Al Franken and the Abuse of Insider Power

Show of hands: whose buddy ever drew a dick on your face while you were sleeping?

When I was nineteen, I traveled to South Dakota with a church group. Sharing a motel room with several rowdy teenagers, I fell asleep around ten PM, my usual time. I awoke fifteen minutes later to raucous laughter: I’d slapped myself in the face when my roommates drew a dick on my cheeks with shaving cream, and I tried to shoo the irritant away. The only adult in the room suggested and encouraged this behavior.

I’ve always known that you’re totally powerless when you sleep. That’s probably why children hate being ordered to bed, and certainly why, when they’re old enough to understand some of the world’s dangers, they frequently refuse to fall asleep without a trusted adult around. But that incident really solidified for me what an act of trust falling asleep in public really is. You have to believe others don’t have malicious intent.

That’s why, the longer the Al Franken controversy continues, the more it bothers me. The ongoing revelation of sexual predation in American politics, journalism, and entertainment continues growing, but it’s usually something pretty straightforward: Roy Moore targeted minors, forced himself physically upon them, and used his public authority to demand their complicity. Even his supporters understand why that’s completely awful, though they justify it.

Franken, by contrast, in his pre-senatorial days, did something more insidious. He didn’t out-and-out sexually assault journalist Leeann Tweeden; judging by the photograph that’s surfaced, he possibly never even touched her. (The alleged forced kiss happened off-camera.) But Tweeden trusted her fellow travelers on the USO plane enough to fall asleep in their presence. And Franken drew a metaphorical dick on her face.

Whether drawing literal vulgar images on somebody’s face, or doing hover-hands over her boobs, as Franken got photographed doing, the point remains the same: to cause a person humiliation for being powerless. Somebody who is awake has remarkable power over somebody who is asleep. The waker could draw vulgarities, take embarrassing photos, take sexual advantage, even stab the sleeper. And the sleeper can’t stop it.

And be honest, Franken wouldn’t have photographed the prank if he didn’t intend to show anybody else. His purpose was to demonstrate his power over another human being, because she made the mistake of considering him trustworthy. Physical pain or psychological distress probably mattered little. This is the ultimate insider humor, the sharing of jokes at a powerless outsider’s expense. Not unlike jocks bullying nerds.

Yeah, this crap never gets old. Unless you need to sleep. So yeah, unless you're human.

All this happened after Franken postulated, in his book The Truth (With Jokes), that he could run for Senate. He’d at least contemplated a life in public service, a role that, depending on the attitude you bring, either involves subjugating yourself to the greater common good, or ruling over others. Since eschewing comedy writing, Franken has used common-good rhetoric in public. But this photo demonstrates a self-superior, ruling-class mentality.

I know, from experience, how such humiliations undermine one’s ability to trust others. Since I was nineteen, I can count on my fingers the number of people I’ve shared sleeping quarters with, who weren’t related to me by blood. It’s very difficult for me to relinquish control that way. I can’t possibly be alone: chronic sleep deprivation, and its related behavior, carb-loading, are among America’s leading causes of obesity, heart disease, Type-II diabetes, and other ailments.

By definition, America’s representative government requires citizens to relinquish control, voluntarily, to others. They’re nominally people we choose, but in today’s party-driven system, where we often choose between elephants and jackasses rather than actual human beings, the selection is often a lesser-of-two-evils choice. By seeking public power, Senator Franken asks Minnesota’s voters to entrust public control into his hands.

That photograph, sadly, demonstrates that we cannot trust him with such authority. In two different public statements, Franken disclaimed that photograph as a joke gone awry. Even if that’s true, remember what he considers funny: this person’s body needs rest, so she trusted me enough to fall asleep, haw-haw. That isn’t a funny group laugh, it’s pointed mockery at another’s expense. It’s taunting the powerless for lacking power.

That’s why I must cut Senator Franken loose. Sure, he’s not my senator; I’ve never had any influence in Franken’s career. But as a voter, I have input. And Franken cannot effectively represent anybody, constituent or citizen, when he arrogates power that way. He’s demonstrated rot at his philosophical core. When given power over others, he uses it for his own aggrandizement. That’s why Senator Franken has to go.