What the Republicans will learn from the Franken debacle.

[Willie Pep]

Franken's resignation means the following to Republicans and Republican operatives:

1. That accusations of sexual harassment can end the career of a Democratic politician but not a Republican politician, meaning that the Democrats have a major weak spot that Republicans don't have.

2. That Democrats will cave in and throw other Democrats under the bus without even demanding an ethics investigation first so that trial by media is enough to produce a resignation.

3. That the intense media coverage of sex scandals will distract the media and much of the public from bad GOP policy such as the tax bill given that sex issues are more exciting and juicy than dry policy debates like tax cuts.

[lame54]

1. What we are learning...

Last edited Thu Dec 7, 2017, 04:37 PM - Edit history (1)

We are fucked

[Loge23]

19. Totally, no hope.

We're adrift now without a major party to rally around.
The republicans know that they can get away with anything and there's no organized opposition.
This is the darkest we've been in our lifetimes.

[DownriverDem]

20. Really

So take your marbles and go home. The Dems I know are fighting like hell. We don't want hopeless negative folks. You are the repubs dream. Franken would not want whiners either.

[lame54]

21. You no longer want my lifetime democratic vote?...

Because you are the only one inviting me to leave

[hadEnuf]

26. We get this bullshit rah rah talk every time the Dem leaders sell us out.

[Va Lefty]

45. Yes we do!

I, for one, am sick of being told condescendingly that " my concern is noted" or some other smartass reply.

[vi5]

2. A slight correction...

...this happened today BECAUSE Republicans have ALREADY learned those things. Through constant and repeated reinforcing of these outcomes by the Democratic party.

[CrispyQ]

5. This.

The dems haven't been a true opposition party for a long time. This is why, even if they somehow gain some influence, they won't do anything with it. They'll claim it's time for the country to heal, leave the GOP trash where its at.

Won't matter, the dems aren't winning anytime soon.

[misanthrope]

16. Yep

Some folks just never learn.

[vi5]

29. It's as though everything our party leadership does...

...is based more on their concern for getting the beltway insiders like David Brooks, Tom Friedman, Morning Joe, Chuck Todd and the like to say nice things about them and talk about how reasonable they are.

I've been saying this for a long time but it's felt like I was screaming into a vacuum and was met with cries of how I just don't understand pragmatism or how I wanted a pony. The only upside to this shit storm is maybe more people are going to realize that the Democratic party leadership are looking after their own behinds, and anything they seemingly do for us just happens to coincide with that.

[Wednesdays]

48. We're ALL screaming into a vacuum.

[gratuitous]

3. They also know that anonymous accusations work on Democrats

But surely this will now stop those forever, right?

[emulatorloo]

6. I expect they might try this on Mueller sooner or later

who is not a Democrat.

[hadEnuf]

33. You can bank on it. Mueller is public enemy #1 for the Right. He can take Trump down

so they will try and take him down instead. It's the only way out for them. Trump firing Mueller without cause would sink him.

They'll probably come up with some outrageous claim that can never be proven or disproven, like murdering a Vietnamese prostitute in 1969 or some such horseshit.

Remember the Switboating of John Kerry. These people are totally without principles or decency.

[uponit7771]

47. +1

[Lifelong Protester]

4. They will be fast learners, too.

[BamaRefugee]

7. If Dems think that female candidates are the bulletproof answer...

you haven't seen ANYTHING yet like the nonstop howling about lesbians and rumors of lesbians and photoshopped pictures of lesbians and anonymous accusations about lesbians that are going to be unleashed by RepugnantOnes.

Oh and pizza shop lesbian rings.

[Willie Pep]

8. Yes I think it is mistaken to think this is a man vs. woman issue.

Although men probably do most of the harassing and are accused more often I am sure there are cases of women being accused as well, sometimes falsely. Women were falsely accused of sex abuse as part of the McMartin Preschool trial for example.

https://www.nytimes.com/2014/03/10/us/the-trial-that-unleashed-hysteria-over-child-abuse.html

[Duppers]

9. Exactly.

[Bettie]

10. Makes you wonder if Tammy Baldwin will be their next target

In Wisconsin, there are a lot of evangelicals who really hate and fear GLBT people. So, they can get a two-fer...a liberal AND a lesbian.

And that would be their test case for any woman running for president.

[old guy]

24. Plus the fact that she is one to come out for Al to resign without an investigation.

If she loses next year this may be part of the reason.

[vi5]

31. No, no you don't understand. That won't happen.

See she called for Franken's resignation so that means she's inoculated against criticism. Because if there's one thing we've learned from the past 20 years it's that if the Dems try really hard and just do what the Republicans tell them to, then they can't be criticized. It's genius!!!

[Bettie]

44. You're right

and that's gonna kick in any second!

Any second now.

Soon.

Maybe.

MORAL HIGH GROUND!

[AllyCat]

46. I am pretty angry with her right now.

I doubt I will pound pavement or donate for her this year. Maybe I’ll change my mind later.

[lunamagica]

13. We already know what they do to female candidates, and it is brutal

[Cosmocat]

18. Those under that delusion were asleep the last two decades and in a coma the last three years

cause we had a SUPER qualified, highly competent, decent and honorable women who, well ...

[Politicub]

11. That women are mad as hell and are not going to take it anymore

Republicans are going to be snakes no matter what.

[lunamagica]

15. Tell that to the millions who voted for trump

and who now will vote for Moore

[The Wizard]

12. The Democratic leadership on the road to failure

Al Franken is a smart fearless legislator who makes Republicans cower in fear. Of course they want him gone. It started with a political hack from Pox News and a suggestive photo signifying horseplay. Roger Stone engineered a coordinated and orchestrated assault on Franken so as to weaken him, and by extension, the Democratic Party.
Unfortunately Democrats curl up in the corner the minute any controversy comes up, fearing the Republican media smear machine will say mean things about them. Democrats always want to get out in front of the situation and in so doing sacrifice their best and brightest without a fair hearing, without challenging allegations made by a Nihilist hostile adversary.
Shirley Sherrod and Van Jones come to mind as victims of the Republican jihad against normal people, both wrongfully discharged under a cloud of doubt created by vile cretins dedicated to bring back the bad old days of a two tiered system of lords and serfs.
Wake up Democrats, Republicans will accuse you of killing jobs in health care if you come up with a cancer cure. With a soulless demagogue at the helm, and a propaganda operation the would make Goebbels blush, the Republicans must be confronted at all turns lest we lose our souls along with them.
We're better than this. If we are to survive as a viable alternative to tyranny we must stand for something. Cowering in the corner is no defense against a toxic, well coordinated death cult bent on bringing back the bad times we thought were behind us.
So now they got Al Franken to quit, and Republicans stand almost unanimously with an alleged child molester and a self professed pussy grabber.
We are an ignorant culture that prefers wrong and strong over weak and right. Those who stand for nothing will fall for anything.

[WaitWut]

14. And that will be the message for the next election:

"Democrats are perverts, look at how many of them resigned over sexual assault. Meanwhile, Republican leaders stand strong against unjust accusations and show a firm commitment to Christian family values." --Stolen from a comment on reddit.

[SaveAmerica]

17. I feel they know this already and is why they did it.

[Lanius]

22. I agree, good summation.

The Democrats want the moral high-ground on the issues of sexual harassment and assault (especially in the workplace). That's great, no one should have to up with this stuff, but the problem is the other side doesn't accept our standards (and they don't pay an electoral price for it).

I think Franken's resignation and betrayal by the Democrats in the Senate sends terrible messages, that (1) anonymous accusations are enough to sink a Democrat, but detailed, on-the-record accusations against a Republican amount to nothing, as long as he denies it and calls the accusers liars, (2) that Democrats caved AGAIN to pressure from the Republicans (it doesn't matter what, Dems always cave), (3) that Democrats allowed some in the media to make a false equivalency between Franken and Roy Moore and Chump, and (4) that we are now not allowing for due process (in this case, an ethics investigation) to take its course, and even anonymous accusations of sexual harassment or assault are being taken as truth; I know women shouldn't be treated as liars, but we have due process for a reason. The spineless Democrats should have let the Senate ethics investigation finish, but they caved under pressure from the Republicans and the media.

[lancelyons]

25. Its not about the other side... Hillary called them deplorables and that is the case

Its not about the other side... Hillary called them deplorables and that is the case.

However the swing voter or the independent voter that is out there see the Democrats doing the right thing even if its hard for them to do this.

Will that be worth a vote or 100000 votes.. who knows.

We have to hope that being decent and honorable is the right course.

[Lanius]

27. The other side (i.e. Republicans) don't play by the same rules. Watch, Roy Moore will win

then Mitch McConnell will call for an ethics investigation (not for Moore's resignation), which the Senate Republicans will allow to be finished. They won't cave the way the Democrats did.

And don't put too much stock in the independent voter have as much moral outrage over these issues like us Democratic political junkies. I'm not saying it isn't important to them, but most people aren't as into social justice and equality as we are. They're mostly concerned with the economy, taxes, etc.

[ollie10]

34. The swing voter will notice that Franken resigned, will assume he is guilty....

....and they won't remember that what Franken was accused of was way different than what Moore and Trump and others have done.

This is win for the Republicans. Groping Republicans can now relax....

[LenaBaby61]

38. Thing is ...

HOW do we know that Independent or Democratic votes WILL be counted?

Oh I have NO doubt that IF the voting was fair, Dems would do WELL in the 2018 Mid-terms. But seeing as things are NOT fair. Those numbers in the black bolded below are DEMS voters being crosschecked or purged out of existence.

Crosscheck Removed 450K Voters in MI, 270 K in AZ and 590 K in NC!!

This is the start of of Greg Palast’s story. The original is at www.gregpalast.com/… This is very, very likely why, in state after state, Hillary was up 150K votes before election day and lost: Her voters could not show up. They were already eliminated from the voter rolls. If proven true, this sounds like a classic Justice Department issue and needs to be resolved in real time. We must not repeat the mistakes of Florida 2000. (BTW, first post, three lines, was posted by Gbriel777 at this DKos link.)

“Before a single vote was cast, the election was fixed by GOP and Trump operatives.

“Starting in 2013 – just as the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act – a coterie of Trump operatives, under the direction of Kris Kobach, Kansas Secretary of State, created a system to purge 1.1 million Americans of color from the voter rolls of GOP–controlled states.

The system, called Crosscheck, is detailed in my Rolling Stone report,
“The GOP’s Stealth War on Voters,” 8/24/2016.

Crosscheck in action: Trump victory margin in Michigan:13,107
Michigan Crosscheck purge list: 449,922

Trump victory margin in Arizona:85,257 Arizona

Crosscheck purge list:270,824

Trump victory margin in North Carolina: 177,008 North Carolina

Crosscheck purge list: 589,393

“On Tuesday, we saw Crosscheck elect a Republican Senate and as President, Donald Trump. The electoral putsch was aided by nine other methods of attacking the right to vote of Black, Latino and Asian-American voters, methods detailed in my book and film, including “Caging,” “purging,” blocking legitimate registrations, and wrongly shunting millions to “provisional” ballots that will never be counted.

See www.GregPalast.com for more.

https://www.dailykos.com/stories/2016/11/14/1599330/-Crosscheck-Removed-450K-Voters-in-MI-270-K-in-AZ-and-590-K-in-NC

****************************************************
There's this from Ari Berman:

Rigged: How Voter Suppression Threw Wisconsin to Trump.

And possibly handed him the whole election.
ARI BERMAN
NOVEMBER/DECEMBER 2017 ISSUE

You can’t say Andrea Anthony didn’t try. A 37-year-old African American woman with an infectious smile, Anthony had voted in every major election since she was 18. On November 8, 2016, she went to the Clinton Rose Senior Center, her polling site on the predominantly black north side of Milwaukee, to cast a ballot for Hillary Clinton. “Voting is important to me because I know I have a little, teeny, tiny voice, but that is a way for it to be heard,” she said. “Even though it’s one vote, I feel it needs to count.”

She’d lost her driver’s license a few days earlier, but she came prepared with an expired Wisconsin state ID and proof of residency. A poll worker confirmed she was registered to vote at her current address. But this was Wisconsin’s first major election that required voters—even those who were already registered—to present a current driver’s license, passport, or state or military ID to cast a ballot. Anthony couldn’t, and so she wasn’t able to vote.

The poll worker gave her a provisional ballot instead. It would be counted only if she went to the Department of Motor Vehicles to get a new ID and then to the city clerk’s office to confirm her vote, all within 72 hours of Election Day. But Anthony couldn’t take time off from her job as an administrative assistant at a housing management company, and she had five kids and two grandkids to look after. For the first time in her life, her vote wasn’t counted.

I met Anthony on a rainy Wednesday evening in mid-August. She had recently moved to Madison for a job making sales calls for the health insurance company Humana and was living in an Econo Lodge off the freeway with two of her kids and her mother-in-law as she looked for permanent housing. “This particular election was very important to me,” she told me in the motel’s small lobby, citing her strong aversion to Donald Trump. “I felt like the right to vote was being stripped away from me.”

http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/10/voter-suppression-wisconsin-election-2016/

[lancelyons]

23. Even though i dont think Franken got fair treatment, I do agree with the move.

Before all of this happened, the GOP where saying Roy Moore's is ok to go to the Senate because even Franken is there.

The GOP treated them as equivalent and did that to their voters and their voters agreed blindly.

With the Democrats going the high road, they can say now say that the GOP is the party of the Gropers, Sexual Harrassers and Pedophiles.

Its a hard loss for a good guy in Franken who essentially had a bunch of conservative ladies make weak accusations.

[ollie10]

30. So you are saying that by a Democrat resigning in disgrace, this is going to hurt the Republicans?

[Lanius]

32. The Republicans don't care, also they'll point the finger at Democratic support of Bill Clinton

[ollie10]

35. And Gillibrand said Bill Clinton should have resigned....

[Lanius]

40. She would have been in the minority back then, IIRC. Most Dems still backed Clinton.

[ollie10]

42. I believe she said that recently

[lancelyons]

36. Democrats arent doing this to get the GOP to like them. They are doing it for votes.

Democrats arent doing this to get the GOP to like them. They are doing it for votes.

Everybody knows this problems is on both sides of the political spectrum.

GOP is not doing anything to clean house on their side actually going all in for a pedophile.

Democrats taking the high road and doing what is the right thing to do.

You cant have 2 sexual harassers and say our guy the democrat is ok and he did less. That doesnt work.

[Lanius]

39. This won't get the Democrats any more votes than they already get from us and

left-leaning Independents. Republicans and right-leaning Independents, by and large, don't care about this stuff as much as we do. This won't swing any of their votes. I would like to be wrong, but I don't think I will be. Also, Franken's resigning will be seen as an admission of guilt in their eyes.

And it isn't the "right thing" to betray someone and not allow due process to take its course. The Democrats should have let the ethics investigation finish, especially with so many anonymous accusers. Now, Franken will be out, but Roy Moore will be in. Great move.

[LenaBaby61]

43. "With the Democrats going the high road, they can say now say that the GOP is the party of ...

Gropers, Sexual Harassers and Pedophiles."

You honestly think that calling Roy a pedophile will bother thuglicans like fatso? He's taunting Franken.

Also, thuglicans KNOW how to put the knife in and twist it.

They'll STILL mock and make fun of Franken even though he's gone, and for good measure bring up Bill Clinton again. Well, they may not have to do that as Kirsten Gillibrand will continue throwing him under a bus and running OVER him, and thuglicans will probably low-key dig up crap on her and hoist her on her own petard. They have no soul. You can't guilt thuglicans into having a conscience, because if you could CHIP wouldn't be DEAD. How many children will suffer the fate of DYING without medical care/treatment?

Roy Mall Rat Moore, who has the FULL support of fellow thuglicans, WILL be a sitting Senator voting down law after law or voting to get rid of existing laws which defend women/children who are victims of domestic violence/abuse/sexual assault.

Dems can take the high road and fly high all they want to. Hey, they helped to run Al Franken out of the Senate without an investigation. Dems, gotta make way for Roy Moore

But thuglcians will be shooting Dems down, even the PIOUS ones like P-51 Mustangs gunned down enemy fighters during World War 2.

ALL Dems, even WOMEN who ganged up on Al Franken better watch their backs TOO, because thuglicans have the blue-print of taking them down also because their fellow dems will gang up on them too. Dems have NO strategy for anything. They're just the OTHER political party.

You can sit in and win the presidency and brag about grabbing women's pussy's if you're a THUGLICAN.

[ollie10]

28. Here's a #4

4. Since Democrats are in favor of legislation against sexual harassment and women's rights in general, and because 1, 2, and 3 will likely stack the deck against the Democrats, they also will stack the deck against women's rights.

[rrrru4ril28]

37. Democrats will never learn

I am extremely upset at the Democratic party in the Senate right now. This has looked like a set-up from the get go. Al Franken volunteered to undergo an ethics investigation that neither Trump nor Roy Moore will submit to or any other investigation but rather yell lies and lying media. Ant yet here we have a party that will eat it's own. Isn't this suspicious? One of the more articulate and dogged Senators on the left. Now he is resigning and the Republicans are defending him. Trying to look good I guess or maybe they see the writing on the wall. At this current time in America any Democratic personality is subject to unsupported accusations and people like Kirsten will lead the charge to get them out. The threshold is now too low. Did Al Franken squeeze a bit when he put his arm around someone? Maybe. Who cares. He didn't try to grab their pussies or hold their breasts. It isn't even clear if he touched Leeann Tweeden's breasts in that picture and we had no chance to really hear from witnesses during that USO tour either now did we.

Did you notice the type of accusations kept getting a little bit worse, almost like someone wanted to find the threshold to bring down a Democratic politician. I am very upset right now. Al Franken was denied due process. So it goes and people like Kirsten Gillibrand deserve what she gets if some unfounded accusation comes her way.

[Soxfan58]

41. Do you really think

Al Franken's career is over? If he had gone thru a reperv controlled ethics investigation win or lose it would have been over. I think he works on his image, returns to the senate or maybe even higher. In the long term a smart political move.