I talked with a couple of subs about my last podcast, the Graham Platner mess, and my own misfortune with the Renaissance Festival. I think the conversations are worth mentioning.
It’s a difficult subject, and I’m not terribly objective about the matter. I’d conflated two different questions, the question a jury asks and the question a voter would ask. But the two cases aren’t the same, and not neatly aligned as I wrote it. I kind of knew that, but I was still grappling with those tensions.
What I was saying was, the Renaissance Festival could have chosen a morally clear position, or to be fair to them, a stronger, or simply different, moral position because, in my view, the cost of that choice was manageable. But, a political party facing what it deems as a critical election is weighing in on something else entirely, whether standing by someone costs them the whole race. I tried to make them parallel, and I don’t think they are.
I wasn’t precise enough. I don’t care if Platner is guilty or innocent, but I care about how quickly an accusation becomes a permanent verdict, long before anything is tested in court. But, I compared it with my case, and it’s not a useful comparison. I was acquitted. He’s not even been charged. Different facts, the stakes aren’t the same, and different people making the call.
What I got wrong wasn’t the underlying worry. It was reaching for the nearest comparison instead of the right one. I wanted a clean parallel and forced one where it didn’t quite fit.
So, correction noted. The bigger question, the one about what it takes to actually end someone versus just embarrass them, is still worth asking. I’ll get to that separately.
*I’m not recording audio right now because the heat and humidity in Minnesota have made my office/studio uninhabitable (I have air conditioning!) Next week, I have a bunch of new material dropping into the podcast.