I've seen this tragic Democratic Lifetime movie before...

[appal_jack]

Yes, this is my perspective on the railroading of Al Franken.

Having been a political junkie since the 1980's, I've watched an eerily-similar sort of group think before among Democrats: the Reagan tax cuts of the 1980's that ballooned the deficit and provided the rationale for the shredding of the social safety net, the 2nd-Amendment-violating and ineffective Assault Weapons Ban of 1994, the early 2000's Iraq War Resolution, then the Swiftboat nonsense against John Kerry, and then the meritless innuendo against ACORN (damn, the B*sh years sucked, didn't they?). With the election of Obama, the group-think became self-constructed weakness: Democrats had to push a Republican/Heritage Foundation private market health plan instead of a public option or Medicare for all. Democrats had to take the "high road" and honor Republican "blue slips" regarding judicial nominations... Are Republicans doing the same now?!? Nooooooo!

And now this Media Star Chamber trial of Franken. I don't know and won't debate whether he was perfect or not, but he is a damned good Senator: on women's issues, on economic issues, on many civil liberties, and on government accountability. Franken is why we have tenuous (and ever fainter) hope that Robert Mueller's investigation might bring us back from the brink of authoritarianism.

On every one of these issues, Democrats pre-emptively folded on the wrong side of the matter and then suffered entirely predictable and avoidable (had they employed a lick of common sense) consequences. As far as I am concerned, Democrats just surrendered 2018 and 2020. Why am I expected to slavishly support their continued incompetence as a condition of posting here?

-app

[appal_jack]

1. And like the typical Lifetime movie...

...the Democratic Party dies from the cancer within.

-app

[Willie Pep]

2. Yeah the Democrats don't really seem to fight back.

In this case there should have been an ethics investigation. That would have been the reasonable thing to do. But they threw a liberal lion under the bus. I fully expect Roy Moore to take his seat in the Senate if he wins and we all know how much Republican voters cared about the much more substantive accusations against Trump.

[appal_jack]

3. Oh, but Democrats will have the "high ground."

That "high ground" will certainly help stop the Republican tax theft, or Trump stealing public lands for his oil-drilling buddies, or the next war, right?!?



LOL, what it really will do is further solidify the narrative of Democrats as losers. Right now, only one major Party has had one of its most prominent leaders step down due to primarily anonymous, partisan, and unsubstantiated ALLEGATIONS of sexual misconduct. That Party is the Democrats. And the allegations against Franken, even if every one of them was true, all pale in comparison to what has been extensively documented against Trump, Moore, etc.

-app