Al Franken was famously a working comedian before he was elected to represent Minnesota in the United States Senate. Franken resigned in December 2017 after he was accused of inappropriate behavior, including unwanted kissing, both before and after he became a Senator in 2008.
But the former Senator has according to some sources regretted his swift decision to resign, having bowed to pressure from his colleagues during the height of the #MeToo movmement.
Franken has since tried to keep his voice in the public sphere on issues, and it’s often a comic voice that comes through. He exercised his public comic voice this week with a searing tweet that painted the racial bigotry of the Tennessee legislature by sarcastically contrasting it with another well-known bias, sexism.
When unhappy Republicans in Tennessee ousted two Black male Democratic lawmakers for participating in a peaceful gun control protest, but voted to let a third protestor — a white woman — remain in the legislative body, Franken wrote: “So Tennessee House expels the two black men but not the white woman. Guess that finally puts a lie to sexism!”
So Tennessee House expels the two black men but not the white woman. Guess that finally puts a lie to sexism!
— Al Franken (@alfranken) April 7, 2023
So Tennessee has upended at least one aspect of bigotry, as Franken sees it. [Note from A.I. Chatbot: “Bigotry is a term used to describe intolerance, prejudice, or discrimination against individuals or groups based on their race, ethnicity, religion, nationality, gender, sexual orientation, or other perceived differences.”]
Staying with the comic voice commenting on national issues, Franken having as a Daily Show guest his former Senate colleague, GOP Sen. Lindsey Graham is hard to beat.
