When Archie Bunker would return to his Queens home each night on the hugely popular 1970s sitcom All In The Family, he often came through the front door weary and tired, beaten up by a rapidly changing world that made no sense.
The irony (and the show's comedy) was that home was no sanctuary for him.
Between his free-spirited daughter Gloria, his proudly liberal son-in-law Mike and his practical, common-sense wife Edith, along with those black neighbours the Jeffersons, Archie was the "dingbat," an intolerant, immature crybaby who just wanted to go back to the days when "guys like us, we had it made."
The "us" was white men, of course. That's why Archie's rage was particularly directed at Mike. In Archie's eyes, Mike was surrendering his role as the head of household and the top of the social pyramid without even putting up a fight.
The battle rages on, nearly 50 years since Archie first told Edith to "stifle yourself."
Edith never stifled herself, of course, and few women today will stand for a man telling her to "keep it down now, voices carry."
Yet there are still plenty of Archies around, moping about how tough it is to be a man in 2018, no different than Archie was in 1971.
"It's a very scary time for young men in America," U.S. President Donald Trump said Tuesday, noting how men - and powerful men, in particular - are being victimized by accusations of sexual assault, abuse and impropriety, years or even decades later.
Trump has an agenda, of course. First, he's trying to discredit the dozen women who have made allegations against him.
Second, he's trying to rescue his Supreme Court nominee, Brett Kavanaugh, who is facing his own allegations.
Naturally, the whole thing has become a binary political argument, where either Kavanaugh is a decent man and a great judge worthy of sitting on the highest court in America for the rest of his life, if he so chooses, or a frat boy sexual predator during his teenaged and college years.
The reality, of course, is not one or the other. It's both.
Kavanaugh's legal career has been exemplary and he is a worthy Supreme Court candidate (although there are others with more experience and legal standing Trump could have nominated). It's also clear, even by his own reluctant admission during his Senate hearings, that Kavanaugh liked to party it up back in the day. There's nothing wrong with that, of course, so long as it's good clean fun and doesn't involve holding girls down in dark bedrooms and covering their mouths so they won't scream.
A woman has stepped forward with a credible story that he did that to her 35 years ago and a credible reason why she never said anything until now (she was worried as a teenager she'd get into trouble for being at a party where there was drinking and there was no need to say much more as an adult until the drunken boy who did that to her was now a man being considered to sit on the Supreme Court).
There's no need to believe Christine Blasey Ford's allegations because it's actually Kavanaugh's numerous little fibs and several pants-on-fire lies in his testimony that should disqualify Kavanaugh from the Supreme Court.
Trump, as well as their supporters, argue the "innocent until proven guilty" line.
Kavanaugh would know that innocent until proven guilty is a lofty legal standard used in criminal cases, to make sure the accused are found guilty "beyond a reasonable doubt."
In the everyday world, no one takes "innocent until proven guilty" in their personal and professional relationships. "If it looks like a duck and quacks like a duck, it's probably a duck" is the usual standard.
Neil Gorsuch, Trump's last nominee to the Supreme Court, was confirmed easily because as a man, as a lawyer, as a scholar and as a judge, there simply wasn't much to criticize. His accomplishments spoke for themselves and he didn't need to portray himself as an unfairly maligned victim.
Trump also ignores the numerous rich and powerful men - most but not all of them white - who have fallen from grace because of the numerous allegations made against them by women (and men). Few of them have gone to jail but many were fired from their jobs and their careers destroyed because there was ample enough circumstantial evidence to do so.
The irony of someone like Trump insisting on innocent until proven guilty is incredible, coming from a man who seems to take great and cruel pleasure in judging others, usually without proof or even a passing respect of truth and facts. Yet Trump is somehow the victim here, as is his Supreme Court nominee, for being held accountable for their words and actions.
Meanwhile, back in Queens in the 1970s, Archie saw himself as the victim, too, a good, hardworking man under appreciated and unfairly judged by those around him, even as he called them down with racial and sexist slurs.
Then and now, some so-called men just can't see the irony in calling those who disagree with them crybabies and then shedding tears - literally and figuratively - over the injustice of not getting their way.
-- Editor-in-chief Neil Godbout
