stage in that fight. It has no answer to the question of how a progressive party that countenances serial sexual harassment can call itself progressive.
The reality is that we need moral clarity, not moral relativism. Our panic over Franken is the consequence of the continued tendency on the left to avidly court the leadership of white men at the expense of women and people of color. There is an ugly tendency to silence women, by whatever means necessary. Victims of sexual harassment were supposed to swallow their pain, for the “greater good.” Although women of color saw the danger posed by Trump more clearly than anyone, we were bullied and attacked on social media, in an effort to silence us. Progressive men need to understand, we are done being silent. Our Republican opponents are marked by cupidity, criminality and hatred for every American who isn’t white, Christian, male and straight. We can’t win by being more like them.