Democrats have justified bad male behavior for a long time.

[milestogo]

No doubt somebody will alert on this, but I need to be honest.

I recently read "Ask Not: The Kennedys and the Women They Destroyed". I'll start by granting that its a bit sensational and that Maureen Callahan is a right winger who works for Megyn Kelly.

But the stories she tells- going back to the patriarch Joe Kennedy- are sickening. He was the father of the men who became famous in American politics and he shaped the way they thought about women: Get as much sex as you can, with as many women as you can, married or not. The promiscuity is one thing, the recklessness is even worse. JFK had sexual partners who could have compromised national security. Ted Kennedy drove a car off a bridge into a lake and left a young woman trapped there to die- because he was so drunk he couldn't think straight. But he was the LION of the Senate, we say! More recent generations of male Kennedys are the same as the patriarchs.

I do not mean this as Kennedy-bashing or Democrat-bashing. But lets not be hypocrites. If we really care about sexism then we have no business idolizing men who treated women like playthings.

We need to be consistent and fair. Nobody gets a pass because of their name or because we agree with their platform.

[snowybirdie]

1. How about saying

Society instead of citing political parties?

[Autumn]

3. Because political parties are the ones who get away with sweeping things under the rug. Republicans are

allowing one demented old fool to destroy our lives and the country and it's laws . You can't blame society for what the leaders of this country are doing. Had Garland not slow walk his investigations into Trump he may not have been elected the second time.

[sop]

7. Society's mores are reflected in our leaders, men's poor behavior isn't limited to politics, it's universal.

It just seems to happen more in settings where powerful and wealthy men feel entitled to act like assholes.

[nini]

2. There is a difference between consensual and forced though

.

[MineralMan]

5. My attitude has always been that only enthusiastic consent

is real consent. Consent after manipulation isn't. Consent after whining isn't. Consent after misleading isn't. Consent after giving in isn't.

I don't think it's a fine line, really. Enthusiasm is transparent. "Let's do this!" is transparent.

[EdmondDantes_]

10. There is, but I think it's a curve not a binary

Yes obviously rape is bad, but it becomes easy to convince yourself that pressing someone until they say yes is okay when part of being a man is having sex and that you are a stud for sleeping with lots of different women.

In another context, I'm a cishet guy. Sure not gay bashing is good, but if that's all I do, I'm not an ally to the LGBT community. It takes more overt positive action. Do I listen to that community, do I not say "oh that's so gay" as an insult, do I not assume all gay men are effeminate and all lesbians drive Subarus. Do I take their concerns into how I vote, communicate, act, etc.

That said, it's definitely not a liberal problem, it's a society problem.

[some_of_us_are_sane]

4. The operative phrase here is...

"Nobody gets a pass".

PERIOD.

EPSTEIN EPSTEIN EPSTEIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

NEVER (and I mean 'NEVER') let this one go!

Forget the usual avoidance of "but-what-about-isms".

[leftstreet]

8. Sigh. Rape is not "bad male behavior"

You make excellent points about promiscuity and high profile male leaders. And it's especially hypocritical coming from politicians who extol 'family values.'

Platner can rack up all the sexual encounters he likes - I don't care

But not without consent. And if he's reached his age, with all his experiences, and doesn't understand what consent means or that he may have a problematic history, then fuck him

[milestogo]

9. I'm getting the sense that he is a drinker.

If your date is over you don't go over to her apartment and force her to have sex. And if you don't remember it that way (or you don't remember it at all) maybe you were too inebriated to understand "NO".

[bigtree]

11. singling out Democrats is bullshit

....we're the ONLY political force pushing back against those aggravating interests; most of the resistance to those efforts coming from the republican opposition, almost unanimously among their members and supporters.

People need to recognize and acknowledge that Democrats are the ONLY political coalition of elected who regularly defend and promote the interests of women against a white-male dominated majority.

Fucked up to step away from all of our defense of those interests to tar our party with the actions or beliefs of people who divert from those principles which we regularly represent and defend.

I mean, we've made a progression from the days of Kennedy-type boys-club misogyny, mostly because Democrats, and the candidates we've put forward, have represented and defended the values and principles that reject past abuses and wrongs. Democrats are basically why we're even having this discussion on a national level, auguring to set things right.

There is no equivalent in the republican opposition, and all of this resistance didn't occur in a political vacuum. It was established and generated by our present-day, progressive Democratic party. Indeed, that resistance is against republican party and president which is engaged in dismantling the protections Democrats legislated into existence and practice.

THIS is the true representation of the Democratic party today, in the summer of 2026:

Record Number of Democratic Women Running for U.S. House

A new record has been set for Democratic women running for U.S. House seats, according to the latest data from the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP), a unit of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University. In the 2026 midterms, 364 Democratic women have filed to run for House seats, beating the previous record of 356, set in 2020. Candidate filing is not yet complete in six states, so this number is likely to rise, and a new record may also be set for the total number of women running for House. Currently, 523 women have filed to run for House seats; the record was set in 2020 at 583. The number of filed Republican women House candidates in 2026 is 159; the record for Republican women House candidates was set in 2022 at 261.

https://cawp.rutgers.edu/news-media/press-releases/record-number-democratic-women-running-us-house

[milestogo]

12. I am not singling out Democrats.

But we have no control over what Republicans do. If we had really cleaned house we would not have had Eric Swalwell running for Governor or Graham Platner running for a Senate seat.

We need to begin with our own party.

[bigtree]

13. our party is nothing else but a coalition of those interests people are defending here

...and whatever Swalwel did in his personal life, that did not manifest itself in legislative efforts that reflected his bad behavior.

Moreover, it's just not credible to tar the party with candidates who run for office or get elected who are revealed as flawed, corrupt, or compromised by their behavior.

In this case, you only need look at the size of the state where some voters nominated Platner to represent them in the election. It's not at all representative of the myriad number of voters who comprise the Dem party, nor does it purport to be.

Not to mention the pushback that has come from party regulars around the nation to this nomination.

[Martin Eden]

14. I don't think the word "justified" is justifiable

It implies that Democrats say the victims deserved what was done to them -- that the abuse should have happened, because it was the right thing to do.

I think you'll have difficulty making the case that "Democrats" (painting with a broad brush) have said rape and other forms of abuse against women is justifiable.

If you had stated that some Democrats choose to turn a blind eye to it, make excuses, or disbelieve the women because they don't want to admit that Democratic candidates and officeholders have committed such heinous acts, I would not have bothered to post this because you'd have a valid point.