Tag: Joe Biden

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Politics

For Such a Time As This

The long night is almost over, we have awakened from the terrifying nightmare, we have released a loud collective exhale. When I lie dying, on some far-off day, I will remember the scenes etched into my consciousness on November 7, 2020, when I saw the return of the America I have known and loved. People danced in the streets in massive conglomerations of skin colors, sexual identities, religious beliefs, ethnicities, professions, education levels, income levels. There were no angry chants, no pumped fists, and only a few negative signs–just flag waving, singing, and dancing. What I saw in those images on my TV screen was unadulterated joy and relief, and it was beautiful.

It’s been an excruciating four years and a time which I’m willing to admit has shaken me to my very core. I, along with my fellow Americans, have watched in horror as a rogue “president” and his accomplices have taken a wrecking ball to our democracy. Most heart-rending of all has been seeing people I have long known and respected pulled into the snare of a lying, cheating, grifting con artist. We have watched truth be reduced to “opinion.” We have listened to more than 22,000 lies spoken from the presidential pulpit and echoed by millions, all without consequence. We have witnessed foreign interference in our most sacred right, welcomed by the beneficiaries of that interference, also without negative consequences. We have watched an impeached “president” brazenly demand reelection and millions of our friends, neighbors, and family members line up to cast their votes for him.

We have seen statesmen uncloaked, revealing themselves as just power-hungry mercenaries; and we’ve seen their constituents eagerly reelect them. We’ve been witnesses as the Party of Lincoln has devolved into the Party of Conspiracy Theories and Incompetence. “Moral high ground” has come to mean nothing more than pro-life, anti-abortion fanaticism. Lives lost to gun violence, black lives cut short by police cruelty, children kidnapped and held in cages for three years or longer, families unable to buy food because they’ve lost their jobs as a result of a pandemic–these lives have been irrelevant in the predominant “moral” code.

We have watched nearly a quarter million, so far, of our fellow citizens die while not a word of condolence or comfort or genuine promise of help has been spoken from our White House. We have watched the dismantling of the structures which were put in place during previous administrations to manage the possibility of a pandemic. In their place were only the fatuous comments about how, when we least expect it, the coronavirus will magically disappear–maybe a little faster if we just inject some bleach or shine a light in the appropriate place.

Worst of all, we have seen the jaws of authoritarianism and fascism open and bare the vicious fangs which would love to devour us, to destroy the world’s oldest functioning democracy, to prove that this great experiment of ours has failed and was just a pipe dream all along. We have watched the fabric of our democracy stretched almost to the point of being torn asunder, our country reduced from leader of the free world to laughing stock of the world. But fascism, you can close your ugly jaws and go back to where you came from. We are stronger than you.

Joe Biden won the election, but most important, WE won. We showed that, although we can be swindled into a period of darkness, the American spirit is real; this experiment is still working. We have earned the right once again to call ourselves the land of the free and the home of the brave, to wave our flag proudly as a symbol of an imperfect union held together by imperfect people who believe in the goodness and strength of the human spirit to overcome adversity.

We have tons of work to do. This country had problems before the inauguration of 2017, and the inauguration of 2021 is not going to make them disappear. The good that has come from these last four years is that they have shined a light under the beds and in the corners and the closets where we’ve kept our dark impulses hidden and pretended they had gone away. They’re all out now, right in the middle of the living room, and we have to start house cleaning.

What this election did for us was give us the leadership to guide the country through the hard task of looking honestly at each other and remembering that what unites us is stronger than what divides us. The last four years have revealed the deep prejudices that exist; now it’s the job of every single person to examine their own heart and acknowledge their own prejudices, because everybody has at least one. If we are to be whole again, every person must begin with cleansing his/her own soul. No political party has all of the right answers; healing will require finding our common ground and building on it.

Joe Biden has never been accused of being exciting. He’s not suave, polished, or sophisticated; he’s not an eloquent orator. He can be clumsy, awkward, and gaffe prone; in fact, gaffes have been his m.o. What he does bring to this time of healing is goodness, and goodness is what we have most been missing. Joe Biden is a good, decent, loving, kind, compassionate, empathetic human being who knows how to wrap his arms around a person or a nation who’s hurting and truly “feel with them” (the definition of empathy). Although the Democratic Party has its own set of problems, the wisdom of choosing a man such as this for a time such as this is a testament to the party’s moral fiber and patriotism.

Spoiler alert: Here comes another of my mother’s favorite sayings. She was fond of saying “You can’t make a silk purse from a sow’s ear.” That pivot some people kept waiting for in 2016 and 2017 couldn’t possibly have happened, because the raw material was not there. The person elected president in 2016 did not have the knowledge, temperament, wisdom, dignity, or class to be president. Hoping to make a beautiful creation out of that raw material was futile, to put it kindly. A pig’s ear is a pig’s ear, period. It can’t be silk, and it can’t be made to look like silk.

Joe Biden is not pure silk either, but he’s high quality cowhide; and that makes a pretty solid, durable purse. A silk bag is only good for a fancy evening out, but that leather bag can go anywhere and endure pretty much any abuse. President-Elect Biden has been tested, and he’s a survivor. He’s suffered loss–both of loved ones and of ambitions and elections–and he didn’t come from wealth or privilege. His driving force has been to serve his family and his country, and he has faithfully done that for 48 years. He is strengthened by his faith, though he doesn’t flaunt that faith or use it as a weapon. If he goes to church, it will be to worship, not to stage a photo op; and no tear gas will be required.

Congratulations, America! I have never been more proud to call you my home. Now let’s all get to work! We have a lot to do. The world is celebrating with us, but they’ll also be watching. Let’s not let them down again. Let goodness, decency, kindness, and compassion prevail. God bless America!

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Politics

Pee-Wee Herman Politics

During my sons’ tween-age years, Pee-Wee Herman, a character played by actor Paul Reubens, was frequently on the screen in our house; so my sons adopted Pee-Wee’s favorite retort to an insult: “I know you are, but what am I?” For example, “You’re an idiot, Pee-Wee.” Pee-Wee’s response: “I know you are, but what am I?” Mr. Reubens’ career ended after an incident that just begs for an off-color joke; but moving along, the saying remained one of our favorite humorous comebacks for quite some time.

Never could I have imagined I’d see the day when a comedian’s schtick would go to the mainstream political arena, but here we are. Donald Trump’s first notable “I know you are, but what am I?” moment came during the third presidential debate of 2016. Hillary Clinton confronted Donald Trump about the campaign help he was receiving from Russia, saying Putin would love to see Trump elected, because Putin would then have a puppet in our White House. Trump shot back, “No puppet. No puppet. You’re the puppet.” No one would be surprised by that comeback in a fifth-grade classroom; but on the stage of a presidential debate, we expect more: counter-arguments supported by facts and examples.

Sadly for all of us, real arguments based on facts are now only a dim memory, replaced by Pee-Wee Herman Politics.

Our national intelligence agencies have clearly established the fact that Russia conducted coordinated, widespread efforts to influence our 2016 presidential election in favor of Donald Trump. Witnesses presented compelling evidence to prove Donald Trump–in a phone call made from the Resolute Desk in the Oval Office–attempted to enlist Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s assistance in finding “dirt” on Joe Biden that could be used to discredit him with voters. All of these incidents are well documented with fact, yet they have become part of the narrative reversal that is driving the 2020 presidential race.

The list of pending litigation against Donald Trump–much of which he will be forced to face when he no longer has the shield of the presidency to protect him–is pages long. His shady business dealings, both before and during his tenure in the White House, are well known and documented. What we have seen so far of his highly classified tax returns holds enough damning evidence to insure he could die behind bars. He has never divested himself from his businesses, while he has encouraged and required that they be used by government personnel, enriching himself by misusing his office for personal gain. And that doesn’t even include the times he and his family have used their official positions to hawk everything from beans to apparel.

Current figures estimate that $141,000,000 has been spent during the last almost four years on Trump’s golf outings, yet the faithful band of supporters praise his supposed donation of his $400,000 annual salary for being president. Even if he’s telling the truth about donating his salary, it would take 352 and a half years of that salary to equal what you and I have paid for his entertainment and negligence of his duties. That doesn’t exactly earn him a halo.

The Hatch Act of 1939 “prohibits federal employees from engaging in political activities while they are working in an official capacity,” but that law didn’t stop Donald Trump and the R.N.C. from using the White House as a venue for parts of their 2020 convention–most notably Trump’s acceptance speech, which included the requisite dictator-style balcony scene. At any other time in our post-1939 history, such theatrics would have been nixed in the planning stage; but the current unique combination of unhinged chief executive and corrupt, complicit political party have rendered complaints against abuse of power futile.

A prime example is the way Mitch McConnell goes stone-cold deaf any time his hypocrisy is pointed out; for example, his ramrodding Senate approval of a Supreme Court nominee in the middle of an election after denying so much as the courtesy of an interview with a candidate nominated eight months before an election. All of the righteous rhetoric of 2016 by McConnell and accomplices simply evaporated in 2020, and none of them seemed to notice or feel any sense of shame.

In true Pee-Wee Herman fashion, however, it’s Joe Biden who is now being portrayed to voters as a criminal, a would-be dictator, a person worthy of being locked up. Pee-Wee Herman’s “I know you are, but what am I?” is a more modern twist on the line my classmates and I used on the school playground: “I’m rubber, you’re glue. Anything you say bounces off me and sticks on you.” And the narrative reversal technique is on full display everywhere I look.

In a quick scan of some rabid Trump supporters’ Facebook pages, I found these claims about Joe Biden:

A post exclaims that both the CIA and the FBI have been covering for the Obama/Biden administration by redacting evidence against them and that because of this tweet from Donald Trump, the forementioned folks will soon be going to jail. Hashtag OctoberSurprise. The Tweet:

“I have fully authorized the total Declassification of any & all documents pertaining to the single greatest political CRIME in American History, the Russia Hoax. Likewise, the Hillary Clinton Email Scandal. No redactions!”

Another post excoriates Democrats for putting the country through four years of “bullshit and lies” about Trump’s Russia ties, while lo and behold, it was actually Hillary Clinton who was doing the colluding all along.

Narrative reversal: It is Barack Obama, Joe Biden, and Hillary Clinton who should be investigated and prosecuted for their complicity in Russia’s interference–not Donald Trump, who was “completely exonerated” (NOT) by the Mueller report. The problem with this narrative is that it is based on no credible evidence. Robert Mueller did not absolve Donald Trump of guilt; he simply declined to pursue prosecution against a sitting president. And no credible evidence has been presented to support the claim that members of the Obama administration colluded with Russia. So this tweet amounts to nothing more than a diversion from the facts and an attempt to retain the support of those gullible enough to believe anything Trump says and dismiss any facts to the contrary.

A September 9, 2020, headline in the conservative rag National Review reads:

“Bombshell Allegation: Hillary Orchestrated Collusion to Distract from Her Emails, According to Russian Intel.”

The article goes on to state, without evidence, that Hillary Clinton “signed off on the plan.”

A Twitter user, responding to Trump’s tweet about declassifying all documents relating to Russian election interference, says gleefully:

“When all of the documents are finally declassified, and all the redactions removed from reports, the nation will see that the FBI and CIA not only knew the Russia ‘collusion’ allegations against Trump were a political dirty trick, but they were in on the trick.”

Hashtags currently trending include #BidenCrimeFamily and #BeijingBiden. If those labels sound vaguely reminiscent of claims against Donald Trump and his family, you win the Pee-Wee Herman award for identifying “I know you are, but what am I?” ruses.

Aside from being a sign of desperation as polling numbers show a wider and wider gap in favor of Biden, the “I’m rubber, you’re glue” narrative reversal undermines the truth and serves to diffuse righteous indignation which should guide voters’ choices. Making “both sides” guilty of the same “crimes,” or attributing allegations against one side to the other, serve to neutralize the issue, and facts lose all relevance. When there is no authoritative source of truth, truth becomes whatever one chooses to believe; hence, confirmation bias (believing only that which supports one’s preconceived ideas) has become common among many of all persuasions. When we as a nation can no longer agree on what is true or credible, voters are left to choose according to visceral preferences, biases, and hearsay.

The New York Times, our nation’s oldest and most respected newspaper, is now a joke among those who have bought the “failing New York Times” and the broader “enemy of the people” epithets. Snopes and other fact-checkers are similarly scoffed at as liberal-leaning and untrustworthy. When the FBI and CIA are accused of being political operatives, we’re deep into dangerous territory. These are apolitical agencies whom we have always trusted to guard our national security, yet corrupt politicians have tarnished their credibility for personal gain and power. When our Justice Department is used as the personal legal team for the president, we’re equally at risk. We’re no longer kids on the playground, using silly retorts to deflect criticism. “Rubber-glue” narrative reversals have dire real-world consequences.

During this year’s final presidential debate, when Joe Biden attempted to press Donald Trump on the 545 children still held in cages by our government while no one knows where their parents are or how to find them, Trump offered no explanation except the lie, “They’re being treated very well.” Says the man who s*&ts on gold toilets. Trump’s only comeback was “Obama built the cages,” repeated several times. For once, he was telling the truth: President Obama did build the facilities, and I’m not even going to try to completely absolve him from guilt in the larger debacle.

What I do want to focus on is the way this narrative reversal enabled Trump to skirt the issue and deflect blame. President Obama built the facilities for a different reason, one that was relevant at the time; but he did not kidnap the 545 children in question, and he did not place the children in those cages, while making no attempt to keep track of their parents. Donald Trump alone is responsible for the kidnapping and imprisoning of these children, and no amount of narrative reversal can change the fact. And what has he done to end those children’s suffering? Sent his wife to visit, wearing a jacket that essentially said F you.

Even if Obama had placed them there (and he did not), Donald Trump has had almost four years in which to undo the damage, four years to show a glimmer of humanity and release those children either to their own parents or to caring people who would give them loving homes with beds in place of concrete floors; soft, warm, cozy blankets in place of mylar covers; a yard and fresh air in place of confinement; and a loving embrace to help ease the pain in which they have lived for three years. But what has he done about it? Nothing. Except blame Obama.

Possibly the most damaging effect of Pee-Wee Herman politics is that many voters seem confused about who is the incumbent in this election. Donald Trump has made it popular to counter every claim and campaign promise Joe Biden makes with the comeback, “You’ve had 47 years. Why haven’t you done this already?” Such an inane question doesn’t really deserve a response, but for those in the back row, Joe Biden has served as a senator and as a vice president. Neither of those offices is endowed with the same power or allows the same opportunities for unilateral action that the presidency does. One senator or vice president can effect change within the scope of their own office, but that scope is limited. Although Biden’s positions on issues can be discerned from his record in other offices, what he would accomplish in the office of president cannot be.

Donald Trump, on the other hand, should be called to account for what he has accomplished or failed to accomplish during the almost four years he has been president–something he has deftly avoided by employing Pee-Wee Herman Politics and flipping the narrative. Trump has for four years, five including his campaign, been promising a wonderful, beautiful health care plan that we’re all going to love. His efforts to strike down the ACA, now in the middle of an out-of-control pandemic, have been based on the promise of a better system. But where is it? He’s had four years. Why are 545 children still imprisoned, with no clue to their parents’ whereabouts? Why is he still “going to” make America great again? He’s had four years. Why does his campaign use images of this year’s civil unrest to show what life would be like during a Biden administration? This is what life has been like during a Trump administration. He’s had four years to be the “law and order” president. What has he done to make us safer?

In a typical election, the incumbent has the advantage of being able to point to achievements of his/her first term, on which he/she would like to build if given the chance for a second term. Who’s the incumbent here? Joe Biden is being held accountable for 47 years as a senator and vice president, but Donald Trump is not held accountable for four years as president. Does anyone else think that’s backward?

Pee-Wee Herman Politics trivializes a process that has life-and-death consequences; presidential elections are not child’s play. I close with an excerpt from a powerful speech by Senator Chuck Schumer, delivered on the eve of Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation to the Supreme Court, but I think perfectly applicable to the Republican Party’s last four years as a whole: the nomination of a reality-TV star for our highest office, the continued enabling of that “president’s” reign of chaos and his degradation of the office, allowing and repeating his lies, blocking his well-deserved impeachment, doing nothing to stop foreign interference in our elections, and allowing more than 230,000 people to die while they told us things are getting better and will magically go away at any moment.

“I want to be very clear with my Republican colleagues. You may win this vote.  . . . But you will never, never get your credibility back.  . . . You may win this vote. But in the process you will speed the precipitous decline of faith in our institutions, our politics, the Senate and the Supreme Court. You will give an already divided and angry nation a fresh outrage, and open a wound in this chamber that may never heal.

You walk a perilous road.

I know you think that this will eventually blow over. But you are wrong. The American people will never forget this blatant act of bad faith. They will never forget your complete disregard for their voices, for the people standing in line right now voting their choice, not your choice.

They will never forget the lack of consistency, honor, decency, fairness and principle.”

You know what to do: Vote like your life depends on it. When my grandchildren are older and living the results of our choices, I want to be able to tell them I stood on the right side of history. Your vote will have consequences far beyond your lifetime. Vote like your children’s and grandchildren’s lives depend on it. They do.

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Politics

Beyond #MeToo

A female member of my family, troubled that her boss had made an unwelcome pass at her, once confided the experience to one of our aunts. The aunt’s response was “Honey, in my day, we considered that a compliment!” Those days are over, and good riddance to them! Today’s women are smart enough to know that the attention of a powerful man is not always a sign he finds us attractive; and being seen as attractive by someone who’s under the influence of a few drinks or is drunk on his own power and authority was never really much of a compliment. We’ve also learned in the years between my aunt and my mother’s generation, my generation, and my daughter’s generation that sexual aggression has little to do with sex and a lot to do with power and control, with men’s desperation to retain their supremacy in a world where that supremacy is being challenged and undermined by women determined to change the old rules.

The #metoo movement has given women a voice to speak frankly about men’s misbehavior and a safe space in which their voices can be heard, believed, and respected. With every freedom and privilege, however, comes the caveat that the freedom must be exercised responsibly, and this safe space provided by the #metoo umbrella must not be violated by women who speak irresponsibly or who fail to understand the impact of their words.

I am keenly aware that I’m wading into a snake-infested swamp by addressing this topic, but these are things I think need to be said. I can already feel the hot breath and see the fangs of those poised to attack, but please at least hear me out. I’d like to begin by attempting to set aside what I anticipate to be some strong objections.

Anything less than full-throated endorsement of every claim made by a woman is most frequently seen as “blaming the victim,” so let’s start with that. Blaming the victim means accusing a woman who has suffered the trauma of sexual assault of “asking for it” by the way she was dressed or by something she said or did, and that’s deplorable. No woman deserves to be assaulted, and no one “asks for it.” If a woman is standing in the middle of the street naked, men should turn away and be responsible for their own actions rather than assuming the woman is inviting their advances. A man who does take advantage of the situation and commits an assault is 100% at fault and responsible for his crime.

That said, blaming the victim does not include excusing women for making irresponsible accusations or suggesting they could have resisted certain misconduct. This seems a good place to distinguish between use of force and other types of unwanted contact. Use of force is criminal and should be treated as such. The perpetrator bears full responsibility for his action, and the victim bears no responsibility; she is a victim who deserves justice, not blame. Many women are not equipped to resist forcible assault, but most of us can resist an unwanted kiss or touch; and if we fail to do so, we have to acknowledge our cooperation with the misconduct. If we say we want more power, we have to accept that power and use it. Not every inappropriate advance is an assault; sometimes it’s just an inappropriate advance, and we have always had the power to resist those advances.

Another issue I think needs clarifying is that one group of people does not gain power by destroying the group that has traditionally held the advantage. Women want respect, we want a level playing field. Our goal, in my mind, should be to make men understand, not to make them suffer, however tempting that latter goal may be. The world needs all of the good, intelligent leaders it can get; some will be female and some will continue to be male. That’s good; and it will require mutual respect, understanding, and cooperation. Anger, vengeance, and divisiveness will be counterproductive to our goals.

There’s one more attitude I’ve always found disturbing, and I’d be a wealthy woman if I were given a dollar for every time in my 40+ years of grading student essays that I read students’ descriptions of the bad old days. Young women like to talk about how things were “back in the day,” when women lived in chains and darkness, before their generation arrived on the scene to set women free and make everything okay. My first response to that is that I do not recall my grandmothers being miserable, oppressed women. Both of them were strong women who were not shy about speaking their minds and who could teach any younger woman alive today a thing or three. Yes, they lived under a different set of societal rules, but dissatisfaction with those norms was far from universal. Nonetheless, social change was already afoot, and my grandmothers acquired the right to vote when one was in her 30s, the other in her 40s. Women were beginning to seek higher levels of education, and World War II provided the impetus for many women to take their places in the work force. That generation’s activism is evidence of their strength and vision, not of their powerlessness. Women continue to struggle today and in some ways I believe are less well off than my grandmothers were. The work continues, but I think we would be better served by a more accurate picture of history.

That brings us to our current situation. The most recent man to find himself in the crosshairs of female accusation and scrutiny is Joe Biden. Upon announcing his possible candidacy for POTUS, he was greeted by the accusations of several women who claim Joe’s touchy-feely style has, on at least one occasion, made them feel uncomfortable. Well, this new protocol for greeting an announcement of political intention by hanging out all of the person’s dirty laundry is making me uncomfortable, and I think some group reflection is in order. There are some questions we’d do well to ask ourselves before making or acting on an accusation.

Here’s the account which I think bothers me most.

As reported in The Intelligencer,

When Amy Lappos was a congressional aide for U.S. representative Jim Himes in 2009, she claims that Biden touched and rubbed his nose against hers during a political fundraiser. “It wasn’t sexual, but he did grab me by the head,” she told Hartford Courant on April 1. “He put his hand around my neck and pulled me in to rub noses with me. When he was pulling me in, I thought he was going to kiss me on the mouth.”

Here’s what I find disturbing. Although this encounter was brief, it wasn’t just a quick grab or touch. There was a short process: he grabbed her by the head, put his hand around her neck, pulled her in, rubbed noses. At what point did she begin feeling uncomfortable, and why at that point did she not simply pull away? And if she thought he was about to kiss her on the mouth, why did she not move to be sure that didn’t happen? What I’m reading here is a woman allowing herself to be powerless against an unwanted touch when the perpetrator was not using force. She said she didn’t file a complaint because he was vice president and she was “a nobody,” and perhaps that also explains her reason for feeling she couldn’t resist. But it doesn’t explain her reason for believing that one incident from 2009 should influence our decision on whether Joe Biden should be elected president in 2020.

Joe Biden’s actions were wrong, and he bears full responsibility for what he did, but she bears responsibility for what she did not do but had the power to do. Like every woman I know, I have been the subject of unwanted advances, including attempts at kissing me on the lips. I have resisted those advances and in most cases been able to remain friends with the man without further incident. I can’t think of any incident in my life which, if the man announced his intention to run for political office, would compel me to speak up and share my account of his behavior with the world. If any of them had, however, involved the use of force or been indicative of a shady character, you bet I’d let the world know.

I’m not defending Joe Biden, and I think there are plenty of reasons he should not be president; I just don’t think these accusations should be the things that disqualify him. So how do we weigh accusations of misconduct? How do we decide when they’re deal breakers and when they’re not the most important information about the accused? Most obviously, we all have to be willing to set aside party affiliation and judge each case on the relevant information. No one of any party should be given a pass for sexual misconduct, and no one of any party should have his reputation or his career derailed by irresponsible accusations and sensationalist media treatment of those reports.

I think the most important question and one which is not always easily answered is whether the behavior is a personality problem or a character problem. Personality problems are still problems and should be addressed, but if the accused is willing to admit he has a flaw and do the work of changing, I don’t think that issue alone should be disqualifying.

The seven or so reports against Joe Biden so far seem to indicate that these actions are the result of a warm, affectionate, caring personality, paired with a certain amount of tone-deafness toward the changes which have been in effect long enough that he should have caught on by now. He’s not blameless, but are these actions alone enough to end his career? When Bill Clinton was forced to admit his marijuana use during college, he felt compelled to mitigate the impact by famously claiming he “did not inhale.” When Kamala Harris freely admitted some marijuana use, she added with a laugh, “And I did inhale.” Times have changed, and it’s not always easy to keep up, but those who seek positions of leadership have to keep working at it.

Here is Biden’s response to the allegations:

“I shake hands, I hug people, I grab men and women by the shoulders and say, ‘You can do this.’ Whether they are women, men, young, old, it’s the way I’ve always been. It’s the way I show I care about them, that I listen. Social norms have begun to change, they’ve shifted. And the boundaries of protecting personal space have been reset. And I get it. I get it. I hear what they’re saying, I understand it. And I’ll be much more mindful. That’s my responsibility and I’ll meet it.”

Right answer, Joe! Now shut-up and stop making dumb jokes about hugging people on public platforms.

I can’t see a character flaw in a guy who was a little slow catching on to the shifting norms regarding personal space and who promises he’ll do better. How clean does someone have to be to be eligible for public service? Are we eliminating good people by nitpicking every moment of their lives?

I do see an enormous character flaw in a guy who has bragged about grabbing women by the pussy because he can, because he’s a celebrity and they’ll allow him to do whatever he wants. I see huge character flaws in a guy who rapes an unconscious woman behind a dumpster and then leaves her to possibly die there and in priests and ministers who prey on vulnerable children and adults who look to them for spiritual support and guidance. And those character failings are exacerbated by failure to accept responsibility, to repent, and to discard attitudes of white male privilege. Everyone deserves a second chance to be a better human being and a better citizen; but I believe one such strike, revealing a corrupt character, should be an automatic out for serving as POTUS or other high official. And I would say the same thing if Joe Biden were a Republican and Donald Trump a Democrat. Corrupt character is corrupt character, regardless of the labels it wears.

I don’t enjoy being called terms of endearment by strangers, male or female. If I’m not your “hon” or your “honey” or your “sweetheart,” I’d prefer you not call me that. Although I’m human enough to be flattered by an appreciative or admiring look from a man, when that look turns to something more like a leer or threat, I’m outta here. I appreciate men who know how to read signals and who respect the need for consent before even the most innocent of physical contact. I’m also aware of my own tendency to touch and my sometimes negligence to read the signals correctly. As Joe Biden says, norms have changed, and they continue to evolve; so it’s everyone’s responsibility to keep up. But do we really need to pillory every person who has a lapse in judgment?

The #metoo movement is a great start, but we still have work to do if we want true equality and justice. We need to set realistic standards for our leaders, recognize our common humanity, and work toward understanding and cooperation among people of all genders and sexual orientations. Just how clean does a person have to be to qualify for leadership? Are we bypassing good people because of personality quirks? Are we electing people of corrupt character because they happen to belong to our party or promise to advance our own agendas? Are we allowing conduct in candidates and officials within our own political party that we condemn in those from an opposing party? What is the motive behind lodging a public accusation? Is it to humiliate, to avenge, to assert our own power? Or is the matter so serious that we truly believe it disqualifies the perpetrator from ever serving in public office? Are we, with encouragement from sensationalist media reports, focusing so much on accusations of improper personal conduct that we don’t bother looking at a candidate’s policies and stances on important issues?

Perhaps the most important question is, can we handle our own problems and uncomfortable moments without feeling the need to bring everything to the public square? That’s a difficult question in the age of the Internet and social media, where we can’t even eat dinner without feeling compelled to post a photo for our friends to see. But we have to try. #Metoo is an important step, but there’s much work left to be done.