Yesterday, the New Yorker published an article in which four women accused New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman of physically assaulting them. Like most women on the left, I was horrified by what I read, and am incredibly sickened to know that any woman had to go through that. I applaud the women for coming forward, because we all know that isn't easy. (One woman even had "friends" advise her not to come forward because Schneiderman was too "valuable" to Democrats.) Schneiderman -- who maintains that the assaults were consensual "kink" -- has since stepped down, and good .
https: //wonkette.substack.com/p/new-york-attorney-general-eric-schneiderman-get-the-fuck-out
I'm glad that Scheiderman has stepped down. Other people are pretty glad, too -- but they're not glad because a predator has been outed and will no longer be able to use his position to abuse women. Instead, conservatives are gloating because Eric Schneiderman was their political enemy and it gets them all tingly to see him taken down.
Gotcha. https: //t.co/a3NPal4z9X
— Kellyanne Conway (@KellyannePolls) May 8, 2018
What was did Mueller know about his partners Eric Schneiderman, and what is he covering up?
Rapes?
Pedophilia?
It's time for Mueller to answer some questions. https: //t.co/uEEeIpsxxf— Mike Cernovich 🇺🇸 (@Cernovich) May 8, 2018
Literally fighting women is not the same as fighting FOR women https: //t.co/7UYv3hznim
— Dana Loesch (@DLoesch) May 8, 2018
Self awareness level: 0
Or substantially less than that. https: //t.co/GXgFyueKLD— Donald Trump Jr. (@DonaldJTrumpJr) May 8, 2018
The Gateway Pundit, home of Stupidest Man On the Internet Jim Hoft, was more than eager to join in on the schadenfreude. Unfortunately, every time I tried to click on an article on their site, I was redirected to a sketchy "Click here to clean up your computer!" page and don't really want to infect your hard drive. However, I did get some screenshots.
Charming!
For them, the point isn't that these women were hurt, but that Samantha Bee is disappointed and Donald Trump was "right" for not liking Schneiderman in the first place. The fact that anyone can read that article and feel "good" is absolutely disgusting.
For some reason, they have convinced themselves that #MeToo -- that feminism in general -- is simply a cudgel to be used against one's enemies, and that they have no real point outside of that. They see a "back and forth" when there is none there. Yet, their schadenfreude is misplaced. You can't win a game that no one else is playing.
We're perfectly fine with Schneiderman stepping down -- we DEMANDED it. If what these women say is true, and I believe it is, he is no big loss to us. We don't want him.
Hell, I am the very last person on earth who is going to drop down dead to find out that a man who acts like a very feminist liberal in public life is a rapist, or is even just extremely shitty or sexist to women in his private life. I didn't drop dead over Junot Diaz, and I'm not dropping dead over Eric Schneiderman. I have witnessed it personally on multiple occasions. I have, in fact, written pretty extensively on the tendency of publicly liberal and progressive men to believe they get a pass on shitty behavior towards women. I want to take these men to task as much as I want to take Republicans to task when they do shitty things to women.
The difference, of course, is that Republicans do shitty things to women both in private and in public.
Republicans get caught up in these scandals pretty constantly as well, but you don't see me, or anyone else who gives a shit about women, getting all tingly and going "GOTCHA!" Because that's not the point. The point is that women were hurt, that women were sexually harassed or assaulted. But that's what they think we are doing. Because they are morons.
In their minds, of course, we don't actually care that Bill O'Reilly sexually harassed multiple women, but were merely using that as an excuse to get him off the air because we disagreed with his political views. We didn't really have a problem with the fact that Roy Moore hit on teenage girls, we just wanted to ruin his chances of winning a Senate seat. They don't believe that we actually had a problem with anything Trump said about women, they just thought we were cynically using those things as an excuse to hurt him. They think the same thing about racism and homophobia and transphobia. They think these things are all non-issues that we only use to hurt them and make them "look bad" for reasons outside of actually caring about people.
The main thing is, in their heart of hearts, they do not actually believe that sexism, sexual assault or sexual harassment are "big deals" -- which is why when it's someone on their side who gets outed for these things, they defend them, they cry conspiracy, they... still elect them President. We let ours go. Happily. Until they are willing to let their own go, until they are willing to actually act as if these things matter regardless of who the perpetrator is, their schadenfreude is empty and undeserved.
[ New Yorker ]
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He has to rub people the wrong way. He gets a charge from it.
Donnie Junior used those words, but I don't think he heard them.