Yes, insofar as the victims requested that the reporters not publish their names. But that they have been telling this story for years privately is confirmed. Also, they happen to be Democrats: this doesn’t look like a motivated ratfuck.
I don’t see the anonymity as being disqualifying frankly. And I don’t see why anonymous testimony given behind closed doors should be disqualifying either. Their stories should be de-weighted if efforts to have them testify are unsuccessful insofar as press reports aren’t the same as cross examination in a courtroom.
There have been a couple of polls recently that show that Democratic voters tend to believe women’s accusations at the same rate regardless of the accusee’s political affiliation; Republican voters are eager to believe accusations against Dems, but believe accusations against Republicans far less frequently.
Suggests that the problems with partisan tribalism, ironically, lie mostly on one side.
Cite? This survey was the one I was aware of on the subject, but it doesn’t show that at all (doesn’t even directly address the political affiliation of the accusers or if they are believed).
Your link doesn’t directly address perceptions of the specific accuser’s credibility, but there is a pretty clear tribal pattern, and it does make the Republicans look worse. (Note that you have to scroll down a ways from the page directly linked to get to this data)
Is sexual harassment a serious problem within the Democratic Party? Dems 55% yes, Pubs 74%
Is the Democratic Party doing a good job handling accusations of sexual harassment? Dems 53% yes, Pubs 18%
Is sexual harassment a serious problem within the Republican Party? Dems 75% yes, Pubs 36%
Is the Republican Party doing a good job handling accusations of sexual harassment? Dems 18% yes, Pubs 52%
So, basically about 20% of Democrats, but 40% of Republicans, think that the other party has a problem and theirs doesn’t.
The tribalism seems more pronounced WRT specific recent allegations:
Should Franken resign? Dems 35% yes, Pubs 70%
Should Moore drop out? Dems 70% yes, Pubs 35%
I would argue that this still makes the Dems look better, given a) the allegations against Franken are much less serious than the allegations against Moore, and b) there is a big difference between demanding that someone drop out of a race and demanding that someone resign from an office the voters have already elected him to. IOW, it appears that about one-third of Democrats believe that Moore should be punished more harshly than Franken, which seems to me to be a much more intellectually defensible position than the opposite view, which is held by about one-third of Republicans.
Still, the symmetry of the raw numbers is impressive.
Independents don’t seem to distinguish much between the two cases, calling for Franken’s head by a 44-17 margin and for Moore’s by 48-19. Independents also approve of the parties’ handling of sexual harassment in general at an identical 24% for both parties.
While the allegations against Moore are much more serious, it’s also true that Moore dropping out amounts to giving a crucial Senate seat to the Democrats, while Franken dropping out does not amount to anything comparable. (Note that in this very thread, many liberals calling for Franken to drop out have stressed this factor.) Second (& less of a factor, IMO, but still relevant) the most recent allegations against Moore are decades old, while those against Franken are fairly recent.
On another note, I see that Garrison Keillor published an Op-Ed in the WaPo yesterday, saying Franken should absolutely not resign. Today, Keillor himself was sacked from NPR, as a result of allegation of harassment (or similar) on his own part.
I myself have not tracked any particular poster changing their opinion. But it does seem like the overall tenor has changed. Initially the prevailing opinion of most liberals seemed somewhat (if weakly) in support of him resigning, but lately the “don’t resign” position seems to have become clearly dominant. This, despite continued new allegations and accusers.
My theory is that initially there seemed to be a likelihood that he actually would resign, so it was a “low cost” position to take. But once it’s become clear that he has no intention of doing so and that other Democrats are not going to pressure him out either, that position is much harder to support. Because that would suggest that the Democratic Party is not all that, and this supposed moral difference between Democrats and Republicans that some people like to revel in may not actually exist after all. So it’s much more preferable to evolve in the direction of downplaying these specific allegations or otherwise finding reasons to maintain that Franken not resigning does not reflect negatively on Democrats.
My experience is mostly the opposite, though it’s from my involvement with liberal advocates and activists on Daily Kos (one of the largest liberal/progressive blogs). At first, the reaction was overwhelmingly defensive (i.e. protective of Franken, who is/was very popular on DK), with a small but vocal minority (including myself) calling for him to resign immediately. We were met with pretty damn harsh attacks, including accusations of being Republican trolls. But over the last week, that started to change, and Kos himself (the founder of DK) posted that it’s entirely legitimate to ask Franken to resign (though he declined from stating a position, IIRC), and that any attacks on accusers and victims, in defense of Franken or anyone else, were unacceptable and would result in banning/moderation.
In a way, I unintentionally tested this “evolution of liberal opinion” – I had posted two DK blog posts, one right after the Franken news broke, and one yesterday, both advocating that Franken resign. The first was overwhelmingly negatively received, while the second was far more positively received, with a mix of agreement, rational disagreement, and irrational attacks (but mostly the first two).
I still think he and Conyers should resign immediately. I think their resignation is still reasonably likely over the next few weeks (with Conyers more likely than Franken), especially as more accusations come to light, though I wouldn’t put specific numbers on the likelihood, and I’m a bit less optimistic then I was when the news first broke.
What I wrote is my impression from reading just this thread. I could be wrong.
Leaving aside whether these people actually end up resigning, how does the reaction of Democratic leadership stack up to what you believe is appropriate?
And try to imagine a scenario where a Republican senator and rep found themselves in the exact situation as these two Democrats, and the Republican leadership did exactly what Democratic leadership has done. What would your reaction be?
My understanding is that the “public” reaction by leaders is all stalling while they’re having heated debates behind the scenes about how to handle this. I think that’s still going on.
Which doesn’t excuse it – I think they’ve handled it pretty poorly so far. I think there’s a decent chance they’ll get it right, but there’s a decent chance they’ll continue to screw it up too.
I suppose the nearest analogue for a Republican, recently, was after the Access Hollywood tape broke – there was a lot of condemnation (though few calls for him to step down as candidate), which slowly died down, and the leaders eventually rallied back around him. IIRC, I thought that the immediate reaction wouldn’t tell us much, and only the medium and longer-term reactions would matter. And I think history bears that out – the Republican leadership (like the Democratic leadership or pretty much any large organization leadership up until very recently) decided not to do anything significant about issues related to sexual misconduct, and essentially just tried to “ride it out”. I’m hopeful that the Democratic party leadership is starting to change on this, but I’m far from confident.
The AH tape, by itself, is somewhat dismissible as braggadocio, although of the poorest taste for a presidential candidate. More in line with what’s going on are the many accusations of sexual assault from living, breathing women. Those were out there just like what we are seeing with lots of men be accused of similar assault today, although Franken’s is not quite so bad. No?
You might be right. IIRC, the Republican leaders pretty much ignored those allegations entirely. By that standard, at least the Democratic leadership is doing a little bit better (if far from good enough, IMO) in acknowledging and refraining from attacking the accusers.
The Republican leadership was MIA when it came to Trump. If you believe the pundits, there was much gnashing of teeth and back-room bargaining, but few came out against him, publicly. I don’t recall anything at all be said about the sexual assault allegations. Trump was able, to an amazingly large extent, make his own rules. I still can hardly believe my ears whenever I hear “President Trump”.
