A Survivor's Defense of Al Franken
By Dr. GS Potter, Strategic Institute for Intersectional Policy
01 December 17
I feel exploited. And I feel sick.
I’m sick of pedophiles. I’m sick of rapists. I’m sick of sexual violence and
sexual predators. I am sick of being reminded moment after moment of the times
— yes plural — that I have been shocked out of my body, stripped of my power
and deprived of the right to defend my own body by a man sexually forcing
himself onto me. More than that, I’m sick of my traumas and the traumas of
other survivors being exploited for political gain and emotional satisfaction
on both the left and the right. Physically. Sick.
I am sick to know that I cannot protect myself or my daughter from the pussy
grabbing woman hater that controls every single law and policy that guides this
nation. I am sick to know that Roy Moore exists on this planet and that there
are millions of people supportive of a known pedophile holding power over
millions upon millions of women and girls in the state of Alabama and the
United States. I am sick that a member of the Trump campaign and former state
Senator in Oklahoma plead guilty to child trafficking.
And I am sick that people like Leeanne Tweeden feel comfortable enough to take
the traumas of the women and children that have been the true victims of sexual
violence and used them for her own personal gains and the political goals of
the Republican Party.
Leeanne Tweeden is the woman that recently accused Al Franken of sexually
violating her at a rehearsal for a USO comedy show in 2006. Her decision to
take her story public after 10 years of “silence” has been framed by both the
left and the right as a survivors’ act of bravery that demands immediate
attention and strict consequences.
I see Leeanne Tweeden’s actions quite differently.
What Leeanne Tweeden has done is stolen the very real traumas of very survivors
— people like me — and mocked them. What she has done is taken our pain and our
bravery and our strength and exploited it on behalf of a network of people that
actively prey on the women and children she is pretending to show solidarity
with. What she is doing is vile and it is disgusting and it is dangerous on
every personal and political level associated with sexual assault in the United
States.
Perhaps if she was, in fact, a survivor of sexual assault she would understand
the damage that is being caused by her actions. But she is not a survivor. And
she is definitely not a victim of Al Franken.
Leeanne was never raped. She was never assaulted. And she was never the victim
of sexual violence or harassment. She was a willing and active participant in a
comedy show that involved sexualized behaviors. She consented to participating.
She actively engaged in and invited similar behaviors with other performers
other than Al Franken at the event.
As recently and clearly described by journalist S. Novi:
“Both SNL and USO stage skits are well-known to be over the top when it comes
to topics such as sex, but the USO performances are even more so due to the
audience of mostly military males. Since the days of Bob Hope, there have
always been beautiful bombshell women showing up in scanty outfits and sexual
dialogue running from innuendos to outright blatant views. If you are either a
male or female performing in these shows you are expected to play along.
…. there are a number of images as well as videos appearing that show that
Tweeden didn’t seem to have a problem with sexual performances on stage
including that of her grabbing the butt of a Country and Western performer and
rubbing her behind up against him and the singer grabbing at her butt.
Additional videos of the tour have included a very sexual performance with the
comedian Robin Williams as well as the real on-stage ‘kiss’ with Franken.
In this case, we have a woman that signed up for known sexually oriented skits
and performances that she approved of, and rehearsed, and then performed many
of them onstage in both a preplanned and ad hoc way.”
Leanne Tweeden was a consenting and contracted performer for the USO then, just
as she is a contracted performer for the right wing now. She was not then and
is not now a survivor. She was not then and is not now a victim of Al Franken.
Al Franken’s tasteless joke didn’t make her fear for her life. It didn’t make
her burn the clothes she was wearing that night. It didn’t make her scrub
herself clean in the shower until her skin tore off. This joke didn’t keep her
up shaking and puking and sobbing on the floor of a shower as she bled down a
drainpipe. It didn’t send her to the clinic for STD tests.
Al Franken’s joke didn’t crush her notion of who she was or how she could walk
in this world. This joke didn’t give her PTSD or depression or any of the
lasting forms of struggle that true rape and assault victims must face minute
by minute. It hasn’t informed every relationship she’s had since. And it wasn’t
in any way what so ever a form of rape, assault or even harassment.
Leeanne Tweeden was not then and is not now a victim. A very large part of me
wishes she had been, though.
As a survivor and active member in the struggle to protect and progress civil
rights in the United States, I have a track-record of confronting both the
Democratic and the Republican party for abuses. If Tweeden was a victim of a
violent and predatory Al Franken, I would have stood right by her side and
called for an investigation of the Senator and his immediate removal from
office. I would have gladly lumped his name into a category with Roy Moore and
Donald Trump and Roger Ailes and Henry Weinstein. I would have written an
article about how we can’t entrust or bodies to legislators that will assault
our women and children and legally enable the predators to get away with
similar crimes no matter what side of the aisle we come from.
She is not a victim. She is not an ally. And she is not a survivor. Those words
have meaning. Those words hold weight. And she has not earned her right to wear
those badges.
What Tweeden is, is a willing participant in a new skit in which the Republican
Party uses her completely normal interaction with Al Franken as an excuse to
accuse a Democratic Senator of sexual assault, deflect from the charges of rape
and pedophilia in the highest ranks of their own party, and test drive a
strategy by which they can gain increasing amounts of power by exploiting the
sexual traumas of women and children.
And their plan is working. Almost inexplicably.
Politics isn’t a game of morality. Clearly. Wins and losses are accomplished on
the basis of strategy. And right now, the Democratic Party is letting a pussy
grabbing steak salesman and a bigoted gun toting pedophile out-strategize them
with some of the most remedial and ridiculous strategies in the book:
deflection.
For example, these lines of argument may sound familiar:
It’s the left that is racially dividing the country, not the alt-right. It’s
the Clinton’s relationship with Russia that is suspicious, not Trump’s. It is
the left that has destroyed healthcare, not the GOP. The Democrats are the
Party of the KKK, not the Republicans.
That’s because one of the most common rhetorical strategies employed by the
Republican Party is to deflect an accusation by turning the charges on them
around to the accuser. And as common and predictable as this strategy is — the
Democrats still haven’t come up with a consistent method to counter it.
Just as in any game of competition, and especially political competition, one
side can only succeed if the other side fails to stop them. And fail is exactly
what the Democrats are doing. Failing.
Rather than taking a stand against the exploitation of sexual assault
survivors, they are allowing the Republican Party to use our trauma as a cover
to advance their own political agendas. Worse, they have taken the political
bait hook, line, and sinker and rather than launching a full-scale
counterattack on the GOP, they have turned on themselves and started calling
for the resignation of a member of their own party.
Rather than focusing on accusations against Donald Trump, Roy Moore or Ralph
Shorty — the attention is turned onto Minnesota Senator Al Franken. Not only do
the Republicans succeed in turning the attention away from themselves, but they
succeed in turning the Democrats against each other. And the final narrative
becomes:
It’s not the Republican Party supporting pussy grabbers and pedophilia. It’s
the Democrats!
The Democratic Party is practically handing the nation’s women and children
over to pedophiles and rapists simply because they asked them to. And if we let
Senators like Al Franken — representatives that have voting records filled with
support for women’s rights — fall to pedophiles like Roy Moore, then we are
allowing the real traumas of exploited women be used as an excuse to put more
women and girls in harm’s way.
This is what terrifies me most.
One of the key functions of the Democratic Party is supposed to be to protect
its constituents and the nation from attacks by the Republican Party. They are
supposed to have an exhaustive list of narratives strong enough to counter the
most complex of political accusations, in addition to this predictable,
rookie-level attempt to lump Al Franken into the same category as Roy Moore.
They are supposed to have the media and legal prowess attuned enough to protect
both the leaders and the members of the Democratic party from these predictable
but incredibly dangerous attacks. The Democratic Party is supposed to ensure
that a pussy grabber and a party of pedophiles don’t get to control how we talk
about sexual violence let alone what we do about it.
And they have failed to execute their duties. In fact, they’re carrying out the
agenda of the Republican Party for them.
The Democrats and members of the left have called for the removal of Senator
Franken and an investigation into Tweeden’s right wing backed accusations. They
have failed to protect true victims of sexual assault from Republican
exploitation. They refused to counter the narrative that Al Franken’s
completely legally, nonviolent and consensual interactions with Leanne Tweeden
should be equated with sexual harassment, assault and pedophilia. And they have
all but totally succumb to calls for the investigation and removal of Al
Franken.
It clearly cannot be denied that sexual violence exists on both sides of the
political aisle, but it is the Republican Party that has perfected the
technique of weaponizing and exploiting these traumas for their own personal
gain. It also cannot be denied that the Republican Party is on the offense when
it comes to applying this repugnant tactic.
If the Democrats can’t figure out how to counter this most obvious and basic
strategy to use sexual assault as a front to advance their political agendas
and damage the Democratic Party, then this strategy is likely to destroy the
standing of more than just Al Franken.
There is no shortage of Tweedens standing in line to gain 5 minutes of fame and
a right-wing paycheck to be used as a grenade to blow up the next Democratic
target. And there is no shortage of targets. If the Democratic party continues
to let the Republican Party beat them with the most obvious and low hanging
strategies, what hope do we have that they can counter any of the more complex
attacks on this nation and the people in it? If the Democratic Party keeps
allowing the Republican Party to blur the lines between sexual violence and
sexualized behavior, they are putting more women and children in the hands of
unthinkably powerful predators — and they are paving the path for the
destruction of the entire Democratic Party at their violent and perverse hands.
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