Equity and Absolution

Equity and Absolution

Senator Elizabeth Warren announced that she was running for President on Saturday.  Warren has been a “star” of the Democratic left, and has championed consumer rights throughout her career, including acting as the “founding mother” of the Federal Consumer Protection Bureau.  

President Trump, with his eagle eye for exposing his opponents’ vulnerabilities, has honed in on Warren’s heritage.  Warren, born and raised in Oklahoma, was told by her parents that she was of Native-American ancestry.   While Trump wasn’t the first to question her background, he raised the issue to a national level, using the slanderous nickname of “Pocahontas” to hold her up to ridicule. After her announcement this weekend, Trump tweeted the following:

Today Elizabeth Warren, sometimes referred to by me as Pocahontas, joined the race for President. Will she run as our first Native American presidential candidate, or has she decided that after 32 years, this is not playing so well anymore? See you on the campaign TRAIL, Liz – Donald Trump, Tweet, 2/9/19

This is the “reality TV” Presidency, so it really is no surprise that the President sounds more like someone trying to stay “on the island” than the leader of the free world.  Unfortunately, what should have been a jarring and inappropriate statement by Trump, is now commonplace and accepted.  His use of  “TRAIL” is an obvious reference to the Trail of Tears, a Presidential order resulting in the death of more than 15,000 Native Americans. For Trump to use that horrific Presidential action as a “dig” at Warren, not only demonstrates how far he will go, but how far the American people have fallen.

It seems we have given Trump absolution for anything he might do or say, whether it’s fourth grade style insults, or serious sexual assaults.  His election is seen, at least by those that supported him, as “cleansing” him of previous “sin” and giving him license to commit more. 

To Democrats now come the hard choices of equity and absolution.  If the President, and the newest member of the United States Supreme Court, are given absolution for their actions by their arrival in office, what should Democrats do with their leaders who commit “sins?”  The Party previously set the standard with Senator Al Franken, forcing him to resign his post because of a Roger Stone backed story of sexual harassment.  With that as the marker, we enter the “new era” of political correctness.

All of which has come to a head in Virginia.  The Governor and the next two officials in line for his office, have all been accused of offenses.  Governor Mark Northam admits to having worn “black face” in a “dance contest” when he was a medical student at twenty-five.  And while he is “sorry,” he really doesn’t seem to get it, publicly discussing the difficulty of getting shoe polish off his face, and seeming to be willing to reenact his dance moves of 1984.

The Lieutenant Governor, Justin Fairfax, has two women claiming he sexually assaulted them, one as late as 2004.  One of these accusations came forward two years ago, the other just this week.  And finally, the State Attorney General, Mark Herring, next in line for the Governorship, has also admitted to wearing black face in his youth, when he was a college freshman at nineteen.

The publication of these scandals originates from “alt-right” sources, like the Franken story, raising questions as to their veracity.  For that reason alone, the “steamroller” of resignation should be slowed until there is confirmation of truth.  But should all three situations be determined valid, Democrats have a problem.

According to the “Franken Rule” all three should resign.  According to “equity” with the Republicans, perhaps they should all stay.  And according to common fairness, all three should be judged on their own merits, and not be thrown into the same “pot.”

And then there are the politics of the politics.  If Northam resigns, and Fairfax refuses to, Democrats are faced with an accused sex assaulter as Governor of Virginia, something that the #METOO core of the Democratic Party cannot condone.  If Northam AND Fairfax resign, then Democrats have to deal with the youthful mistake of the Attorney General, perhaps a transgression more likely to be forgiven.  But if all three resign, a Republican Speaker of the House of Delegates would take over, changing the balance of elected Virginia government.  

Northam has nothing to lose by staying, and an entire career to lose by resigning.  The political realities for Fairfax and Herring are the same, leaving office means ending their careers.  So all three are likely to stay, for at least as long as they can, and not take the “high road” of resignation that Al Franken chose. Republicans will then hang their transgressions on the entire national Democratic Party, regardless of the fact that Republicans have done the same or worse.   

It isn’t fair, but for the Democratic Party to demonstrate a difference from the “reality TV” world of Trump, they have to continue to defend the line that began with Franken’s resignation.  Democrats cannot accept “equity” with the actions of Trump and Kavanaugh and maintain the standard that their minority and #METOO base demands. Virginia politicians need to work out a process to keep a Democrat in the governorship, but in the end, to define Democratic political difference, there can be no absolution for the sins in Virginia.