NY Daily News - Two women who worked on Clinton, Sanders campaigns detail sexual harassment

[TomCADem]

It seems like even liberal leaning sites like the Huffington Post, Vox and the NY Daily News are engaging in what-about-ism to equate allegations of sexual harassment by Democrats with sexual assault and misogyny by Republicans. Vox, in particular, has been outspoken in demanding that Democrats somehow take the moral high ground in demanding that Franken step down while giving a free pass to the Republicans who have two people have engaged in repeated acts of sexual assault towards women and whose Department of Education is making it harder for women to raise claims of rape in college.

It is one thing to have what-about-ism on Fox News, but even liberal sites are buying into this false equivalency what-about-ism.

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/women-detail-sexual-harassment-clinton-sanders-campaigns-article-1.3641170

A woman who worked on Hillary Clinton's campaign and another who worked on Bernie Sanders' during the 2016 election have spoken out about the sexual harassment they endured on the job, according to reports.

Lilian Adams was 19 when she joined Hillary Clinton’s campaign, while Zoey Jordan Salsbury was 18 when she signed on to work for Sanders’ presidential bid, HuffPost reported.

Both women said their respective campaigns failed to properly address their allegations.

Adams, who started off as an intern at Clinton’s Brooklyn headquarters in 2015, was harassed by a co-worker after she relocated to Colorado in May 2016 to work as a paid organizer for the campaign.

[guillaumeb]

1. Part of "normalizing" assault and diverting attention from the Mueller investigation.

One hopes and trusts that Mueller will not be diverted.

[mythology]

2. Sexual harassment and assault are normalized

We need to make it unacceptable and abnormal. It isn't a diversion. It's a moment to create change.

[guillaumeb]

4. But we must also keep the focus on Trump and Russia.

Trump is desperate for an issue that will allow him to put the focus on anything other than his behavior.

[mythology]

9. Two completely different issues, both are important, but I would argue the sexual harassment

matters more. It impacts people day to day. Trump's idiocy has less day to day impact.

Not to mention telling victims of sexual harassment and/or assault that they need to sit and be quiet because we're working on something else isn't really viable. I think it's utterly silly to claim we can only work on one thing at once, particularly when unraveling that will be a months or years long process. We can't all just sit around and twiddle our thumbs because you deem something else more important. The world keeps moving.

[guillaumeb]

10. GOP policies affect people in a huge way every day.

I am not counseling anyone to keep quiet.

[dsc]

3. so let me get this straight

In the case of the Hillary campaign the harasser was fired, in the case of the Sanders campaign the harassment wasn't reported. And we are supposed to blame the campaigns.

[fallout87]

5. Nope.

Vox has not given a free pass to Moore. They are simply pointing out the problems created by NOT asking Franken to step down, while attempting to be the party that has zero tolerance for Sexual Assault.

[TomCADem]

6. That is Moral Equivalency at Its Worse

Democrats are supposed to be the party of zero tolerance, yet Vox runs a series of stories explaining why it is reasonable for Alabama voters to still go with Moore? Fox News, Republicans and Trump engage in rampant what-about-ism to deflect attention from the multiple and sometimes admitted allegations of sexual assault against Trump and Moore, yet Democrats are supposed to be the ones to engage in self-immolation in response to far less severe allegations even where Franken has apologized?

Thus, we reward and validate Trump's distinction that both he and Moore should be given the benefit of the doubt because the denigrated their accusers, threatened to sue them, and refused to apologize?

There should be some incentive for men to acknowledge their wrong doing. If being the party of zero tolerance means to create an environment that rewards men for attacking women who accuse them and denying any personal responsibility, then perhaps we do not want to go down the route of encouraging men to behave like Trump.

In schools, you see many kids kicked out, or thrown out, under the guise of zero tolerance for any type of misbehavior. In California, we created three strikes in the guise of promoting zero tolerance towards crime. Zero tolerance is a talking point, not a well thought out policy for preventing harassment.

[brooklynite]

7. So, because Roy Moore engaged in sexual predation, no other accusations can be raised?

Seems fair...

[TomCADem]

8. Nice Strawmen Argument...

Last edited Mon Nov 27, 2017, 12:13 AM - Edit history (1)

...again, there seems to be this false equivalency between Trump/Moore and Franken.

I guess you can also ask just because someone went on mass shooting in Vegas, then we can't talk about the guy who was in a bar fight who apologized for his actions?

Of course not, but you do not treat both as morally equivalent or give both equal time in your discussion of public safety. Doing so simply buys into Russian/RW propaganda. Folks on the left repeatedly fall for such arguments in an overzealous effort to avoid hypocrisy, thus buying into the deflections given by Republicans.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/what-is-whataboutism_us_59932909e4b00914164043a4

What Is ‘Whataboutism,’ And Why Is It Suddenly Everywhere?

“What about the alt-left?” Trump asked, providing a textbook example of whataboutism in the aftermath of violence in Charlottesville.

Since President Donald Trump’s political rise, pundits and news junkies have learned what seems like an entirely new vocabulary to discuss his rhetoric: gaslighting, alternative facts, fake news. What about whataboutism?

Analysts have been dinging Trump for whataboutism for months, particularly in recent weeks. In fact, during a press conference on Tuesday, Trump spouted a textbook example of the practice. In addressing his tepid, vague denunciation of the protests that led to fatal violence in Charlottesville, Virginia, over the weekend, he responded, “What about the alt-left that came charging at, as you say, at the alt-right? ... You had a group on one side that was bad. You had a group on the other side that was also very violent.” That is to say, neo-Nazis and Ku Klux Klan members may be bad, but people on the other side have also done bad things. What about them?

So what is whataboutism, and why do we keep hearing about it?

What it means

Whataboutism refers to the practice of deflecting criticism by pointing to the misdeeds of others. Oxford Dictionaries defines it as “the technique or practice of responding to an accusation or difficult question by making a counter-accusation or raising a different issue.”

Essentially, it’s an appeal to hypocrisy ― a logical fallacy also known as “tu quoque.” Instead of proving that your opponent’s claim is wrong on its face, whataboutism argues that it’s hypocritical of the opponent to make that claim at all. (Oh, you think I shouldn’t cheat on a test? What about that time you took a crib sheet into your calculus exam last year?!)