There’s a certain kind of Republican who rationalizes Trump’s many vices because, well, Trump has nominated some conservative judges. (Hugh Hewitt, who’ll rationalize anything to keep a job on the Salem talk radio network comes to mind. See It’s the Supreme Court, stupid.)
If there’s an equivalent of this, it’s a certain kind of Democrat who’ll rationalize incidents of sexual harassment or abuse of adult women for the sake of an otherwise progressive leader. So if Sanders ignores or Franken commits acts of harassment, a greater partisan or ideological goal is supposed to absolve them of culpability.
(Indeed, there’s been some of this in the local support for now-resigned UW-Whitewater chancellor Beverly Kopper, as though she were somehow the Great White Progressive Hope of the city.)
No, and no again.
These partisans aren’t owed their proposed compromises.
America’s a huge place: there are better Republicans than Trump, better Democrats than Sanders and Franken, and better chancellors for Whitewater than the ones this campus has recently had. (UW-Whitewater’s last two chancellors have been enmired in failure over sexual harassment and sexual assault cases.)
There’s no reason to compromise immorally and unnecessarily on fundamental standards of individual rights and dignity.
Those in Whitewater who hope for unquestioned compromises of that kind are living in the wrong place.