Trump and Moore: Deny and Fight.

Politics is a fight, not a discussion.

Politics.  

Trump reveals an ugly truth about the American voter.  We prefer fights to discussions.  He gets the ratings.

We understand fights  They are more interesting.  We like to cheer, not learn.  

Trump brought to his candidacy a better understanding of the media landscape than that of his various opponents, or even the media professionals who cover the campaign and presidency.  Trump treated the campaign like a gladiatorial sport, a public cage fight.  He is still doing it.  Meanwhile, everyone else keeps calling  Trump crazy, "unpresidential", and demeaning of the process.  Politics in the current media environment isn't about "getting to yes."  
It is about winning.  Trump is good TV.  Trump grabs and keeps attention and therefore shapes the discussion by dominating it

Trump persists in treating politics like a professional wrestling spectacle.  .  

We are watching a field experiments in how to handle a crisis.   It is taking place in the days before Thanksgiving.  Soft news stories for the holiday address the issue of political polarization at the dinner table.  "What do you do if you are seated next to your 'crazy uncle'"?  Stories report a school of though--based on academic research--that people do sometimes change their minds and that discussions between polarized points of view do, sometimes, lead to consensus.  They suggest a technique:  begin with agreement.  Reveal to the other person an area of agreement, e.g. a similar goal or similar understanding of the problem.  That then allows the counter-party to lower their reflexive defenses and opposition, and work from a zone of agreement rather than disagreement.

"Maybe we aren't so different, after all."   It turns it into a discussion instead of a fight. Family harmony.

Democrats aren't forgiving him.

Al Franken is dealing with a crisis in one way.  The Al Franken way is in a manner parallel to the happy Thanksgiving family way.  Franken was accused by one--and now two--women.  He immediately accepted the premise of the accusation, that it was wrong for a headliner comedian on a USO tour to kiss his co-star and to tease about groping her.  And another woman said his hand touched or grabbed the bottom of a woman at a photo-shoot.  He did not deny the act, though he said he didn't remember it, and he accepted that groping is inherently wrong, and he apologized.

Franken is positioning himself as a part of something, a member of a group with rules, i,e. responsible men and women to treat each other respectfully.  His hope is that, by fully accepting the premise of the accusation that the touches were unwanted and therefore wrong, he will be granted forgiveness.  The wrong would be a misdemeanor because his heart and conscience agree with the rules. 

Possibly America--and Minnesota voters--will accept this.  Like the happy Thanksgiving family, agreement and resolution begin by agreeing on a goal or premise.

Achilles vs. Hector

Donald Trump positions this entirely differently, both for himself and for Roy Moore.  They are warriors in combat.  There are sides.  He doesn't want forgiveness.  That empowers his enemies to give or deny it.  It makes him look weak because it is weak.  Trump denies his own accusers and is skeptical of Roy Moore's accusers. Roy Moore denies his accusers.  Both accuse them of bad faith.  Both are communicating that the important thing is not the moral breach, but whether his side wins or not. Trump dismissed the Access Hollywood tape as a trifle, "locker room talk."  They say their accusers are tools of the opposition.

This is not a happy Thanksgiving family; this is a fight between our side (the truth, honest hard working people, Republicans)  versus the bad side (fake news, lying women, Democrats and RINO-establishment-Republicans.)

The Trump frame makes the accusations of sexual misbehavior nearly irrelevant.  The denials by either are not persuasive (especially after the Access Hollywood tape) but they don't need to be persuasive because they are not the point.  We aren't judging them on the basis of guilt or innocence of the groping. We ignore the misdeeds of our warriors and judge them by how they fight and whether they are loyal, not on their personal virtue.  Achilles, King David, Tom Brady, Donald Trump, Roy Moore--they all made mistakes.  So what?

Al Franken and Roy Moore are taking two different paths to saving their careers.  Both are pledging loyalty to their team, Franken by agreeing he was wrong, and Trump and Moore by asserting they were wronged.  Franken is deeply apologetic;  Trump and Moore are adamantly unapologetic.