On The Ralph Northam Controversy

First, I'm not from Virginia, Ralph Northam isn't my governor, so what I think isn't important.  The Governorship of Virginia belongs to the People of Virginia, not other people, not even the people who hold it.  They are just given the PRIVILEGE of serving as Governor.

Second, considering the piece of racist-Republican-fascist shit who held the Maine governorship for eight years WITHOUT THE NATIONAL MEDIA CALLING ON HIM TO RESIGN EVEN AS HE SPOUTED RACISM AS A MIDDLE-AGED ADULT WHILE HOLDING A GOVERNORSHIP, what Ralph Northam has admitted to having done as a dopey student thirty years ago, with decades of intervening BEHAVIOR to judge him on, this is what the Republican-fascists who exposed that picture wanted it to be, a hit job on a relatively progressive Democrat.

Third, far be it from me to tell Black People in Virginia or elsewhere how they should think about this but, I'm sure, if Democratic politicians could be knocked off for things they did more than three decades ago or things they said about LGBTQ People, the Republican-fascists could probably destroy any chance of change.  I am a firm believer in personal change and personal redemption from things worse than Northam did when he was an idiot of a Med student.   I would judge him on what he's done in the past ten years, the past twenty years, not on what happened before those years of evidence intervened.

This isn't like Brett Kavanaugh whose public career has been of a piece with his behavior when he was trying to rape women and PUBLICLY, WITH WITNESSES, assaulting women. 

A decade of good work should certainly cancel out what Northam did as an idiot twenty-something.

Fourth, to those who are worried that Northam not doing what so many are calling on him to do, resign, would be to not be pure enough, no one is pure.  No one is without shame.  How many of them would be able to withstand a hard look at their behavior during their twenties and teen years.   I will point out that when Joy Reid's far more recent online comments regarding LGBT people came out I said the same thing about that.  And she was a lot older than Northam was when he did stupid shit.  I'm willing to judge people on what they do at their best, not what they say at their stupidest.  I'd never want Joy Reid to resign for some stupid thing she said as an adult.  She's too good for that, I say judge Northam by what he does now, too.