{"id":65230,"date":"2018-05-10T05:39:27","date_gmt":"2018-05-10T05:39:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/?p=65230"},"modified":"2018-05-10T05:39:27","modified_gmt":"2018-05-10T05:39:27","slug":"eric-schneiderman-falls-trump-allies-gloat-democrats-seethe","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.biphoo.com\/bipnews\/news\/eric-schneiderman-falls-trump-allies-gloat-democrats-seethe.html","title":{"rendered":"Eric Schneiderman Falls. Trump Allies Gloat. Democrats Seethe."},"content":{"rendered":"

Eric Schneiderman Falls. Trump Allies Gloat. Democrats Seethe.<\/span><\/strong><\/span><\/h2>\n

The moment of political reckoning began a day after President Trump\u2019s inauguration, when millions of marchers protested his policies and treatment of women. That outpouring of energy has rippled through elections over the last 16 months, as women have turned out in force to vote \u2014 and often to punish the Republican Party.<\/span><\/p>\n

But for Democrats, the process of confronting sexual misconduct in politics has also grown complicated and emotionally fraught. If Mr. Trump\u2019s election ignited this national conflagration, the president himself has largely escaped consequences for his behavior so far. And a number of the politicians exposed as predators and abusers have been men whom the left once viewed with admiration.<\/span><\/p>\n

Mr. Trump and his advisers have reveled openly in the #MeToo-era downfall of prominent Democrats, most recently Eric T. Schneiderman, the New York attorney general who cast himself as a heroic opponent of Mr. Trump and a crusader for women\u2019s rights. After four women accused him of physical abuse, Kellyanne Conway, one of Mr. Trump\u2019s chief political aides, tweeted: \u201cGotcha.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The White House\u2019s exultation grated on politicians and strategists in both parties, who view Mr. Trump as a fatally compromised messenger on women\u2019s rights. As galling as some Democrats\u2019 hypocrisy may be, a president accused by more than a dozen women of groping and forcible kissing can only make things uncomfortable for his party by engaging in a political tit-for-tat, some Republicans outside the White House say.<\/span><\/p>\n

Amanda Carpenter, a Republican strategist who has been critical of Mr. Trump, said the administration\u2019s gleeful reaction to Mr. Schneiderman\u2019s resignation on Monday had been off key and politically myopic. \u201cThere\u2019s no expression of sympathy for those women,\u201d Ms. Carpenter said, referring to Mr. Schneiderman\u2019s accusers. \u201cIt\u2019s win-at-all-costs power politics.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

But Ms. Carpenter, a former aide to Senator Ted Cruz of Texas, said voters might not turn to Democrats as an alternative to Mr. Trump unless they do more to inspire confidence. \u201cDemocrats keep falling for this fantasy that because Donald Trump\u2019s personal character issues are so awful, that voters will naturally rally to their side,\u201d she said. \u201cYou have to give people a reason to rally.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

For Democrats, the White House\u2019s gloating strikes the rawest of nerves: Already, there is a mood of seething frustration among liberals, who see themselves as aggressively policing misconduct on their side, while Mr. Trump and his party approach it with comparative indifference. Most of all, Democrats fear that Mr. Trump could escape political repercussions for his actions \u2014 and that accused offenders on the left like Mr. Schneiderman might ease the pressure on the president.<\/span><\/p>\n

Christine Matthews, a Republican pollster who recently conducted a survey on the politics of sexual harassment for the Barbara Lee Family Foundation, sees an opposite scenario unfolding. Far from letting Mr. Trump off the hook, Ms. Matthews contends that each new case of sexual misconduct \u2014 in either party \u2014 is likely to heighten voters\u2019 demand for a comprehensive response.<\/span><\/p>\n

And the voters most engaged on the matter, she said, are younger women who lean Democratic.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt will probably energize millennial women, who tend not to vote as often in midterms,\u201d Ms. Matthews said, adding of the Schneiderman case: \u201cIt\u2019s just further evidence that this is a widespread problem.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

The primary elections in four states on Tuesday appeared to underscore Ms. Matthews\u2019s assessment: There wasn\u2019t just energetic voting by women, but also energetic voting for women. Nineteen Democratic congressional primaries had at least one woman on the ballot. Women won in all but three of the races. And in Ohio, Democrats nominated Rachel Crooks, a woman who has accused Mr. Trump of forcibly kissing her, for a seat in the State Legislature.<\/span><\/p>\n

Jess O\u2019Connell, a former top official at the Democratic National Committee and Emily\u2019s List, the influential Democratic women\u2019s group, said voters alarmed by the mistreatment of women might be likelier to embrace female candidates. She predicted those voters would mostly support Democrats, but allowed that sexual misconduct was a problem that crossed party lines.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cWomen make up just over 20 percent of elected officeholders and men are nearly 100 percent of this problem,\u201d Ms. O\u2019Connell said. \u201cI think this is pretty straightforward for women.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Less straightforward, for Democrats, has been the experience of cleansing their own ranks as Mr. Trump heckles them from the West Wing. The party has pressured a succession of liberal men to resign amid a range of allegations, including Mr. Schneiderman, former Senator Al Franken of Minnesota and former Representative John Conyers Jr. of Michigan, who was the House\u2019s longest-tenured member. Representative Ruben Kihuen of Nevada, a first-term Democrat, rejected calls to resign over harassment accusations but dropped his bid for a second term.<\/span><\/p>\n

Republicans have nudged a number of lawmakers to quit, too, including Representatives Trent Franks of Arizona, Pat Meehan of Pennsylvania and Blake Farenthold of Texas. In almost every case, lawmakers in both parties first projected Trump-like defiance before relenting under pressure, after a period of weeks or months. (Mr. Schneiderman, facing some of the gravest allegations \u2014 choking and violently slapping women \u2014 lasted three hours.)<\/span><\/p>\n

But Republicans acknowledge that Mr. Trump has encouraged a culture of permissiveness in the party when it comes to matters of sexual harassment and worse. The president campaigned for Roy S. Moore, an alleged child molester, who was defeated in a special election for the Senate in Alabama last year. Associates of Mr. Trump said at the time that he viewed Mr. Moore\u2019s claims of innocence as a proxy for his own denials of wrongdoing.<\/span><\/p>\n

More recently, the White House has declined to address a political crisis in Missouri emerging from an allegation of sexual coercion against Gov. Eric Greitens, a Republican. And the Republican National Committee, which succeeded last year in pressuring Democrats to divest themselves of donations by Harvey Weinstein, has declined to return campaign contributions from Stephen Wynn, the casino billionaire and Trump friend who has been accused by multiple women of sexual harassment and rape.<\/span><\/p>\n

Ilyse Hogue, a prominent liberal activist who is president of Naral Pro-Choice America, an abortion rights group, called it \u201cincredibly frustrating\u201d to see a disparity between how the parties handle sexual misconduct. Predicting that Republicans would pay a price for seeking to protect Mr. Trump, Ms. Hogue said she believed that on these issues \u201cthe pendulum actually is swinging in the right direction.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cHe hangs over this conversation every minute of every single day, for so many women I know,\u201d Ms. Hogue said of the president. \u201cThe fact that he sets himself up as immune to consequences really ups the ante.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Ms. Hogue and other Democratic leaders also acknowledged, however, that their party\u2019s internal moment of reckoning was probably still incomplete. And it is all but certain to touch other men, like Mr. Schneiderman, who are outwardly impeccable in their commitment to standing with women \u2014 and opposing Mr. Trump.<\/span><\/p>\n

Melissa Mark-Viverito, a former speaker of the New York City Council who attended a luncheon last week honoring Mr. Schneiderman as a defender of abortion rights, said Democrats should have zero tolerance for men like him. Ms. Mark-Viverito, who went public during the 2016 election with her own experience of being sexually abused as a child, called for Mr. Schneiderman\u2019s resignation instantly on Monday night.<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThis is unacceptable and we have to shut this stuff down,\u201d she said, adding of Democrats: \u201cWe definitely have work to do.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n

Source:-\u00a0https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2018\/05\/09\/us\/politics\/schneiderman-trump-metoo.html<\/span><\/p>\n

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