A few thoughts on Governor Whatshisname

(1)  The debate regarding whether Northam should resign seems based on some implicit assumption that there’s some sort of real political cost to Democrats/progressives if he does.  That assumption seems wrong. He will be replaced by a more liberal African American man, who will be in the unusual position of being able to run as an incumbent in 2021 (Virginia governors can only be elected once).  So the “cost” here, I guess, is that we can’t just as a matter of principle or something throw politicians out the window when something bad comes up about their past.  But of course all such decisions must always be case by case: how bad is the thing, who replaces the defenestrated office holder etc.  There’s no general principle to uphold in other words.

(2) I’m exactly Northam’s age, I lived with several medical students in college in the early 1980s (this comment isn’t about them as individuals, but rather about the structural conditions at the time), and I think I can say that there’s nothing in the slightest bit shocking about the fact that Northam did what he did, especially considering it was Virginia.  It’s also not shocking that whoever was running that yearbook thought it was fine to let Northam put that photo on his page.  At an almost all-white almost all-upper class institution like a southern American medical school 35-40 years ago, dressing up in black face and Klan robes for, presumably, a costume party would have been considered in poor taste, certainly, but the idea that it was an appallingly racist act would have been considered absurd by the overwhelming majority of the overwhelmingly white student body. And that, of course, is precisely the problem.

(3) It needs to be said over and over again that Donald Trump has admitted to doing many, many worse things than this (again, I think Northam should resign, and there shouldn’t even be a debate about that).  I hope it’s common ground that sexually assaulting women is worse than dressing up in blackface/klan robes for a costume party.  I hope it’s agreed that having unprotected sex with a porn star immediately after your wife has given birth to your child is also worse.  As is routinely stealing money from your business partners, ripping small children away from their mothers at the border out of sheer cruelty etc.

Northam is being forced to resign because, at this point in American history, Democrats have standards for their representatives, while  Republicans simply don’t.