Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., has flipped her position on issues before, yet for the one thing she remained admirably principled on — the seriousness of sexual assault — the Democratic donor class reportedly plans on punishing her.
Yes, Gillibrand is going to be punished for the crime of leading the charge to oust sexual predator Al Franken from the Senate.
In case you need a recap of the bevy of evidence that on multiple occasions, Franken made aggressive, unwanted physical advances and even attacks on more than half a dozen women we know of, let me forward you to David Freddoso’s exhaustive review from this weekend. If you still find Franken’s behavior, evidence and all, excusable, then I suggest you close out of this page now.
But Franken, a former “Saturday Night Live” comedian, was very popular on the fundraising circuit. And that’s probably why Democratic donors insist on avenging Franken’s fall by kneecapping Gillibrand’s likely presidential bid.
To her credit, Gillibrand hasn’t backed down. She directly rebuffed George Soros’ blame game in August and shared the Politico report about this donor revolt with the comment, “Silencing women for the powerful, or for your friends, or for convenience, is neither acceptable, nor just.”
She’s correct. More importantly, Gillibrand didn’t make Franken grope multiple women. She didn’t make the truth come out, and then she certainly didn’t make him lie about it. What she did was stick by her principles and ask that Franken face punishment for his actions. In a just world, Franken’s multiple instances of sexual battery and assault would warrant criminal punishment. But a Senate resignation is more justice than most victims ever receive.
Furthermore, from a purely strategic perspective, all sense of ethics and morals aside, is it ever worth it to defend bad men? Everyone is replaceable. The overwhelming majority of the defenders of Brett Kavanaugh didn’t believe that if he was guilty, his behavior was permissible; rather, in the absence of so much as a shred of corroborating evidence, they believed that he was completely innocent. The loss of Alabama Senate nominee Roy Moore was so significant if only because it demonstrated that there is indeed a threshold of moral behavior that disqualifies a candidate and invalidates their political value, even in a one-party state.
Of course, politics does not operate in a vacuum. Strategy is not divorced from principles, and sure, there’s a chance that Gillibrand only spearheaded the push against Franken for political gain. But given the vast, vitriolic backlash against her, and her steadfastness, I suspect her of far more noble intentions.
So it’s not just the eight documented women who Franken made feel objectified, violated, and disrespected who have had to pay for his actions. It’s also Kirsten Gillibrand who will continue to pay for this popular man’s sins.
