A writer for The Atlantic, Tina Dupuy, is encouraging fellow liberals to cleanse the Democratic party of sexual harassers and undercover creepsters, after revealing that she, too, was groped by Sen. Al Franken.
Dupuy says that she met Franken at a Media Matters party to celebrate the first Obama inauguration. She asked the then-Senatorial candidate for a photo, and as they posed for the camera, Franken squeezed her bottom “at least twice.”
“Al Franken’s familiarity was inappropriate and unwanted. It was also quick; he knew exactly what he was doing,” she writes.
It came as a surprise to Dupuy, though, that when another woman, Leeann Tweeden, came forward with her own accusations — setting off a steady stream of Franken accusers — that Democrats and women’s rights activists weren’t quick to demand that Franken step down and face consequences for what was clearly a long record of inappropriate behavior.
Radio hosts who had just a week before excoriated Harvey Weinstein, were now protecting Franken, even excusing him. Even women who claimed to “study rape culture” were protesting the idea of asking Franken to resign. Only after nearly a dozen accusers made public their alleged treatment at Franken’s hands did Democratic bigwigs like DNC chair Tom Perez call for Franken to step down.
Dupuy says Democrats need to change; principles are more important than party solidarity.
I have a radical idea: Maybe Democrats can replace politicians who harass and abuse women with anyone other than an abuser. There are good men in the world. I married one. I’ve worked with many more. Do we really believe our talent pool will dry up and our caucus will be nonexistent once we kick out all the creepers? I don’t. What if protecting men who harass and abuse women isn’t actually good for women?
Maybe, just maybe, it’s only good for the men.
This year’s pervert purge has inspired many to look at uncomfortable truths about their heroes, their co-workers, and their values. The New York Times’s Michelle Goldberg repented of her support for Bill Clinton, writing a piece with a battering ram as a headline, “I believe Juanita.” For me, it’s been sinking in that the working white women who felt condescended to by affluent feminists voted, by significant margins, for an admitted sexual predator over the lady who’d not believe them if they were abused by someone she liked. Their choices don’t seem so ridiculous to me any longer.
Democrats sold our soul. Nothing makes that more clear than how women voted in the 2016 election.
The criticism cuts both ways, as John Podhortz of Commentary pointed out on social media. In the midst of a Democratic meltdown, the GOP is dropping more than a $100,000 into an Alabama race where the Republican candidate, Roy Moore, is facing nearly as many accusations of inappropriate behavior as Al Franken.
Valuing party over principle creates no winners.