Since the first week of October, when The Times wrote about Harvey Weinstein’s pattern of sexual abuse, the floodwaters have been rising. At least 51 prominent men have been accused of sexual misconduct, ranging from groping to rape. The accused — many of them abruptly removed from their positions — run the ideological and partisan gamut from Garrison Keillor to Leon Wieseltier to John Conyers to Matt Lauer to James Levine to Trent Franks to Al Franken to Charlie Rose and on and on, including, most recently, Mario Batali and Russell Simmons.
For Democrats, who have struggled to find traction in their battles with the administration, the explosion of allegations has created an opening to put the focus on Trump — a development greatly enhanced by the Moore debacle.
Among Democrats, Gillibrand stands out as the politician who first claimed ownership of the issue, and she is seen by many analysts and commentators as having moved into the front ranks of potential presidential candidates. But what Gillibrand started has become a broader movement encompassing almost the entire Democratic Senate caucus.
After initiating the call on Franken to resign his seat, Gillibrand swiftly received remarkably strong support from her colleagues: 32 fellow Democratic senators and the two independent senators who caucus with the Democrats. There seemed to be an emerging consensus with a basic chess tactic: Sometimes you are required to sacrifice a pawn to checkmate the king.
In other words, Democrats smell blood, Trump’s blood.
Gillibrand now says that Bill Clinton, one of her most steadfast supporters, should have resigned the presidency after his affair with Monica Lewinsky was revealed, and on Monday Gillibrand told CNN that Trump should leave office in the face of “very credible allegations of misconduct and criminal activity.”
“I think when we start having to talk about the differences between sexual assault and sexual harassment and unwanted groping, you are having the wrong conversation,” Gillibrand asserted at a news conference on Dec. 6. “You need to draw a line in the sand and say none of it is O.K. None of it is acceptable.”
Gillibrand continued:
"We, as elected leaders, should absolutely be held to a higher standard, not a lower standard, and we should fundamentally be valuing women, and that is where this debate has to go."
On Wednesday, Trump did Gillibrand a favor, tweeting:
"Lightweight Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, a total flunky for Chuck Schumer and someone who would come to my office “begging” for campaign contributions not so long ago (and would do anything for them), is now in the ring fighting against Trump. Very disloyal to Bill & Crooked-USED!"
USA Today, a publication known for the moderation and balance of its commentary, promptly editorialized:
"A president who would all but call Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand a whore is not fit to clean the toilets in the Barack Obama Presidential Library or to shine the shoes of George W. Bush."Edsall then goes on to parse the #MeToo moment with quotes from academics and political professionals. Edsall hedges on any prediction regarding the 2018 midterms, saying the Democrats are woefully hamstrung by gerrymandering, which is true. Edsall also seems to believe that GOP women have not been swept up in #MeToo.
But then how to explain the elections in Virginia and Alabama? Blacks are being apportioned a hefty role in both these Democratic victories. My thinking though is that the fictional gender gap that I accepted as a guarantee of Hillary's victory last fall is now becoming real. The suburban Republican who the Hillary campaign courted is finally coming around thanks to the unceasing piggishness of our POTUS.
#MeToo is a stand-in for the Great Awakenings of the colonial and early republic past. Our culture, largely static in its broad contours since the dawning of the neoliberal age in the 1970s, is finding ways to cleanse itself. Occupy was a brief and ultimately aborted attempt. But #MeToo appears to have all the chemical ingredients to burn indefinitely.
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