Politics and Forgiveness – a Proposal

Actually don’t think people should resign for things they did before starting to run for government unless its in the clear interests of their constituents. (I understand this will be interpreted partisanly). But I support democracy that way.

I can’t help but think that the long term benefit of defining the progressive cause as one firmly and implacably opposed to racism and misogyny is worth the immediate electoral beating of letting a few officials go.

While I agree with the general sentiments in your post, I don’t like your proposal for Virginia. First, because I don’t trust Republicans to honor any deal to pick a Democrat, and once all three have resigned, I don’t think there’s any way for us to hold them to such a deal. Second, because even if they did pick a Democrat, it would be the worst kind of Democrat possible. To give an example that’s especially close to my heart and which is probably related to the curious timing of all of these scandals, it would certainly be a pro-life Democrat, and the governor’s veto power is the only thing stopping our state from passing creatively evil laws like the trans-vaginal ultrasounds requirement (which is effectively state-sanctioned rape). The main reason I voted for Northam in the primary because he was firmly pro-choice! You can bet that they wouldn’t be a flaming progressive on racial, economic, immigration, environmental, or LGBT issues either.

The choices suck, but I think AG Herring should be our next governor. At least Herring proactively admitted what he did wrong, didn’t botch the apology, and wore blackface as part of a Halloween costume portraying his favorite rapper. Northam has said all the wrong things, he wore blackface as a fully grown adult (med student) as part of an egregiously racist costume that was paired with another guy’s KKK costume, and he apparently went by a nickname that included a racial slur. It is heinous that we are in a position where we have to weigh one blackface incident against another blackface incident and credible rape allegations, but that’s where we are right now, so it’s a question of picking the lesser evil among many evils. Under normal conditions, I’d say blackface is plenty of reason to resign, but it is simply not fair for us voters to have our popular will subverted and our fundamental human rights violated because Herring wore a racist Halloween costume decades ago when he was a teenager.

More generally, while I think Democrats ought to try to pick leaders of upstanding character and jettison the worst offenders from the party entirely, we would do well not to lose sight of the overarching strategic contexts in which decisions about resignations occur. Even terrible human beings can do significant good in office, and even morally upstanding human beings can be bad policymakers. Let’s not forget that LBJ – that corrupt, vote-stealing racist and serial sexual harasser – got the Voting Rights Act and the Civil Rights Act passed. I’m not saying we ought to admire him for it or knowingly elect people like him again, just pointing out that a politician’s personal immorality doesn’t inevitably translate into net negative policy consequences. Symbolic rejection of racism and misogyny is great and we should absolutely indulge in it when we can afford the cost, but symbolism shouldn’t come at the expense of enabling the passage of policies that would materially worsen the lives of women and people of color across this state. Given the current context and the likely consequences if all three were to resign, I think it would be a monumental blunder to give up control of the Virginia state government.

The thing that strikes me most forcibly about this is the illustration of an advantage of parliamentary systems. When a Prime Minister (or Premier or Chancellor or Chief Minister or whatever) is forced or driven or hounded or eased out of office, what follows is the same as what follows a resignation for health or other personal reasons or a death in office: the same government continues in office under a new leader. The transition is seldom or never completely seamless, but it has to be a sight better than what you’re trying to operate with currently. Also instructive is the example of Tasmanian Premier Robert Cosgrove (I don’t expect anybody to have heard of him, but he’s easily looked up if you care). Indicted on charges of bribery and corruption, he was replaced as leader of (the same) government by a senior Cabinet colleague, Edward Brooker; after Cosgrove’s trial and acquittal, he was enabled to return to the Premiership by Brooker’s resigning (although being retained in Cabinet).

I’m not expecting Americans to change to parliamentary systems (they do, after all, have their own shortcomings), but there is another institutional solution which would fit in much more easily: it’s regular enough in the US for vacancies in legislatures to be filled by special elections, and in several States the same can happen for executive offices if a recall petition is approved, so why not the same procedure for any executive vacancy? That’s also what the French do: President de Gaulle resigned unexpectedly and prematurely, and the holder of the office designated by the relevant constitutional provisions assumed the powers and duties of the presidential office on an interim basis only, pending a fresh Presidential election as soon as practicable; President Pompidou died in office and the procedure was exactly the same. Again, I don’t imagine the institutional mechanisms provide a completely seamless transition, but again they’ve got to be a sight better than the ones you’re working with now.

None of this, I know, is a help with the instant case in Virginia, but people should think about these things.

I think we had better do political calculations here. It is not just Northam. It is Fairfax and the VA AG. If all have to resign for their prior behaviors that do not appear to have anything to do with who they are now, then the Republican legislature will choose the next Governor, Lt. Gov. and AG. These things all came down from a right wing website wanting to attack these guys as VA was going to pass a progressive pro-woman abortion rights bill. I just keep going back to the question, Does the conduct of Northam have anything to do with his views on racial policy today? It is at best attenuated in the sense the most one may say is he is not in full Michelle Alexander mode, based upon Northam being at heart a neo-liberal. The stuff on Fairfax, the Lt. Gov, is getting worse by the day, and people really had high hopes for him. The VA AG did blackface in VA in the 1980s too in his youth. I wonder if a Republican in the AG position would be an improvement; actually I don’t wonder.

I don’t agree. It’s far more important for Virginians that Northam remain as governor of Virginia now than his resigning for some incident that took place many years ago. Under Notham African American voting rights was protected and he extended medicaid under the ACA. It should not be overlooked that two democrats junior to him are also attack making the Repugnant speaker of the house in line for the governorship. As long at the Repugnant party defend the low IQ sexual assaulting, Russian mob boss and traitor in chief in the White House , they should just keep there traitorous mouths shut about Northam

Please forget political calculations.

Northam should have said, “I didn’t even MEAN it at the time, we were just trying to be outrageous, like on Halloween. Kids do it, even big old stupid kids like me who should’ve know better. I’m so sorry about my insensitive past. One of the reasons I ran for public office is to stop hatred and make life better for everybody. I am going to serve in office until the next election and then let the voters decide my fate, based on what I can do about it.”

He should say it today, and tomorrow on the Sunday talk shows. And then he should make his whole administration into a teaching moment, right into the next election. Make 2020 about how Dems can do better.

But it may be, that he hasn’t got the psychological depth. A very very very big problem in this society is that adults are psychologically about 10 years old and unable to make real public apologies and let the chips fall where they may. And they can’t speak from their hearts. At best it’s scripted tonedeaf trash. Did I write “very” enough. This condition applies across the board.

On the conservative side, they’ve adopted the tactic of claiming they’ve found Jesus and this virtue-signals some of their voters while it masks continued iniquity.

bob mcmanus’ suggestion that melanin deficiency=franchise deficiency is antidemocratic in every sense of the word. The universal desire of the noble-minded for a window into the soul forgets it is unnecessary. Sadly, the sufficient approximation is that everyone is contaminated by racism. The cultural revolution wiping out racism will not succeed simply by examining the past. Worse, if everybody’s guilty, then nobody’s really guilty. This kind of thing is more about not changing things, despite the hysteria.

The OP’s maundering about forgiveness ignores how the whole point is there is to be no forgiveness, ever. Don’t know if some remnant of human empathy forbids accepting the principle, or if it’s merely tactical to pretend anyone will ever be forgiven. Regardless, the thing is, since Northam is a racist, then everything he does and has done, and his party, must be racist too. Any effort to supposedly purify the Democratic Party by a sacrificial scapegoat is therefore racist as well.

Northam’s evil includes support for abortion rights. This is not by the way, but essential to the whole issue. Since Northam will not be on the ballot again, he’s gone. The voters can decide about Fairfax and Herring. This is not an electorate composed solely of white men.

The calls for both all three to step down means of course people do not distinguish rape from being an asshole doing racist “humor.” This seems odd to me. It also seems odd to imagine that school, especially high pressure school, makes someone an adult in the sense implied. By an amusing coincidence, there is a recent burst of publicity about grad school in particular being bad for your mental health. Of course the modern view is that mental illness isn’t an excuse.

(Anyone trying to claim Northam is a racist but his political career hasn’t been racist is saying that Northam had already rehabilitated himself. But, then, only a damn fool would want to dump Northam.)

This is, to be fair, a ridiculously complex proposal that has absolutely zero chance of being followed.

Look, if you believe Northam, neither he nor Herring did anything particularly bad, especially for the time — they dressed up as African American performers using dark makeup; I’m not calling it blackface because the latter assumes you’re dressing up as part of a minstrel show in order to ridicule Black people.

Northam’s not going to resign just to put someone else in the office (assuming the Lt Gov resigns). The Republican state senate/house isn’t going to participate in something as weird as this.

Do you really believe some obscure transgression of a politician *in their youth* makes them unfit for office purely out of the perceived need for symbolic purity? It seems a highly problematic principle, arguably even a violation of human dignity. Not to mention how counterproductive it is certain to be politically since it will always be the more decent politicians, or the parties with the more decent supporters, who will submit to such strictness, leaving the less decent side with a huge advantage.

= = = If we’re dreaming, I’d like a do-over popular election that ends with a progressive woman of color with no skeletons in her closet taking office instead of any of these clowns :-) = = =

Not to defend any of the Virginia Trio, and feeling somewhat betrayed at having contributed to Northam’s campaign at a distance to help beat back the hard Radical Right and now seeing this, but I’d be curious where you are going to find a human being with the drive and ambition to win any office at the State Attorney General / State Secretary of State or above (Governor, Senator, etc) with “no skeletons in [his/her] closest”.

Barack Obama perhaps came close, but he started his campaign by admitting upfront to having used pot and cocaine – which would have been immediately disqualifying even 20 years before – and used his personal coolness factor to overwhelm any attempts to dig too deep into his party guy young life. Given the speed of his rise and Ryan’s total collapse in the Senate race he didn’t have much time to accumulate major political skeletons but again that’s a rarity. And that is the absolute best politician in the cleanliness sense we have seen in at least 100 years. Neither people of high ambition or those who have been involved in cutting deals/logrolling for 30 year political careers are of the type to be that clean.

“Shirley Sherrod should have stepped down before Obama had to fire her” probably isn’t a winning move here. But if the standard is “distracting from the fight against racism” then that’s exactly what she should have done.

Going from believing one race is superior to another (19th century race quackery) to all races are equal (20th century race quackery) has not ameliorated racism. I suggest the US government, political parties, and universities publicly state the truth: human races are not a scientific or anthropological category. Races do not exist. If Wikipedia can do it, so can Americans!

But then, how would Americans speak of poverty and privilege without sounding socialist?

The division that’s being established is to cement an image of Demcrats as nasty fanatics in the public consciousness. A *lot* of Democrats resent the hell out of these zero tolerance tactics. They also give Republicans a convenient tool to overturn election results: in this case, wait until after a couple of Dems are elected; dig up decades-old pictures, regardless of their current politics and deeds; and get your people in office instead.

I really hope that Northam stays, to make the point that these kinds of tactics don’t work.

And, FYI, a zero tolerance culture has been utterly devastating for young black men. Attitudes that reinforce that culture do their own damage – in the form of things like making it harder for young men and women to recover from all sorts of early mistakes. And, no, you don’t get to choose to apply these rules only to middle aged white men. As you say, you’re setting a precedent and an example.

Seems “NO Tolerance!! EVER!!” is the same as right-wing Purity tripping and since it only works one way, unlimited license for trolling. Notions of acceptable speech really are changing rapidly and making them retroactive seems … not workable. We accept that historical figures have good and bad sides; maybe we can accept/forgive/pardon properly self-corrected bad behavior that didn’t actually harm any particular person. We make it part of the platform that moral progress is possible and indeed the duty of elected officials and others, a regular expectation of moral development. THAT would be different.

Sexual and other harassment ever is bad and disqualifying, not being sufficiently woke 20 years ago is unfortunate (but everybody here was there).

aside
On the conservative side, they’ve adopted the tactic of claiming they’ve found Jesus and this virtue-signals some of their voters while it masks continued iniquity—Lee A Arnold

Reminds me of G W Bush in the Oval Office crushing his eyes with the power of prayer—make it true Lord, make it true. (Cheney beside him with a sceptical look of don’t-overdo-it-George). The dominoes fell in Iraq and across the Middle East to collide eventually with Western Europe. If refugees may be thought dominoes.

indicating African-Americans want him to go. They do! But that seems a bit sketchy. You want to make sure it’s a good poll and that it makes clear to respondents that they are, literally, voting on whether to remove the Governor. (and all following)

Can you get any more patronizing? My guess is the Virginian AAs were a large percentage of the vote that elected Northam. Are you telling them to “calm down” think it over, you don’t understand or know what you want, maybe the offense wasn’t that awful bad, we should get some complicit AA elder statesmen to go carefully over the consequences.

The AAs are the (primarily) offended parties, and the correct call for us is to listen to them and follow their lead, as quietly and humbly as possible. If they matter other than as voting material to be used and then ignored, then we support them, not try to find a way out.

I guess it’s Northam’s decision to resign, without much other recourse, which means then, that we should add our voices to the African-Americans of Virginia (if we think it is our business at all; I mostly don’t) and increase the pressure on Northam until he can no longer govern.

And vet our political assholes more carefully in the future.

According to polling the electorate is split on if he should resign or not. But a majority of both democratic voters and African Americans don’t think he should resign. So this all seems like a poor platform to support forcing him to resign.

JH@38:
It would be nice if there were a ‘normal thing to do’ in between too much and too little. Then we could do that. But there isn’t a norm here. We are suspended between old standards, which we recognize as inappropriate, and new standards, which are not-yet-existent. Any point you pick in between is somewhat arbitrary and unprecedented, which is unsatisfying.

Saying we must err on the side of caution by pursuing the purest, harshest consequences until satisfactory new norms are established is quite literally suggesting we must establish the purest, harshest consequences as the new norm.

Kurt Schuler

It would be nice if it if many more people would refuse support to candidates who have flagrantly violated basic moral norms, such as committing adultery, destroying evidence that was under subpoena, or lying about their origins to get ahead professionally.

Adultery is not a violation of basic moral norms.

As noted by @16, and referenced @45, the political backdrop is important here. The change to third-term abortion law was the immediate trigger, I suspect, for what came out re: Northam’s med school yearbook. [And of course there was also Virginia’s House of Delegates failing to advance the ERA to the floor in late Jan – Va wasn’t going to be the 38th state to ratify the ERA, it just wasn’t. This has totally fallen off the news radar.]

LGM has been providing a fair bit of coverage of the chaotic situation on the ground. On one post I had noted that this is a good example of “racist past meets ? present.” Everybody’s trapped by Virginia’s own particular past and its not-fully-realized present – and the constitutional successor should all three resign, well, his name was pulled out of a ceramic jar, literally. It’s sort of the Va version of political stasis.

Republicans are trapped too – does anybody imagine that if the House of Delegates Speaker becomes Governor, the Dems won’t find questionable behavior in his past, and/or in that of other prominent Republicans? The entire fabric of state governance could unravel in real time.

The solution proposed by the OP is the most reasonable one, I suppose. But in crises like these, doing the most reasonable thing has very long odds of happening.

Earlier in the week, NBC published a much-circulated photo of State Senator Louise Lucas outside the Capitol – it was a tragic, iconic image of where Virginia finds itself today.

It’s easy for Northerners to tsk-tsk Virginia’s blackface traditions, but it’s not like the North doesn’t have its own relics of structural racism alive and well today. As an Illinoisan who’s following the shambolic mayoral campaign in Chicago, you can take that to the bank.

Partick@49:

It’s probably worth noting that this isn’t just the attitude WRT racism from the left – it describes attitudes towards criminals and rehabilitation on the right as well. It’s generally a very popular and deep-rooted perspective on wrongdoing in American culture and as such it’s hard to see this going away as many social groups spread all across the political spectrum engage in it, albeit for different reasons.

Referencing Patrick @49.
What seems to be missing from the public discussion is the ability of individual humans to overcome their faults. The struggle to overcome one’s tendencies that resulted from a bad upbringing is what makes forgiveness by others natural. “He was brought up as a racist, but he has seen the light, and at great effort has been reprogramming brain to be a better person.” That’s the sort of role model we are most in need of. And that is why we should always offer forgiveness to repentance sinners.

Now, I don’t think Northam has offered evidence of having taken such a journey. But the option of starting from this moment on still needs to be open.

58% of African American Virginians think Northam should stay. That is not a narrow majority, among the group with the strongest claim of any to sit in judgement. Perhaps AA voters are simply more pragmatic than white liberals. Most white American men are racists more or less. When the candidates are different white men, they vote for the less. In what way would Northam’s resignation benefit their community?

57: McWhorter thinks that Northam must go, but (58 and polls I have seen) if African American Virginians think Northam should stay, so be it. I have not been so interested in the substance of the offense as in the politics of the reaction, and desiring that the politics remain political, not technocratic or objective or dispassionate.

McWhorter also says:”Much of this special kind of vigilance, which leaves many people who thought of themselves as on the barricades a few years ago scratching their head, can be seen as a quest for power.”

Right on. What else is politics but a quest for power? And after the unmitigated disaster that was 2016 when one faction of the Democratic Party demonstrated their power with tragic results and an appalling lack of responsibility, I for one would like to give as much power as possible in the Democratic Party to African Americans, way beyond what might be warranted by their numbers. Unlike 2017, when we got a whole crew of “CIA women” elected to the house, for socioeconomic and historical reasons, I have more hope that AAs elected won’t be greedheads and warmongers, or at least not as much.

Remember, if it was up to the Clintonites and Gillebrand, who endorsed and funded her opponent, Mark Crowley would have Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s seat in Congress.

Those gathering power in a community may have a tendency to demand demonstrations of loyalty, sometimes unwarranted, unfair and/or irrational. They will go too far. I expect it and even celebrate it.

John Holbo @47: Thank you for your response. Perhaps I did not make clear enough that in the radio interview, Northam, not speaking about the precise language of the Kathy Tran’s bill but interpreting accurately its spirit, was talking about killing on the operating table a baby carried to full term that was out of the womb. If killing that baby is right, then there is no hope for the rest of us, because we are all more blameworthy of something than the baby is.

J-D @50: If you are married, you evidently didn’t take the same vows I did. If you aren’t married, be sure to inform your intended of your views on adultery before tying the knot.

Kurt Schuler is misrepresenting the bill and the contest of Northman’s comments. Is CT to again become a place where random passers by can lie with impunity about simple facts?

Kurt Schuler

J-D @50: If you are married, you evidently didn’t take the same vows I did. If you aren’t married, be sure to inform your intended of your views on adultery before tying the knot.

I don’t have any objection to disclosing the personal facts that (at the time of writing this) I am not married and I do not have an intended, but my personal circumstances are not relevant to this discussion, so I’m not sure why you’re dragging them in.

I presume from your comment that your marriage ceremony involved vows, but are you unaware that the performance of a marriage does not always involve vows, so that in many cases adultery is a violation of no vow? In any case, vows are also not relevant to the point under discussion, because breaking a vow is not a violation of basic moral norms. When Claus von Stauffenberg attempted to blow up Adolf Hitler, he was violating a military oath but no basic moral norm.

Something that is relevant to the point under discussion is the concept of the open marriage. Is that something else you’re unaware of? Open marriages generally involve adultery with no violation of basic moral norms. You made a suggestion (which you may have intended as pointed) about my informing my (non-existent) intended in advance, but, stripping away the personality, the general concept of that kind of advance information is the foundation of many open marriages (although many more are opened only at a later stage).

“but I feel that some folks are failing to see the logic of the bright line approach. Giving Dems a pass for personal misbehavior, because the Democratic Party is better for women and minorities – which is true! – is a problem, not least because it utterly undermines the moral authority of the party when it calls out bad behavior on the other side.”

I agree, but you’re over generalizing. The damning people “for bad behavior” without making distinctions about the severity of the behavior is the kind of purity politics that should be avoided. What Herring did almost certainly shouldn’t require resignation. A costume trying to honor someone you like isn’t “the minstrelsy” tradition that makes blackface so gross. And even for Northram, if black people in a majority want to say that minstrelsy from another era is forgiveable, so be it. Yes, they can’t now attack it very easily in a Republican, but if that is literally all they have, it’s a weak attack anyway.

And it was always a weak attack, which is why the hyper wokeness about minor 30 year old sins is fine to abandon.

The real problem about Northram is his “I think I’m not the guy in the KKK hood” which is WAY worse than just “blackface” in my book. If we want to say that anyone stupid enough to wear a KKK hood needs to face repercussions even 30 years later i’m behind that.

But generalizing that all the way up to “pass for personal behavior” doesn’t help the discussion at all. We need to be willing to damn serious personal behavior and let monitor transgressions go. Part of that is understanding that what counts as major and minor changes over time, and that for some of the mid level ones giving a pass for 30 years ago isn’t the same as giving a pass for now. (This is all going to come up again with the trans issue. There are a vast number of feminists who are on record as saying things like “all gender is socially constructed” and “there are no differences between men and women” who are going to sound anti-trans if looked at through the wrong lens.

The obvious worked example would be former Vice President Biden, whose 1988 presidential run was derailed by a plagiarized campaign speech and an uncovered history of law school plagiarism. It’s hard to believe this narrative is forgotten, but it seems to be forgiven.

The contrary delimiting case is also interesting: have there been any prominent examples of a discredited public figure who was actively pursued beyond resignation and withdrawal from public life? Nixon got his pardon, of course, and bore the mark of Cain in silence for less than three years before the Frost interviews. The best example I can think of is Linda Chavez, who had a nanny problem (in 2001, by which time public figures were reasonably forewarned) and who was threatened, I’m not sure how seriously, with prosecution after withdrawing from consideration as Secretary of Labor. Of course the 2000 election was still fresh, so there was a lot of righteous anger looking for an appropriate target.

Orange Watch@54 “It’s probably worth noting that this isn’t just the attitude WRT racism from the left – it describes attitudes towards criminals and rehabilitation on the right as well. It’s generally a very popular and deep-rooted perspective on wrongdoing in American culture and as such it’s hard to see this going away as many social groups spread all across the political spectrum engage in it, albeit for different reasons.”

I disagree. The rejection of rehabilitation, the insistence on maximum punishments, the requirement for self-degradation to affirm the status quo, are all reactionary politics. These methods can’t be used by the left effectively. It’s always possible for the right to use them too. Then at best (!) you get a Cultural Revolution debacle where it’s a guessing game as to who is really left. Everybody desperate to off Northam is vociferously supporting the compulsory pregnancy crowd (aka “prolife.”)

And although it is true that no one is really consistent, the insistence that the soul must be pure is deeply reactionary. This is the motive in all cases like this. The would be left, the self-flattering left all share the reactionary drive to look into the souls of others, and pass judgment. It is the same bliss the beatfied share as they behold the damned in hell.

There is nothing but reactionary scapegoating to punish Northam for being a racist then but excusing his racist party and politics and career till now. If his party and his politics and career weren’t racist, then he was rehabilitated. There is no middle ground. Any alleged bright lines are purely illusory, emperor’s new clothes at worst.

bob mcmanus@60:

And after the unmitigated disaster that was 2016 when one faction of the Democratic Party demonstrated their power with tragic results and an appalling lack of responsibility, I for one would like to give as much power as possible in the Democratic Party to African Americans, way beyond what might be warranted by their numbers.

This is a deeply troubling assertion. Barack Obama was/is a member of the clique you complain of. Why should we use race as a proxy for acceptable policy positions rather than, say, actual policy positions? Your proposal seems born of pure essentialist identitarianism. Why should leftists seek to empower a demographic – by virtue of their demographic identity – that skews more to the center and right socially rather than seeking to empower individuals who skew socially and fiscally to the left? “Inverting hierarchies” has always been a noxious end goal compared to flattening them.

@Kurt, fyi marriage vows in your sense are not so common outside the US. In my case, the ceremony (as prescribed by law in my jurisdiction) consisted in the registrar explaining to us the legal definition of marriage and the rights and obligations we were about to take on. In case you are interested, there is a handy fact sheet in 15 languages you can consult (https://www.bj.admin.ch/content/dam/data/bj/gesellschaft/zivilstand/merkblaetter/ehe/mb-ehepflichten-d.pdf). It doesn’t mention adultery although there is a “commitment to loyalty and assistance: Both spouses act for the good of the marital union and respect each other’s personality. No spouse acts against the other’s will.” Obviously this is a matter of interpretation and not something that can be legally enforced. It’s a good thing that modern secular society has given up on moralizing about people’s private relationships, sexual and otherwise. Even the term “adultery” is hardly used in secular societies any more, outside the US of course.

J-D 68: Bringing Stauffenberg into this discussion is quite self-defeating since it proves too much – namely that even an act that normally would be considered heinous can under exceptional circumstances be morally justifiable. I think your argument ought to be that private sexual behavior, as long as it’s consensual, is irrelevant for judging a person’s fitness for office.

@75 LFC
Maybe you should revisit your own reading skills. He wants the Republican Senate to vote a Democrat into the AG chair so he can either resign his post to a fellow Democrat or “in clean conscious” (his words, not mine) remain in office.

Since there is fully a 0% chance that any republican party anywhere in any state would do such a deal (especially not in VA)…he is in effect saying, leave them in power.

Again if the situation was reversed would you want to see a Democrat senate accept such a deal to leave some different Republican in power? Doubtful.

@77 We care about 1950-1970 because that attitude hasn’t gone away, its just dressed itself up better – at least until the photos come out, which they did in this case.

Step down and never be “forgiven” where forgiven means be allowed back into a position of lots of power over other people is quite an ok standard for me when the person did something horrible. But id also like to have a legal standard before condeming someone that way, that is innocent until proofen guilty, not a my personal probabilty o meter thinks its 80% probable he did it, now away with you standard. And i cant folow at all how such non issues like lying about an affair or having one could even be considered as being in the horrible thing category by nominal left wing people.

According to the NYTimes:
1. Northam graduated from a minority majority public high school rather than a set academy as was common in VA for people of his race and class.
2. He was one of only two white basketball players.
3. Black high school friends speak warmly of their friendship.
4. They remember he was called “coonman” but can’t remember why.
5. As a pediatrician, he was active and helpful in African American communities
6. A significant number of African American voters in Va want him to remain as governor.
7. Maybe it isn’t even him in the photo. Both men are unrecognizable.

There is an awful lot of guilt by accusation going around. It may make the accusers feel good. Undermining due process shouldn’t make anybody feel good.

I am that Margaret Atherton so thanks. I’m glad you found the book useful.

I guess I find “for the good of the party” a little too vague and open ended, a little too much in the eye of the beholder to warrant getting rid of something as important as due process. And I do find that accusations, in this case of a single act a little to easy a way of getting rid of someone, with no questions asked. This is a process that needs discouraging .

Margaret–thanks for that info. It does reinforce the old adage that context is everything.

I’m not sure how “due process” has been undermined in Northam’s case. Northam initially admitted that the photograph was of himself. Any confusion on that score is due to him. He was a student in medical college, not a middle or high schooler, so “young-and-foolish” is an excuse of limited validity here.

The only relevant item in your list, it seems to me, is #6.

The term “due process” has gotten tossed around a lot in the wake of #MeToo, usually by people claiming it hasn’t been observed in one case or another. It’s currently being deployed by some Virginia politicians to justify keeping Justin Fairfax in office, which would raise the bar very high in sexual assault allegations against politicians – presumably, unless one of his accusers actually brings criminal charges against Fairfax and he is found guilty, he gets to stay in place.

However, in most – not all – of the cases we have seen, there has been a process – claims of misconduct are made, investigated, found to be credible, and the offender ends by admitting, tacitly or straightforwardly, that the claims are valid.

I don’t see anyone challenging the statement “unfairly tarred for life”, except perhaps Joshua Burton at 72, with the example of Joe Biden’s plagiarism.

Why is it so obvious that Northam will be considered a racist for life in any way that matters? The “tarred for life” is a red herring dropped by those who are searching for reasons to oppose accountability.

Al Franken, meanwhile, could do exactly as you say. I imagine (hope) he would not win unless he has convincingly demonstrated that he is a changed man.

While I can see the argument about it being a long time ago and he’s done other good things and so on, I can’t quite see why it matters if he’s in the picture. Is there any question about whether he picked out the picture and gave it to the yearbook staff to publish? It’s on his page in the yearbook, I think he’s responsible for choosing it.

Political considerations, after Northam was attacked because of his abortion stance, are exactly why Northam should not be hounded by members of his own party. Sacrificing people for a little heat? Get out of the kitchen, you’re not a serious politician.

The case against Northam, Fairfax and Herring at this point is nothing but puritanical moralism, of the kind that gives moralizing a bad name. It is the opposite of practical politics.

I’ll accept Northam should stand down over his youthful misdemeanor provided the Southern Poverty Law Centre is closed down for having vilified Maajid Nawaz as an anti-Muslim extremist. The latter decision, by the way, was made by grown ups who were acting recklessly or maliciously.

Of course, I would much prefer that people and institutions be subject to moderate and proportional punishment and that we accept genuine apologies.

I wonder how many good folk are put off running for public office by the relentless witch-hunts?

But cutting losses, tactically, is a thing parties do. It’s not a violation of procedural justice.

Hmm. I think I agree with the general sentiment, but I’d say it this way: Procedural justice isn’t relevant here.

Certainly I’m sympathetic with the general goal you propose — setting a standard and creating a contrast between political parties. And I think that tactical considerations should take precedence over due process for Ralph Northam. I do, however, think that giving Northam a fair shake has some tactical relevance.

Suppose he were embroiled in some terrible scandal or controversy, and Dems thought it might all be bullshit. They could still ask him to step down for the sake of appearances.

They could. This sort of argument is made all the time, and I disagree with it pretty regularly. This approach puts the power in the hands of people who generate bogus scandals, and as a tactical matter this serves Democrats poorly.

With your method, we can find that Hillary’s e-mails or Benghazi or her femaleness or whatever should have disqualified her from seeking the Democratic nomination. Likewise Bernie’s insistence on calling himself a socialist and his reluctance to even be a member of the Democratic Party. Or Obama’s Kenyan Muslimness.

The Democrats, wherever possible,* need to be the party of reason and factuality because somebody needs to stand up for that stuff, and the Republicans don’t want the job.

*I acknowledge that it is not always possible.

Trader Joe at 101: “Me too” is a very useful slogan and reminder of the prevalence of sexual assaults on women. BUT “due process” is a Fifth Amendment guarantee, it is not a slogan. I am very concerned about the suggestions on this thread that due process is something that can be ignored if it is convenient, for any reason, political or otherwise. Getting rid of a problem, sweeping it away is becoming a way of dealing with problems while ignoring something that is central to our legal justice system.

Margaret Atherton@104:

Guarantee of due process is – and always has been – sharply limited. Your invocation of it here mirrors invocation on Kavanaugh’s behalf, and are for better or worse equally irrelevant as those were. The 5th guarantees it in cases of deprivation of life, liberty, or property, and imposes certain safeguards in criminal cases. But for civil matters? Administrative matters? Labor and employment matters? Electability and public opinion? The 5th is pointedly silent, and with regards to these, it’s not so much that the horse has already left the barn; it was never in the barn to begin with. The 5th assures us that Lt. Gov. Fairfax is protected from criminal sanction absent due process – but beyond that, it has nothing to say of the three men’s situations, nor does anything else in American law grant due process that is now being denied.