We send people to Congress to do a job: to write laws, vote on laws, and make speeches about legislation. If they do this job badly, we vote them out and send somebody else. We don’t send them there to be saints, to exhibit perfection of character, to be celebrities, or to be mirrors of our ideal selves.
If you think celebrities are what character and political principle are all about, then I can’t help you.
Watch television, go on Facebook, but don’t confuse these recreational activities with the making of laws. Now millions of people will be enduring the consequences of this skewed sense of priorities.
If this sends you into a tizzy and you think you have to accuse me of covering up for rapists, etc., no, that’s not what it’s about; it’s about keeping score where score-keeping counts. Your Purity League is, for me, an annex of the Trumpist Party (which has no Purity League; they couldn’t care less about the virtue of their representatives). Objective allies, as we used to say.
Subsequently found: Masha Gessen on the Franken resignation: https://www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/al-franken-resignation-and-the-selective-force-of-metoo.
Rebecca Solnit: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/dec/10/dont-let-alt-right-coopt-metoo-agenda