So...Are We Really Ready for This?

First off I want to be clear that I think the Governor of Virginia should resign.
Second I want to be clear that black face is not okay.
Third I want to be clear that I wasn't an adult in 1984 and I still knew it then.

Okay?

Now, on to the next part of the discussion.

Are we ready? I mean really ready for what is coming? Because this is just the taste of what we can expect in the 2020 election cycle. That picture had been floating around for months before they trotted it out. And it was used, have no doubt, because of the abortion laws debate. There are, right this very moment, people pouring over yearbooks from every prominent politician out there. And not just yearbooks but school papers, archives of blogs, tweets, Facebook posts, MySpace Top Eights. You name it, someone is looking for a gotcha post in it.

Are we ready?

And I mean really ready because so far we haven't been. Or let me take that back, liberals haven't been. Conservatives have. Why the difference? Because liberals demand that something is done about it, right now! Conservatives brush it off. Or what about it. Or just say it doesn't matter.

I'll give you a what about right now. Northam's yearbook photo was found and every prominent Democrat out there has called for his resignation.

Kavanaugh's yearbook was quoted and Republicans said, "It's a yearbook from when he was a teenager! Who cares?"

And remember the difference. Kavanaugh was accused of committing a crime as a teenager and his yearbook gives you insight into who he was at the time. It's relevant. And then he lied about what was written there (don't tell me he didn't, you know he did) which tells me who is he now, again relevant.

Northam wasn't accused of a crime. But that picture shows who he was at that time.

The other difference. Kavanaugh sits on the Supreme Court, with full Republican support. Not just support but they are AGHAST at how he was treated. Northam will end up resigning. He has no Democrats backing him to stay. And not only no backing but actual calls for him to leave.

Are liberals ready? Because conservatives are.

We (speaking to liberals here) need to be ready to look at each story that comes out and weigh what we know about who the person is now, and if we believe in the possibility of change and redemption. In Northam's case if he had stuck with the apology on Friday and followed it up on Saturday with more on who he was, who he is now, and what happened that brought him to the change I think he could have been saved. But he didn't. He went to the Shaggy playbook of changing the story and claiming that after thinking about it more it wasn't him.

We also need to be willing to withhold judgment until facts are out. Or at least as many facts as you can get. Right now the same group that published the picture of Northam is claiming that the Lt. Governor (you know, the democrat that would replace Northam) sexually abused someone. This story has been looked at by other news agencies who were unable to verify the claims so they didn't publish. Do we wait and see if there are more facts or do we call for his head as well? Me? I'm waiting. I think the woman should be heard and once I hear more from her I will make up my mind. But, honestly, right now I am full of skepticism. Because of the source. Because it wasn't verified by other sources. Because of the timing. But if I hear from her and she's as credible as Dr. Ford was then I will change my mind.

But this is what is coming. There will be accusations. There will be old ideas trotted out as if they have never changed their minds. There will be out of context quotes used to drum up indignation. There will be all of the nastiness of 2016 with even more awful thrown in. We need to be on our guards for fake and altered news. We need to not get caught up in a mob mentality, especially when what we should have learned from 2016 is that the mob is often artificially started by foreign governments trying to foment chaos.

So try, really try, not to rush to judgement.
Try, really try, not to be swayed by a multitude of spammer posters posting the same thing.
Try, really try, to believe that people can change and give them the opportunity to do so.

We need to be ready for this, because it's going to be ugly and hard.