One lesson of the Franken case is that there are different degrees of allegations. Many Democrats remember Franken simply as an example of the risk of resigning too early. But, in 2017, many also saw Franken’s resignation serving a larger purpose: it preserved both the momentum of the nascent #MeToo movement and the Democratic Party’s authority to speak about the issues that the movement highlighted. And, although Franken’s friends and former colleagues in the Senate may now regret how they treated him, how many of his former constituents in Minnesota have noticed the difference between having Franken and his replacement, Tina Smith, in the Senate? In Virginia, meanwhile, it was said that the threat of a Republican takeover of power in the state kept Democrats from bailing on Northam. Such a threat does not exist in the same way in New York. The political context of the Cuomo case is more like Franken’s, but the allegations against him are much more damning... Cuomo has dismissed the idea of resigning as “anti-democratic.” But why? Apart from a tie-breaking vote in the state Senate, pretty much the only responsibility the New York state constitution gives to the lieutenant governor is to step into the role of governor in the event “of the removal of the governor from office or of his or her death or resignation.” In other words, the job was designed to provide a democratic remedy for the Governor’s resignation. Cuomo—in a way not so different from Gaetz invoking his “silent majority”—is suggesting that, as long as the people are still with him, he need not resign. The latest polling shows that fifty-three per cent of New Yorkers still approve of the job he’s doing. But public support is not a defense against accusations—it’s closer to a justification. And many politicians who have made this kind of argument in recent years surely realize that, for their own sake if no one else’s, never resigning is often the best path out of a scandal.