Caution: The right is going to weaponize our moral high ground

[IluvPitties]

Guys, I feel this Biden situation needs to be seen as a cautionary tale, because what I see is that one side is taking advantage of some cultural shifts while the other is, without realizing, getting lost in them.

It is great that we are empowering people to speak up about misbehavior from powerful people in the past, and that some people are getting prosecuted for past criminal behavior that was swept under the rug. However, we need to be careful with being overzealous with all of this, or of confusing some social awkwardness from some individuals with potentially predatory behavior.

The other side has taken a position that resonates with many when it comes to these issues: People make mistakes in the past, we care about the present and the future. Of course, they say that because they support criminals and abusers like the Grifter-In-Chief, but take a moment to think about how the narrative is powerful. Most people have done stupid shit in the past, many times unintentionally. While we are desperately looking for any minor flaw in our candidates and ready to flog them in the public square, the GOP gives Donald Trump a chance, and the bastard is giving his constituents what they want- as bad as those things are.

So, let's be careful here. We expect the best from our candidates, but we know they are human, and we have to be willing to evaluate them for the good they have done and the good they can do, not only for a past mistake or two, in particular, if the mistake is minor and can be corrected with an apology and with being more careful.

Our field has excellent people in it, flawed like you and me, but great people anyway- let's not lose perspective here!

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

1. I don't want to see Biden get Frankened.

[NurseJackie]

12. It may be too late.

[The Velveteen Ocelot]

13. I don't think so, for several reasons:

1. Biden has issued a credible and sympathetic statement. I don't know if it will get him off the hook by itself, but he handled it well.

2. A lot of people remember what happened to Franken and have not forgiven Gillibrand for it (that's a whole 'nother discussion), and therefore might be less likely to bring out the torches and pitchforks this time.

3. The alleged touchee might be said to have an agenda of her own (not unlike LeeAnn Tweeden), since she is flogging this story all over the media.

4. One of the other candidates will soon be discovered to have a flaw and we'll run screeching at them, thereby taking the heat off Biden.

Unfortunately we can't seem to help eating our own, ably assisted by people with other agendas.

[NurseJackie]

14. I hope you're right.

I don't think so, for several reasons:

I hope you're right.

Unfortunately we can't seem to help eating our own,

I guess we're just too tasty to resist.

[treestar]

2. Yes, and CNN right now

is talking about women's empowerment, etc., and using that for non-sexual touching as a thing. The right just scorns that we are neurotic snowflakes.

[IluvPitties]

5. They are distorting the #metoo movement

because some in our side are weaponizing the thing.

[hlthe2b]

3. I stayed "silent" for the many days of bombardment of the same post in this forum...

(not the OP but the reporting of the Biden accusations). While I don't accuse anyone of less-than-benign and sincere motives, it was starting to leave me questioning what was going on.

We take the accusations seriously, but that does not mean allowing ourselves to be manipulated. I will never forgive what was done to Al Franken and we need to stop being so damned naive' as to what may be behind some portion of this kind of attacks.

[UniteFightBack]

4. I smell a set up coming in the air................n t

[vlyons]

6. The KGOP will use anything to demonize is

I ain't falling for it. Even tho' I'm not going to vote for Biden, I have been defending him. Flores should have said in 2016, AT THE TIME IT HAPPENED, rather than waiting 3 years to complain. I think that she has shown really poor judgement. Biden's response to her is spot-on. Rather than blowing it up into a "scandal," we should ba talking about healthcare, raising taxes on the rich, raising the minimum wage, clean energy, the new green deal, cutting the military budget, prosecuting tax cheats, and so much more.

https://www.thecut.com/2019/03/joe-biden-issues-statement-in-response-to-lucy-flores.html

[dalton99a]

7. Typical Kark Rove playbook: Turn your opponent's strength into a weakness

It's a GOP specialty

[marylandblue]

8. Attacks on our candidates shouldn't matter. Only their responses matter.

If you put that attack in Trump's mouth and think that Biden can respond in a way that won't make it an obsessive media issue for months, then vote for him. If you think he can't do that, vote for someone else.

[MustLoveBeagles]

9. Great post

Perfect candidates are like unicorns; they don't exist.

[Guilded Lilly]

10. The Right has a bottomless moral low ground and no accountability...

and will use it relentlessly, that is a given.

They can, however, count on the Left’s higher values and tendency to destroy their own to also aid them tremendously. Yeah.
Big threat.

The decency and integrity of the Democrats to hold their own to higher standards has always been tricky. While we can be rightly proud of walking higher roads, we have to be vigilant of some less than stellar motivations of our own to create personally advantageous potholes.

Nature of the beast and all that, this primary appears to be fraught with some seriously potent bumps already.

Obliterate Republicans. Destroy The Cretin. Own the House AND Senate.
Our bottom line mantras.

[LovingA2andMI]

11. If Democrats....

Keep attempting to hold up the "Moral High Ground" like Rafiki did Samba in the Lion King....WE WILL LOSE PERIOD. If we are not willing to get in the mud with the other side that face deep in the mud WE WILL LOSE.

Stop with the Perfect Candidate BS. There is no PERFECT CANDIDATE. Find one you can live with and vote for - and do that. Morally flaws what they might be and all -- and defend the hell out of them, until you do vote for them and they WIN.

Plain and Simple!

[mn9driver]

15. Some folks just love circular firing squads.

And they are very, very good at getting Democrats to do it. That is all.